Your best bet for info starts with this link:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2PoolHosting the equipment is essential and the faster/more connections the better. It has saved a few pools' hot wallets ( where the coins are collected from all the mining ) to offload a percent on a regular basis to actual paper wallets ( printer connected to the host to actually PRINT out the coins ) to keep from what MTGox went through. As a user of a few pools, I've noticed quite a few announcements on hack attempts so security of the pool is a must at every stage since back doors can be as simple as logging on and an improper log out giving someone full access to the system at ROOT level ( read up on Linux if you do not know what access as root is ). Security, connectivity, power always being on so it can get connected to, wallet always being as safe as possible, simple interface for the miners to ' see ' how well they are doing ( or if they aren't doing as some stand alone ASICs can connect to the default and not the wanted mining sites ). That is a whole lot of things to look in to.
Best of luck with it -- nybbler905
Quote of the day: " I'd rather be a smart ass than an expert since some ' expert ' once claimed the world was flat ... " - nybbler905
