[SAC] Home for MetaCarta Labs Vmap0 tiles

[christopher.schmidt at nokia.com]

On Jul 12, 2010, at 4:23 PM, ext Hamish wrote:

> christopher wrote:
>> The MetaCarta Labs vmap0 tile service (available for the
>> past four years from
>> 
>>  http://labs.metacarta.com/wms/vmap0
>> )
>> 
>> needs to find a new home. I'd like to host it with OSGeo,
>> if that is amenable to SAC. I would hope to use a URL like
>> 
>>  http://vmap0.tiles.osgeo.org/ 
>> 
>> And host it on the webextra VM. 
> 
> I am sure you have already considered it, and no objection to it being
> on webextra, but just out of a curiosity to learn I wonder why not
> automatically going to the hypercube for that alongside the existing T at H
> tile server etc & tons of free gigabytes earmarked for geodata?

Hypercube does not host a T at H tile server, and has not for about two years.
The server itself needs to go away, and be replaced by something different.
This has been the case for multiple years.

Additionally, our relationship with the SDSC admins is not strong; all these
relationships go through an additional level of indirection (SAC -> 
"Telascience"/HyperJohnGraham -> SDSC). As a result, if something goes wrong,
it can take a significant amount of time to resolve problems. Additionally,
we have no direct feedback when we are violating our gracious hosts; 
network abuse etc. are handled a layer apart from SAC, and we have no direct
relationship.

Our current relationship with OSUOSL is one that I feel much more comfortable
with. There are additional resources at SDSC -- both Hypersphere and other
similar servers -- that might be appropriate, but if we are to go that route,
we need to establish a closer relationship with the administrators of these
networks and a better understanding of what the 'rules' are to use SDSC
resources. 

Using OSUOSL -- someplace we already have our own hardware, which is 
underutilized -- seemed as good of a starting place as any.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Nokia