Re: [tdf-mirrors] Searching for infrastructure sponsors

Hi Florian,

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Florian Effenberger
<floeff@documentfoundation.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> one of the most valueable assets of The Document Foundation, the charitable
> entity behind LibreOffice, clearly is its infrastructure. It provides the
> grounds where the community develops, markets, designs, improves and offers
> its free office suite for download.
>
> That's why it comes to no surprise that the infrastructure budget is one of
> the largest spendings. As of today, we spend about 700 € per month on
> infrastructure, which is more than 50% of our regular monthly operations
> budget - quite a lot for a foundation of our size.
>
> The last months, the community has grown rapidly, and so we will also have
> an upward trend with regards to infrastructure, with costs growing more and
> more.
>
> Therefore, we would like to take the opportunity to ask for infrastructure
> sponsors. Internet service providers, webhosters, universities and
> corporations can contribute to the success of LibreOffice. You can support
> the further development and growth of the community and the product, by
> sponsoring the use of dedicated machines for LibreOffice purposes.
>
> Due to our setup, we specifically look for dedicated machines ("rented root
> servers") that we can use. Virtual servers or shared webhosting
> unfortunately won't fit.
>
> As a rough estimation, here are some technical details on what would be
> desirable:
>
> * Quadcore CPU
> * 32 GB RAM, ideally with ECC
> * two hard disks with 1,5 TB/each for RAID1; smaller SSDs also welcome
> * one dedicated IPv4 address
> * one IPv6 subnet (/64 or larger)
> * automated reset service
> * remotely bootable rescue system
> * no extra fees for traffic (we approximately use between 2 and 5 TB on an
> average machine and month); forced traffic shaping after a certain threshold
> is fine
> * ideally, 1 Gbit/s bandwith instead of 100 Mbit/s

A system with almost exactly these specs can be rented affordably,
month to month, from Hetzner in Germany. I'm not sure if you were
directly citing their specifications when you wrote this up, but it
happens to be exactly matching one of their offerings (with an added
cost for the 1 Gbit/s bandwidth).

One idea would be to have volunteers make a commitment to pay a
fraction of the server bill on a monthly basis, and pool money to rent
servers this way. If you need wide geographic distribution then the
number of servers you can have is less, because costs are much higher
in places such as the U.S. and certain parts of Asia. You may be able
to get a discount for being a non-profit entity, depending on the
provider's policies.

If your solicitation for donated boxes from the providers themselves
doesn't yield many takers, this can be a viable alternative. I know at
least OSGrid, another non-profit, does use monthly donations as small
as $5/month from users in order to fund their infrastructure. They
explicitly say that they'd rather people donate small over a long
period than pay too much and have to cancel -- this ensures that they
have a steady stream rather than people cancelling all the time and
impacting their budget.

Best,

Sean

> Support of any kind towards our infrastructure efforts is highly welcome,
> and we would like to thank everyone for their contributions!
>
> If you would like to support our efforts, or have further questions, feel
> free to ask our infrastructure team at hostmaster@documentfoundation.org or
> ping me directly.
>
> On behalf of the whole LibreOffice community and my infrastructure
> colleagues, thank you very much!
> Florian
>
> --
> Florian Effenberger, Chairman of the Board (Vorstandsvorsitzender)
> Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
> The Document Foundation, Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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