Project: First Local Rack

This is a Project Sprints idea.

It's a bad idea for us to get too reliant on hosting on digital ocean. It provides an experience that isn't really the same as what it will be like when we host locally in Merri-bek, and we don't want people to get used to it. We'd rather move to hosting locally as soon as possible, even if the actual experience of that is worse, so that we can build skills around doing that well and improving it.

This project is to make that happen with our first local server rack. It can be pretty simple, and in fact may just contain one server.

Maker Community Rack Agreement

We want to be able to run virtual linux servers, on a server or servers we physically control and is physically in Merri-bek.

Initially:

• Dokuwiki (currently runs on the smallest shared CPU digital ocean droplet, would run on something even smaller)
• Matrix (currently runs on on a 2vCPU basic digital ocean droplet)
• About 20 VPS instances for volunteer labs projects, rarely used

Later:

• Final hosting load unknown, but might include dozens of apps for hundreds of organisations
• Replication and backups from other nodes
• Good power efficiency for solar power

• Lockable, with keys or access manageable for a range of volunteers
• Fun and attractive. We're making servers interesting to new people. Consider painting the rack, and/or adding lighting.
• Dust resistant (particularly if we're putting it at Maker Community).

The following is out of scope for this initial project:

• Solar power
• UPS or battery backup
• Swappable commodity hardware (fine to use mismatched old servers)
• Local backup in Merri-bek (we can backup to the cloud)

Considering Maker Community. If so, we will need a proposal for them that clearly states our rights and obligations. It'd at-least need to be cost neutral for them. We'd need to cover the cost of internet usage and power. Their NBN plan would need to be bumped up.

Servers (all donated):

• Dell PowerEdge R710 2x quad core Xeon, 144GB RAM (2RU)
• HP ProLiant DL320 G6 (1RU)
• HP ProLiant DL380 G7 (2RU)

Rack & Security

Cabling

Other

tbd