On 2/26/2014 9:12 AM, Justin Herman wrote: > We have more options now than we did when the system was designed. I > think we need to be talking about IF this is the best option for us. Coming from someone who isn't the primary person handling the web infrastructure, it is my belief that we are currently using the best system for our current needs. > > IDEAS: > *Instead of spending more $ on AWS we could host it ourselves and use > the AWS $ for an ISP with an SLA. Find an ISP that will provide us at least 10mbps up with an SLA for under $200/mo and I'll look at it. Right now, we pay roughly $100/mo for TWC BC, with no SLA and 786kbps upstream. > *Contact other hosting & VPS providers for discounts for 501c3. As someone who constantly browses for the best "super cheap" VPS's around, I can confidently tell you that AWS is, when purchased as a reserve instance, the absolute best compromise between price and performance/reliability. The price at which Amazon provides EC2 instances (also known as VPS's or virtual private servers), is mindbogglingly low due to the absolutely enormous scale at which they run. In order to find someone who can provide comparable performance for comparable price, we would have to find someone who is comparable in scale. To my knowledge, the only cloud providers who have comparable features and comparable scale at this time are Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. Neither of which are anywhere near comparable on price. > *Co-Lo at another location. Requires a hardware purchase, and requires hardware maintenance. At this point, redundancy or failure-resilience would only be able to be provided via multiple servers. Which we don't particularly have the budget for. > *Use alternative services like groupspaces --- > http://groupspaces.com/SynHak They offer a service that can handle our > Email, Membership listing, Wiki/Website, Membership Private area, File > Hosting, Event Announcement, and Payment scheduling. (this would not > help with spiff but would allow us to offload many critical pieces) I _REALLY_ dislike the idea of handing our hosting off to a third party. Especially one that does things for free. Who's to say they won't go away in 6 months or a year? Remember Geocities? They announced that they were shutting down and gave everyone a couple of months to get their stuff before shutting down the servers. > > I am not suggesting throwing out Spiff with the bath water but simply > stating maybe its time we reevaluate the design INSTEAD of throwing $ > at a project without evaluating other options. That's fine. I encourage people to look for alternatives to save us some money if at all possible. However, I will state that there are certain features of AWS that are necessary to run SYN/HAK. > > I would like to setup a Working Group to discuss the needs and > evaluate the options. Would anyone else be interested in doing this > also and if so when? If a committee is going to be formed, I'm going to request that only people knowledgeable about web hosting and cloud infrastructure be permitted to join. It would be counterproductive to have to spend half of a meeting explaining what each component of our AWS infrastructure is and why it is necessary. > > > On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Andrew Buczko > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > What is AWS ? (Akron Waffle Supply) > > * here is our current infrastructure: > > ** Two t1.micro servers as web servers > ** One t1.micro server as mail host > ** One t1.micro MySQL RDS instance > > *** current AWS bill: $81,88 /mo > > > *Here is the new infrastucture: > > ** 3 year heavy reservations for two t1.micro EC2 instances @ $200 > ** 1 year heavy reservation for one m1.small EC2 instance @ $169 > ** 3 year heavy reservation for one m1.small EC2 instance @ $257 > ** 3 year heavy reservation for one m1.small MySQL RDS instance @ > $257.00 > > *** Total upfront cost: $883.00 > *** Estimated monthly cost to run synhak.org <http://synhak.org>: > $83.52 > > This sounds great. > > 1> Um, according to your figures, the new infrastructure will cost > $1.64 more per month than the old one, Where do you get a savings > of $123.10? > > 2> Is it what we need? What do the logs show as far as load's on > the current servers? > > 3> Can we get smaller servers and save even more money? > > This is an operating expense and does not fall under the grant > that we just got. > > Andy > > > On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Torrie Fischer > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 12:38:58 Justin Herman wrote: > > I think an evaluation of several hosting options and > establishing the > > infrastructure needs be done, before we earmark funds and > make any plan > > changes. > > I didn't say any funds were being earmarked. I'm not > evaluating other hosting > options because I'm the one doing the work and would very much > rather not > migrate synhak.org <http://synhak.org> to another provider > when I've already poured a significant > quantity of effort and time into the current setup. > > > > > I am concerned with how much horse power & cost has been > amassed even after > > we have achieved a 501c3 status. > > Please elaborate. > > > > > > > On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Torrie Fischer > > > > <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>>wrote: > > > Hi, all. > > > > > > Something I've wanted to do for quite some time is invest > in some reserved > > > AWS > > > instances for synhak.org <http://synhak.org> to reduce our > monthly bill. The problem with > > > that is > > > paying the high up-front cost. Since we now have this $15k > grant, I'd like > > > to > > > use a small portion of it to build what I consider an > ideal synhak.org <http://synhak.org> > > > infrastructure: > > > > > > * 3 year heavy reservations for two t1.micro EC2 instances > @ $200 > > > * 1 year heavy reservation for one m1.small EC2 instance @ > $169 > > > * 3 year heavy reservation for one m1.small EC2 instance @ > $257 > > > * 3 year heavy reservation for one m1.small MySQL RDS > instance @ $257.00 > > > > > > Total upfront cost: $883.00 > > > Estimated monthly cost to run synhak.org > <http://synhak.org>: $83.52 > > > Estimated cost without reservations: $206.62 > > > > > > Monthly savings: $123.10 > > > Yearly savings: $1447.20 > > > > > > One year commitment: $1002.24, approximately 14% of our > 2013 membership > > > dues > > > income. > > > Three year commitment: $3006.72, approximately 8% of > projected three year > > > income of $36,000. > > > > > > Our member dues already handily cover all our other bills. > > > > > > Here's my sources on the AWS calculator: > > > > > > > > > > > http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html#r=IAD&key=calc-E7EBCA4F-D171 > > > -416F-AB21-D1CFE82DE07B > > > > > > The two micros will be used as edge webservers to host the > wiki and spiff. > > > The one year small will be a general purpose shell, phong, > logging, and > > > event > > > processing server > > > The three year small will be a dedicated mailing list server > > > > > > I'm suggesting a one year reservation to avoid getting > ourselves locked > > > into a > > > situation of needing more horsepower for administrivia but > not able to > > > spend > > > more than $85/mo. I don't envision our mailing list server > requirements > > > growing beyond an m1.small instance within the next three > years, provided > > > it > > > remains dedicated to just mail. > > > > > > Our current AWS bill is $81.88/mo due to free tier > expiring a few months > > > ago. > > > This investment will keep our monthly infrastructure bill > roughly the same > > > while at the same time giving us a *lot* more room to grow > for that same > > > price. For comparison, here is our current infrastructure: > > > > > > * Two t1.micro servers as web servers > > > * One t1.micro server as mail host > > > * One t1.micro MySQL RDS instance > > > > > > The following benefits will be realized with this $883 > investment: > > > > > > * Faster performance on mediawiki, spiff, and other > applications > > > * Less resource contention when mailman, postfix, phong, > and document > > > rebuilding aren't all competing for the same pittance of > CPU and memory > > > * Tighter security by establishing a bastion host setup > resulting in > > > exactly > > > two public endpoints for synhak.org <http://synhak.org> > > > * Room for growth in website activity and services offered > > > * Significant cost reduction in critical infrastructure > will be secured > > > for > > > three years > > > * We would have a really cool playground for devops hackers > > > * Current $80/mo AWS budget could be reallocated towards > the maintenance > > > budget or funneled into a monthly Hacker Grant program. > > > > > > I would appreciate any feedback on this idea. > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Discuss mailing list > > > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > > https://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > https://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > https://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://synhak.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
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