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

H. Hirzel hannes.hirzel at gmail.com
Wed Sep 20 17:41:03 UTC 2017


Hi

David offers under point 3

"For example, I could migrate the squeaksource.com service to another
box on Rackspace, and
turn off the billing for dan.box.squeak.org."

This is a work which can go in parallel with the discussion about
moving to another provider.

Maybe there are other easy things to start with.

--Hannes

On 9/20/17, Levente Uzonyi <leves at caesar.elte.hu> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I mostly agree with Dave's list. We basically have two options:
> A) go where the SFC can get us free hosting
> B) pay for hosting
>
> A) would be a viable option if we could easily migrate the services from
> one server to another. It's Tobias who manages the servers atm, so if he's
> okay with moving them around, then we can keep on doing this.
>
> B) is something the Board has to investigate. How much can we afford to
> spend on hosting a year? I doubt 2-3k usd/year would be sustainable.
> Rackspace is rather pricey, probably because of their support, but we
> hardly ever use that. Other providers, like Hetzner[1] or RamNode[2],
> offer (really) cheap virtual servers. We could probably keep the servers
> running for less than 400 euros/year.
>
> Levente
>
> [1] https://www.hetzner.com/virtual-server?country=us
> [2] https://ramnode.com/vps.php
>
> On Tue, 12 Sep 2017, David T. Lewis wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>>
>>
>


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