[SAC] [Urgent][Vote] Proposal for new OSGeo site hosting

[Alex M]

On 09/26/2017 12:23 PM, Sandro Santilli wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 12:03:29PM -0700, Alex M wrote:
>> On 09/26/2017 10:35 AM, Sandro Santilli wrote:
>>> On Fri, Sep 08, 2017 at 08:05:10AM -0700, Alex Mandel wrote:
>>>> On 09/08/2017 02:46 AM, Sandro Santilli wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> How much time (and money?) would it take to request a new VM
>>>>> from OSUOSL ? My understanding from reading the wiki page [1]
>>>>> is that it would come already with LDAP shell access ?
>>>>> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/SAC:Standard_System_Setup#Request_a_new_VM
>>>>
>>>> We would setup a VM ourselves on OSGeo6,
>>>
>>> Does it mean the above wiki page section is wrong ?
>>> It says new VMs should be asked to OSL after SAC agreed we need it ?
>>
>> Outdated. That information applied to OSGeo3 & 4. OSGeo6 was completely
>> installed by Martin S with no virtualization.
> 
> Does Martin have physical access to that machine ?
Yes, he has some special VPN setup.

> Does anyone else from SAC do ?
>
I don't think so, but anyone could be granted such permission, and we
just request OSUOSL to set it up.

>>> I have some experience with Vagrant and Docker, could we get a new IP
>>> to associate with the new VM ?
>>
>> Vagrant and Virtualbox are not required in order to use Docker on a
>> Linux box.
> 
> I know, just mentioned two possible virtualization mechanisms I'd
> be somewhat familiar with.

Sure, I just pointed out that those tools were originally developed for
desktop and development use, not server deployment. No reason they
couldn't be used in that way.

>> So I would suggest either KVM with libvirt or Docker.
>> VirtualBox headless could work but I'm not sure it's as efficient.
> 
> My vagrant experience is with Virtualbox backend. Very easy to setup,
> no idea about efficiency. Never used KVM and libvirt.
> See my other mail about a step toward experimenting with Vagrant.

KVM and libvirt is pretty easy too, and there's a tool you can use
Virtual Machine Manager to manage a remote deployment.

> BTW, how hard would it be to add another machine to only deal with
> virtualization, rather than using the one on which we do have
> production services already ?

Requires us to select and order. We have budgeted it for this year, as a
planned replacement of osgeo3. However we need to retire osgeo4 so that
the rack space and power is available for the new machine. We could also
discuss moving to OSUOSL hosted instances (donate hardware instead of
buying our own). The run a large number of other machines in an
environment more similar to other cloud hosting providers.

> 
>> We decided not to use Ganeti on OSGeo or future machines as it added too
>> much complexity and we didn't leverage the multi-node features that it
>> brings.
> 
> It would be useful to gather information about experience of SAC
> members with various virtualizations. I understand you are familiar
> with Docker, do you also know Vagrant/Virtualbox ?
>

Yes, I have done Ganeti and libvirt with KVM, Virtualbox & Vagrant,
VMWare. I also have some experience with cloud hosting of various kinds
(e.g. ec2).

I have dabbled in Docker but am not an expert. I know enough to know
what to do with it but not the exact way to get there. My biggest
concern with Docker was that you can't just update packages from repos,
you have to update the Docker image and swap it out, and that you
can't/shouldn't allow ssh into a docker. So it would make it hard to
divide work among projects who should only be allowed access to their
docker and not others.


> Could others also give their list of virtualization experience
> and preferences ?
> 
> --strk;
> 

To come back to the vote: My suggestion is we go ahead with the cloud
hosting option to migrate the current site (as the beta site), with the
goal of moving it to osgeo hardware for the production site.

-Alex