[Box-Admins] [Board] Rackspace OSS discount ends at the end of the year

[David T. Lewis]

Adding the box-admins list.

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 03:50:19PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> Oh @#$%.
> 

An excellent concise summary.

A few initial thoughts from my point of view. We should:

1) Make sure we have backups, and ability to recover from the backups,
for all the services.

2) Determine our actual Rackspace costs, beginning January 2018, if
we no longer have the "discount", and if we continue to operate in
our current server configuration. I think that the costs are in the
neighborhood of $2000 - $3000 (US dollars) annually for our current
server configuration, but we should confirm the actual numbers.

3) Figure out what the minimal Rackspace costs will be if we migrate
services to a smaller number of servers on Rackspace, and shut down
the unneeded servers to minimize billing costs. For example, I could
migrate the squeaksource.com service to another box on Rackspace, and
turn off the billing for dan.box.squeak.org. I think we are using eight
virtual servers now because it is easy and it is "free", but maybe
we only really need one or two or three.

4) Make a plan for life after Rackspace. Or maybe with Rackspace, if
they are still in the low cost virtual server business.

Dave

p.s. Tim Cook can sell a smart phone for $1000. So what's up with the
pricing strategy on our Squeak swag? I am a happy owner of a genuine
SQLogo coffee mug, but I rarely brag about it to my friends, because it
only cost me about $15.

This mug is truly an aspirational product. If I had been allowed to
spend^h^h^h^h^hinvest $100 on this mug, I would be proud as a peacock
and the extra revenue could have funded another virtual server or two.

;-)

> 
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 3:46 PM, Brett Smith <brett at sfconservancy.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I have good news and bad news for you today, so I???ll start with the bad
> > news. Many of you are relying on Rackspace???s OSS discount to host servers
> > for your project. Unfortunately, Rackspace just informed us yesterday that
> > they???ll be ending the program at the end of the year. The entire business
> > is shifting focus away from running their own cloud infrastructure, to
> > providing support in the Big Three clouds, so as part of that they???re
> > ending incentive programs structured around their cloud.
> >
> > Conservancy hosts our own servers through this program, and so we???re
> > already reaching out to other cloud providers to see if they might be
> > willing to offer something similar. We realize it would be ideal if we
> > could find a similar replacement program that covers each of you
> > separately, and we???ll be trying to do that first. If you have contacts at
> > hosting providers that we should be talking to about providing such a
> > service, please let us know; this is a big enough deal that we???re eager to
> > talk to anybody who might help. If they???re sufficiently generous, we may
> > consider recognizing them as an in-kind sponsor on our web site.
> >
> > If you???re affected by this, it would probably be prudent to start planning
> > how you???ll migrate your servers off Rackspace to another provider. I
> > realize that???s difficult to fully plan without knowing where you???re going,
> > but at least it would be helpful to review your system configurations and
> > make sure you understand what you need to migrate. You might also consider
> > if there are ways you could consolidate or streamline your servers.
> > Rackspace???s OSS discount program is *extremely* generous; we might find a
> > similar program that is merely *very* generous.
> >
> > Alternatively, if you???re willing to pay Rackspace for hosting, you can do
> > that too if you have the funds. Your Rackspace bills (which are usually
> > zeroed about by the discount) are in our Subversion server along with the
> > rest of your financial records, usually under Expenses/Rackspace/. If you
> > need help with accessing that, just let me know.
> >
> > If you don???t currently have an OSS discount account with Rackspace, but
> > you were thinking about getting one, I???m afraid that???s no longer available.
> >
> > If you want to talk with us about this change for any reason, it???s
> > probably best to do so through your specific project alias. I???m following
> > all those conversations and can follow up there. I???ll keep you updated
> > about our progress in finding a replacement program.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > ???
> > --
> > Brett Smith
> >