Hi Simon, > On Tue, 02 Jul 2024 at 16:24, Ludovic Courtès <l...@gnu.org> wrote: > >> The reason for this discussion is that we were >> thinking that we should not take our existing build farms for granted >> and be prepared for the future. > > Could you explain the rationale? I understand and fully agree that > sustainable funding and maintenance for infrastructure are key topics > for the project. Do we need to move ci.guix soon? Related to Ricardo > announcement [1]?
There is no urgency. The build farm at the MDC isn't going anywhere. But it would be unwise for the project to assume that it will always stay this way. In the past we've also had some minor issues outside of our immediate control that are attributable to hosting these servers at a research institute, for example a trigger-happy firewall, or blanket bans on large IP address ranges. In the past we were given the opportunity to extend and upgrade the build farm, but we cannot plan with good fortune like this. As a project it would be wise to continue our efforts to diversify our distributed build farm. >> The various options and back-of-the-envelope estimates we came up with >> are as follows: >> >> 1. Buying and hosting hardware: >> 250k€ for hardware >> 3k€/month (36k€/year) >> >> 2. Renting machines (e.g., on Hetzner): >> 6k€/month (72k€/year) >> >> 3. Sponsored: >> get hardware and/or hosting sponsored (by academic institutions or >> companies). > > Well, on the paper, option #1 appears to me appealing but how do we get > this 250k€? Somehow, 250k€ would mean being able to secure 3k€/month > for over almost 7 years, right? > > Except if we have a large donation that I am not aware, I do not see how > it would be possible to sign in being sure to secure 3k€/month for over > almost 7 years; considering the project has 12 years. > > Other said, option #1 does not appear to me an option. Correct. I think it is a good reality check to see just how much value there is (or was in 2019) in all these servers and what our realistic options are to recreate this when eventually these machines are decommissioned. I don't see option #1 as realistic; not only is it a prohibitively large up-front cost, it is also a serious continuous time and money sink. We'd also have to constantly play our cards well and trade old hardware in for new hardware lest we are stuck with a metric ton of e-waste. > Option #2 could be a temporary option for a short time. But again, > that’s something. I think option #2 is not actually terrible. We like to say that the cloud is just other people's machines, and our response to that is aversion to a real or perceived loss of control. But I'd like to put this in perspective by asking how much control we *actually* have over the build farm at the MDC right now. In practice *I* have some semblance of control over these machines because I have access to the data centre. For the most part, however, I treat these servers as warm MDC furniture. Yes, we'd lose a few more options when renting hardware via Hetzner (or even the well-dressed monocled elephant over there: AWS), but I think we should think carefully about how valuable our sacrifices are in exchange for the practical advantages of not being stuck with a rack full of industrial hardware. Option #2 is rather quick to set up and quick to abandon should we run out of money. It does, however, depend on continuous donations, which we are currently unable and possibly even unwilling to solicit. -- Ricardo
