Cees kindly setup a virtual server box commonly known as
box1.squeakfoundation.org for us some months ago.  Currently that server
is hosting the new discuss.squeakfoundation.org mailing lists, the BFAV
server, the SqueakMap server, the new or soon to be FTP/file site for
Squeak, the development site (and probably the permanent site) for the
new Squeak website, and perhaps other things I'm not thinking of at the
moment.

The server we are paying for (we meaning those kind members of the
community that donated money for the hosting) currently costs us about
$28.50 per month.  This server has a bit over 3GB of disk space and 64MB
of ram.  It is a virtual server meaning that we share the physical
server with some unknown number of other virtual servers.  We are
managing with this configuration but it is getting quite tight.  We are
currently using somewhat more than our allotted 64MB of RAM and are into
swap which significantly hurts performance on the virtual server which
some of you may have noticed.  Also the file space for the download site
is currently using over 1.4GB of drive space and grows regularly (Each
time a new set of updates is issued each new image/changes package adds
about 10MB to the site.).

Cees and I discussed what to do to provide additional resources for
current and future services.  The first thought was to upgrade to the
next level of the ByteMark virtual server account which would provide
128MB of RAM and 6GB of disk space.  This would be a significant jump
and would cost us about $51.50 per month (or $42.88 if we paid up front
for a year at $514.50).  This would provide significant breathing room
but the memory alone would be eaten up pretty quickly by additional
Squeak hosted websites (wikis, whatever) at about a rate of 8-24MB each.

The next thought was to get a full server.  At first I thought this
would be a big jump in cost but Cees was familiar with a company that
provides hosting at a pretty good rate
( http://www.15minuteservers.com/ ).   My current recommendation is that
we start another round of fundraising to go ahead and prepay for a
server from 15 Minute Servers for 2 years.  The total cost for 2 years
would be about $1438 (about 40% more than the cost of the next level
ByteMark virutal server) and would provide a full server with 2GHZ+ AMD
processor, 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive space, and a terabyte of bandwidth
each month.  I'm confident that we can host a lot of services, almost
certainly anything that comes up in the next 2 years, with that.

So what does everyone think?  Can anyone suggest a better plan or have
qualms about this?

If not I would like to suggest that we start a round of fundraising and
let the money speak.  If we can manage to raise $1438 dollars in the
next few weeks then I think that will answer the question of whether or
not we can afford to do this and whether or not the community thinks
that it would be worthwhile.  I should note that we already have a few
hundred dollars that has already been donated for hosting in general so
we are well on the way towards this goal already if we decide to use the
funds in that way.

Ken
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