JANET and cam.ac.uk cutting Usenet News feed from July
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From: James Jolley on 10 Apr 2010 15:03 On 2010-04-10 19:14:37 +0100, Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> said: > On 2010-04-10 17:51:02 +0100, James Jolley said: > >> On 2010-04-10 17:24:31 +0100, Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> said: >> >>> On 2010-04-10 17:14:23 +0100, James Jolley said: >>> >>>> On 2010-04-10 17:11:11 +0100, Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com> said: >>>> >>>>> News servers use a large amount of disk space. Actually they might not >>>>> compared with modern disk sizes, but it is significantly more than zero. >>>> >>>> Again, fair. You keep hearing disk space is cheap so bloody often you >>>> start to equate it to any disk activity at all. Shouldn't I know, but >>>> there we go. >>> >>> When I last (and first) ran a news server, I think it used a "massive" >>> 2GB disk for its spool. Those were the days! >> >> I'm curious to know what the average usage would be now on modern >> computers with Binary type servers. > > It would be a frightening amount. That's why i'm curious. All those movies you know. Would be interesting to see how accurate server's retention rates are as well.
From: James Jolley on 10 Apr 2010 15:04 On 2010-04-10 19:48:27 +0100, eastender <nospam(a)nospam.com> said: > In article <D.Gray-3DE255.16355310042010(a)nntp-serv.cam.ac.uk>, > Dorian Gray <D.Gray(a)picture.invalid> wrote: > >> But I find it amazing that anyone would question the posting >> here of *big* news that the Usenet News feed is being turned off to >> most/all UK Universities (including cam.ac.uk). > > Indeed. Thanks for posting this. I imagine also many people won't know > the historical context of Unix in the early 1980s and networking, and > the community of systems it's spawned, including of course, OS X. > > E. I'd think most here would. I used unix myself and i'm only 31 so i'm sure some here will know all this.
From: Ben Shimmin on 11 Apr 2010 05:46 Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com>: > On 2010-04-10 18:22:26 +0100, Jim said: >> James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: >>> Certainly do that. Textually, I can't imagine it being over say 10 GB a >>> month for everything they have to offer. Would be interesting. >> >> Email sent. I'll let everyone know if I get a reply. > > I'd guess 10GB for a week's worth of (text) stuff, perhaps a few days less. Aioe.org reckons it's `just under 500MB/day' for a full text-only feed: <URL:http://www.aioe.org/07.html> There's no date on that page, but I can't imagine the numbers are going up. NewsDemon suggest 6TB (yes, terabytes) per day for a full binary feed: <URL:http://www.newsdemon.com/average_feed_size.php> Bear in mind that you've then got to think about retention times. For a text-only feed, you might want to keep articles for 90 days or so, which means the hard disc in any modern Mac would probably suffice. For binaries... I think you'd want to expire as quickly as possible, really! b. -- <bas(a)bas.me.uk> <URL:http://bas.me.uk/> `Zombies are defined by behavior and can be "explained" by many handy shortcuts: the supernatural, radiation, a virus, space visitors, secret weapons, a Harvard education and so on.' -- Roger Ebert
From: Mark on 11 Apr 2010 13:21 On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:46:43 +0100, Ben Shimmin wrote (in article <slrnhs36k3.nk6.bas(a)rialto.bas.me.uk>): > Chris Ridd <chrisridd(a)mac.com>: >> On 2010-04-10 18:22:26 +0100, Jim said: >>> James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: >>>> Certainly do that. Textually, I can't imagine it being over say 10 GB a >>>> month for everything they have to offer. Would be interesting. >>> >>> Email sent. I'll let everyone know if I get a reply. >> >> I'd guess 10GB for a week's worth of (text) stuff, perhaps a few days less. > > Aioe.org reckons it's `just under 500MB/day' for a full text-only feed: > > <URL:http://www.aioe.org/07.html> > > There's no date on that page, but I can't imagine the numbers are going > up. > > NewsDemon suggest 6TB (yes, terabytes) per day for a full binary feed: > > <URL:http://www.newsdemon.com/average_feed_size.php> > > Bear in mind that you've then got to think about retention times. For > a text-only feed, you might want to keep articles for 90 days or so, > which means the hard disc in any modern Mac would probably suffice. > For binaries... I think you'd want to expire as quickly as possible, > really! > > b. The one I use <http://usenet-news.net/index1.php?url=home> has 550 days for binaries and up to four years for text groups. Cheers ... Mark
From: Graeme Wood on 11 Apr 2010 15:00
On 10/04/2010 11:41, James Jolley wrote: > On 2010-04-10 08:53:49 +0100, {$PW$}@womar.co.uk (Paul Womar) said: > >> James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: >> >>> On 2010-04-09 19:34:55 +0100, >>> real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) said: >>>> >>>> And you should post this, why? >>> >>> Because it's hardly relevant to most people is it? Him in his little >>> backwater uni? >> >> I don't think that's a valid reason against posting here, particularly >> when this group is dedicated to a minority computing platform. The >> article actually seems to say that JANET is discontinuing it's feed >> which is where most/all Uni's would take their feed from. > > Fair enough. Usenet isn't an essential service any longer, much as we'd > like to hope it was. I didn't expect that the servers for it would be > all that hard to maintain though. > It isn't the servers that are being cut. It is the newsfeeds from commercial ISPs that are being cut. JANET currently pays for two newsfeeds. These are being used by about only ten universities now. Without a feed there isn't much point in universities maintaining their servers. The only alternative is for universities to negotiate their own newsfeeds. Given the current funding squeeze most, if not all, will be discontinuing their news services after July. |