Hi Janos,

My preferred provider is Linode, I've had a couple VM's with them for years
and they've always been top-notch. I won't mention the other provider (I'm
not one to bash) currently hosting my Piler instance that I see service
drops on almost every morning, but I will say that (failing to have S3
support) I'd be looking to migrate from them to RamNode as they appear to
have decent reviews and a "spinning disk" option with a good amount of
space (comparable to that of the current host). So if you/anyone has any
praise or warnings of RamNode hosting Piler, I'm all ears.

I have not yet had to dabble in the C code for anything, but am familiar
with C/C++ and a few other various languages, so I always like to have the
option. It's good to know the web UI is still open in the enterprise
version. As for trying enterprise at this time, I suppose I'll try the
RamNode route first with spinning disk block storage. If the provider isn't
as stable as I'd like I may have to reconsider, but for now it will be a
matter of cost of licensing Piler purely for the S3 capability versus
minimizing my hosting provider options to those with larger storage
options. If I require a more stable host and can't find any with
inexpensive storage, it just comes out to a cost calculation between block
storage cost in a provider versus Piler enterprise costs for S3
compatibility... unless of course you come out with a discounted S3 "add-on
license" for just that feature that makes the math a no-brainer.

I've been using Piler for so many years personally, I should probably just
start pushing clients toward it, but I've had some issues with it missing
mails due to service outages, failing to load the UI unless the service is
restarted (after running for several days), failing to clear the sph_index
queue on a semi-regular basis, and a few other quirks along the way that
made me pause before offering it as an actual service in a customer-facing
manner. I've automated most of that fixing itself with Zabbix monitoring,
but some issues remain. Honestly though, I've attributed most if not all of
that to the current VPS host. If the new version I install on a new host
sees all those issues go away, and I'm comfortable having potential clients
log into the interface and know something random isn't going to happen to
them, the easy call is to push clients toward it and get an enterprise
license anyway. So here's hoping that's the case! I'd love to get rid of
the proprietary options I've got some clients on and move everyone to Piler
if possible.

Thanks again Janos!

On Mon, Apr 6, 2020 at 3:11 AM <s...@acts.hu> wrote:

>
> Hello Ryan,
>
> On 2020-04-06 00:45, Ryan Blenis wrote:
> >
> > Thank you as always for your quick and in-depth response. I certainly
> > understand the delicate balance between FOSS and enterprise paywalls
> > and feature-sets, and I thank you for even having an open source
> > option to begin with! I'm just planning a migration to a new server
> > (for when my current OS is EOL) and wanted to move the hosting to one
> > with better support that doesn't over-provision the hosts resources as
> > I've seen on the current host, but HDD space isn't anywhere near as
> > inexpensive as it is at the current company. I was just thinking I
> > could have the best of both worlds with S3 storage integrated. Many of
> > the FOSS/enterprise paywalls in other projects are based on LDAP
> > integration, multi-tenancy, pre-packages binaries, support levels,
> > etc. that many business need, whereas object storage vs block storage
> > felt like more of a separate paywall in terms of cloud providers, so I
> > just figured I'd ask if it was coming to the FOSS version. Also, I
>
> it's ok to ask, and I always appreciate the feedback from piler users.
> Btw. can you share the names of these 2 providers? I'm curious about
> their pricing. And perhaps the piler community may suggest some better
> alternatives both in terms of hw performance and storage pricing.
>
>
> > like to be able to modify the code if a customization can be made,
> > which I assume would not be the case with enterprise, correct?
>
> Not sure if you fix the C source code before compiling. If not, then
> it's probably not a big deal that you can't modify the enterprise
> edition
> binaries. However, the gui part is still the usual php based stuff,
> it's not obfuscated, so you can fix it if you really want to do that.
> It's your archive after all. Custom css is supported out of the box.
>
> > Also, if I try the enterprise on the new host, is there a path to
> > downgrade to the FOSS version? Or would starting back from scratch be
> > the only option?
>
> Unfortunately no. The enterprise edition handles attachments in a
> different
> way: it doesn't need the attachment table to retrieve the message with
> its
> attachments. However, it's incompatible with the open source version.
>
> So if you decide later that it's not what you want then you should
> export
> all emails, install the open source edition, and import those emails.
> Though, I'm confident that you'll like it, it's not inferior to the
> open source edition.
>
>
> Janos SUTO
>
> > On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 7:16 AM <s...@acts.hu> wrote:
> >
> >> Hello Ryan,
> >>
> >> On 2020-04-05 10:55, Ryan Blenis wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I see the enterprise version you offer it says one of the features
> >>> piler has is S3 object storage, which looks like it was originally
> >>> requested on the mailing list in 2018:
> >>> https://www.mail-archive.com/piler-user@list.acts.hu/msg01335.html
> >>>
> >>> Does this mean that it is fully implemented now? And if so, will
> >> we
> >>
> >> yes, it's fully implemented by now.
> >>
> >>> ever see this in the open source version? Given the lower prices
> >> on S3
> >>> compatible storage versus block storage and the unchanging nature
> >> of
> >>> the files, this would be great to have as an option that can
> >> reduce
> >>> hosting costs from what is now being used for [comparatively]
> >>> expensive block storage.
> >>
> >> well, I've been thinking about it for a while, and still not
> >> decided,
> >> it's a difficult business decision, so let me share my current
> >> position
> >> on the matter.
> >>
> >> TL;DR: not in the near future.
> >>
> >> I'm really proud that the open source edition has gained a pretty
> >> nice
> >> traction, and I decided to somehow monetize its popularity.
> >>
> >> So I've forked piler and built an enterprise edition along with some
> >>
> >> commercial
> >> services. To make the enterprise edition successful, I must offer
> >> some
> >> features
> >> that are worth to pay for that is not available for free in the open
> >>
> >> source edition.
> >>
> >> I believe that the S3 storage support you asked for is such an
> >> attractive feature,
> >> so I'll keep it for the enterprise edition only, not sure how long.
> >>
> >> However, I'm well aware of that the S3 costs are significantly lower
> >>
> >> than block
> >> storage costs at cloud hosting companies. I encourage you to try the
> >>
> >> enterprise
> >> edition, and see if it works for you. If so, and you like it, then
> >> perhaps we
> >> could figure out something viable to make the transition from open
> >> source to
> >> enterprise. I'd like to emphasize that I don't want to force you in
> >> this
> >> direction,
> >> and it's totally ok to decline.
> >>
> >> Let me know what you (and other piler users as well) think about the
> >>
> >> matter.
> >>
> >> Janos
>

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