Jayashree looked up at the hazy Indian sky as she strolled through the marketplace.  The aroma of spices and vendors’ cooking made her think of her kitchen – when she used to cook at home.  She dropped off 200 audio CDs among the various vendors.  The payment arrangement was consignment, so she’d go back in a week and collect based on how many each vendor sold.  She expected this to provide a decent income source for the next couple of months.  Her job in the call center covered most expenses, but she chose to live in a nice neighborhood with steep rents.  And she had expensive toys.

In the space designed for the fridge in her kitchen, she had a floor-to-ceiling data rack.  Mounted in the rack were two 865 Watt APC Smart UPS servers.  Those powered a general web and application server, 2 database servers, backup DASD, and networking equipment.  A mini fridge anchored the data rack – and added some color.  The most expensive part of all was the monthly utility bill to keep these systems powered and cooled.  She originally hosted peoples’ websites to support her home data center; but now for security it was dedicated to her partner’s application development effort.  Raj knew databases and Shankar ran the business end.  She was the programmer.  Their project was her idea and so she owned 50% of the partnership.  Well, that 50% was now really only 35%.  Investors had diluted the shares somewhat with needed funding.