BUIP126: (passed) Planet-on-a-LAN stress test model network

How much should we allocate to this project?

  • $1000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $3000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $10,000

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • $30,000

    Votes: 2 40.0%
  • $100,000

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5

jtoomim

Active Member
Jan 2, 2016
130
253
@AdrianX

The network is four servers that currently physically reside at my datacenter in Moses Lake, WA, They are under four public IPs that I'm currently paying for on a shared symmetric 1 Gbps internet connection. You can ping them at rome.toom.im, troy.toom.im, athens.toom.im, and memphis.toom.im. (Ancient Mediterranean cities was the naming theme.) They can stay at my facility until at least April 1st, 2020, and possibly until April 1, 2021, depending on how long we continue to operate that facility. After that, we will probably want to move them somewhere else. That's not a big deal, operating costs are low.

Most of the tests that I've been doing with them so far only require a significant amount of LAN bandwidth, electricity, and hearing protection (those things are LOUD), so relocating them elsewhere should be pretty easy. I have them on global IPv4 addresses right now, but they can be migrated to running on IPv6 and/or port-forwarded/NATted IPv4 with some effort. So long term, they can be very cheap to maintain. Like, $30-$100/month plus whatever labor is needed.

I and my employees will maintain them as long as they are at my datacenter, because I can and it's easy and cheap. I may also maintain them afterwards if they're moved somewhere else.

I don't understand what you're suggesting with the leasing agreement. The main cost here is the skilled labor needed to write and run the tests, not the hardware itself. $4k is peanuts. Who would be responsible for implementing those tests? BU? Me? Me on half of BU?

I also don't like the idea of trying to turn this into a profitable business relationship. I wanted to make a test setup, so I did. I want other devs to have access to this test setup, so I'm offering devs access to these rigs. (By the way, devs, message me if you want to play around with these things! Send me an ssh pubkey and I'll make you an account.) If BU wants to reimburse me for my expenses, that's cool. If not, that's cool too. Either way doesn't really matter -- it's not a lot of money.
 
Last edited:

jtoomim

Active Member
Jan 2, 2016
130
253
@AdrianX

Expenses so far:

4x Dell 910 servers: 4x $529 plus tax
4x FusionIO ioScale2 1.65TB PCIe SSDs: 4x $145.99
Subtotal (with tax and shipping): $2919.52

4x 4TB HDDs: $317.52
4x 1Gbps switches: $179.98
4x Samsung 883 DCT series SSDs: $739.32
Internet service via Localtel through Aug 22nd: $156.95

Total expenses to date: $4313.29

The ioScale2 drives ended up not being usable due to driver issues. I might be able to return them for a partial refund, but it has been a while, so I don't expect full compensation.

During the first month, I had a separate 1 Gbps port allocated to these machines at $79.95+4+13, plus (due to an error on Localtel's part) 3 static IPs at $20 each. On further investigation, the 1 Gbps port on our fiber gateway shares bandwidth with all of our other ports, so we moved these machines to share a port with one of our other services, and have switched back to 4 static IPs. As long as we're on separate static IPs, I expect internet costs in the future to be $80/month. I do not plan on metering and billing for electricity as long as these are at my facility.

I would recommend setting a budget of $10k for this project to allow for some future expansion should we find the need for it (e.g. upgrading to 10 Gbps ethernet, or adding more servers). But $6k should also be sufficient to keep these machines in operation as long as they're at my facility, and (probably) to pay for shipping to their next hosting location if that ends up being needed.
 
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jtoomim

Active Member
Jan 2, 2016
130
253
Quick project update: these machines are online and available for use by developers. They have been online for quite a while, actually.

I have not yet sought reimbursement by BU for this project (since not much was being done with them, and I was busy with non-BCH stuff), so they technically still belong to me. But a few BCH developers have begun to make use of them recently. I am also making use of them more often now for my own test work.

If any BCH devs or sysadmins want to make use of these machines for BCH projects, please send me your ssh pubkey and I'll make you an account and give you an intro.
 
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