[Board] Motion: Migrate to OSL for primary server hosting (and $$$ for servers to do so)

[Tyler Mitchell]

Just a couple notes for background of new directors. 
* Peer1 is a commercial hosting provider that we rent machines from.  Their upgrade path is costly and limiting.
* Telascience machines are donated services through a university hi-tech lab partner.  We have limited control over those machines and rely on our donor a bit too heavily at times.
* OSL can provide some "smart hands" support behind the scenes with their service staff.  They are not a commercial hosting provider but do have staff that will help us - e.g. to manage a virtualisation environment, reboot machines, etc.  They are also IRC savvy, Drupal experts, and more, all which suits us well.
* Costs: the overall costs of purchasing the 2 new machines is equivalent to 1 year of Peer1 hosting.  So, budget wise, after 2010 we should saving close to $12,500 per year by moving. 
* The NYC sprint info is here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/New_York_Code_Sprint_2010  I'm guessing Howard means to have a "systems sprint" in there somewhere to migrate things.

Hope that helps,
Tyler

----- Original Message -----
From: Howard Butler <hobu.inc at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009 8:51 am
Subject: [Board] Motion: Migrate to OSL for primary server hosting (and $$$	for servers to do so)
To: OSGeo-Board List <board at lists.osgeo.org>

> Board,
> 
> Tyler and I have been doing some groundwork to prepare for our 
> eventual migration off of Peer1 and onto OSU's OSL.  It is 
> becoming clear that we've outgrown our toss-it-all-on-one-box 
> approach with osgeo1, and the ongoing high cost of Peer1's 
> ongoing monthly service (nearly $1k/mo to host both machines) 
> has impeded our desire to balance things appropriately across 
> osgeo1/osgeo2 (we haven't thought we're staying long enough to 
> do the hard work to disentangle things).  We also have some 
> critical services on the TelaScience blades (a number of project 
> websites) that it would be desirable to pull onto more capable 
> hardware.  
> 
> We still want to (cheaply) control our own system destiny, 
> however.  OSL 
> <http://osuosl.org/services/hosting/communities> will provide 
> us a good place to do that, but we have to provide the 
> hardware.  A year's worth of OSL hosting is about two-and-a-
> half months of Peer 1 once we get the hardware.  It will be 
> much more cost effective and easier on the cash flow once we get 
> over the hump.  
> 
> This email is actually two related motions:
> 
> - Move to migrate our primary systems from Peer1 to OSL
> - Move to authorize up to $15,000 for at least two well-
> specified hardware systems to be supported by OSL.
> 
> My hope is that we'll have the bulk of the migration done after 
> the NYC sprint, where a number of SAC admins should be in 
> physical proximity.  Ideally, we would be able to shutdown 
> Peer1 at that time (say April 15th).  The board will 
> delegate the implementation details of system design and 
> migration plan to SAC.  SAC should provide a migration plan 
> and expected system design document (wiki pages) to the board by 
> January 31st.
> 
> +1 to migrate to OSL
> +1 to authorize $15k
> 
> Howard
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board
> 
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