Analysing the Spanish Congress IT budget
The Spanish Congress of the Deputies (ES: Congreso de los Diputados) approved a budget for the design of a new web site and the renewal of the computers in the building. The total cost is 14.304.113 €, between 2006 and 2007. The official document can be found here (in Spanish): BOE n.278
Yes, that's 14 million, divided into four sections:
Let's see, a database server, a web server, and two application servers, for a site with a 90987 Alexa rank.
That's nice. They should be able to use the spare cycles on those machines to fold proteins or something. I know sites with 4 or 5 times more hits hosted on shared servers for 10€/month.
Firewall: Two Dual Intel Xeon 3GHz, 2GB of RAM, RAID 36GB, 4 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
Nice Firewall indeed. Let's use it for SETI@home this time.
SAN: 48TB, up to 80TB. 2 Fibre-Channel switches with 32 ports each.
SMS Server: Same as above, Windows 2003 Server + SMS + SQL Server.
Licenses: Windows 2003 Server, Oracle 10g, SQL Server.
Streaming Servers:
Intel 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, Disks: 2x36 GB, 50x300 GB
Intel 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, Disks: 2x36 GB, 50x250 GB
Tape Server: 35 TB (up to ~100TB)
Streaming WS: 14 x Intel Xeon 2,8 GHz, 512 Mb RAM, 73 Gb disk, Windows XP.
And what does all this computing power give them? According to the following article (in Spanish, but you can see the screenshots): ¿Qué pasa con la web del Congreso de los Diputados?, the site even has the default Oracle pages left on. They must have thought: well, we already have a Dual Intel Xeon firewall. We are secured.
Not only that, but this is a screenshot of the web right now. Besides the poor cross-navigator design, they don't even check the SQL queries are correct before submitting them to the database, leaving the Oracle error lying around the right side of the page.
Apparently the site was designed by Telefonica, the spanish ex-monopoly for telecommunications, and they feature the site as a successful case (in Spanish). They should feature Terra as a success too.
This is a relatively easy section to calculate, so let's see how much we would have to spend to buy the following components:
The printers should cost about 1500€ the BW ones, and 2500€ the Color ones, with a total sum of 787500€.
The scanners, let's say, a very expensive one, may go around 1000€, with a total of 50000€.
The laptops should cost no more than 1000€, making it 30000€.
The PDA's should go about 500€, totalling 200000€.
Without counting the undefined "40 network elements", this makes 1687500€, 1926348€ less than the total sum, which means, even if the network elements cost 500000€, the socialists are getting for themselves just in this section, about 1.5 million.
Yes, that's 14 million, divided into four sections:
- Computer systems and other services: 4.264.840 €
- General-purpose computers: 3.613.848 €
- Technical assistance and maintenance: 1.017.750 €
- Consulting: 5.407.675 €
Part One. 4.264.840 €
Five servers: One database server, two application servers, one web server, and one development server, all of them complying the following specs: 4xPower-5 (up to 12) CPUs, 16GB of RAM (up to 32), 4 hot-swappable 73GB disks, with RAID support, including an AIX license.Let's see, a database server, a web server, and two application servers, for a site with a 90987 Alexa rank.
That's nice. They should be able to use the spare cycles on those machines to fold proteins or something. I know sites with 4 or 5 times more hits hosted on shared servers for 10€/month.
Firewall: Two Dual Intel Xeon 3GHz, 2GB of RAM, RAID 36GB, 4 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
Nice Firewall indeed. Let's use it for SETI@home this time.
SAN: 48TB, up to 80TB. 2 Fibre-Channel switches with 32 ports each.
SMS Server: Same as above, Windows 2003 Server + SMS + SQL Server.
Licenses: Windows 2003 Server, Oracle 10g, SQL Server.
Streaming Servers:
Intel 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, Disks: 2x36 GB, 50x300 GB
Intel 3GHz, 2 GB RAM, Disks: 2x36 GB, 50x250 GB
Tape Server: 35 TB (up to ~100TB)
Streaming WS: 14 x Intel Xeon 2,8 GHz, 512 Mb RAM, 73 Gb disk, Windows XP.
And what does all this computing power give them? According to the following article (in Spanish, but you can see the screenshots): ¿Qué pasa con la web del Congreso de los Diputados?, the site even has the default Oracle pages left on. They must have thought: well, we already have a Dual Intel Xeon firewall. We are secured.
Not only that, but this is a screenshot of the web right now. Besides the poor cross-navigator design, they don't even check the SQL queries are correct before submitting them to the database, leaving the Oracle error lying around the right side of the page.
Apparently the site was designed by Telefonica, the spanish ex-monopoly for telecommunications, and they feature the site as a successful case (in Spanish). They should feature Terra as a success too.
Part Two: 3.613.848 €
After seeing the computing power they use to power their web servers, they must have bought a 17-inch MacBookPro and a 24-inch iMac for each deputy, right? Not really. Isn't it better to buy the cheapest computers, and get the rest of the money for themselves?This is a relatively easy section to calculate, so let's see how much we would have to spend to buy the following components:
- Workstations: 620 x Pentium-4, 1GB of RAM, 60GB disk, Win XP, MS Office, with 17-inch screens.
- Printers: 400 x BW Laser printers. 75 x Color Laser printers.
- Scanners: 50 x Automatic feeder scanners.
- Laptops: 30 x Pentium-M 2GHz, 1GB of RAM, 60GB disk, 15-inch monitor
- PDA's: 400 x PocketPC
- Network: 40 x Switches, Routers, etc.
The printers should cost about 1500€ the BW ones, and 2500€ the Color ones, with a total sum of 787500€.
The scanners, let's say, a very expensive one, may go around 1000€, with a total of 50000€.
The laptops should cost no more than 1000€, making it 30000€.
The PDA's should go about 500€, totalling 200000€.
Without counting the undefined "40 network elements", this makes 1687500€, 1926348€ less than the total sum, which means, even if the network elements cost 500000€, the socialists are getting for themselves just in this section, about 1.5 million.
