See VirtualizedHosting2018 for more current discussion.
In August of 2016, we had some discussions on IRC about the value of HCoop getting out of the hardware business and running our services on virtual machines from an infrastructure-as-a-service provider. JackHill offered to evaluate options from a cost perspective, and this page is a place to gather those considerations. There are, or course, other considerations in addition to cost, and those belong here too.
1. Cost
1.1. Current Needs
Our current needs based on the Hardware page:
Storage: 2TiB. In AFS we are currently using 44% of 870GiB available space. 2TiB will give us enough space to accommodate our current storage needs with enough headroom to grow, local storage on machines, and working space for backups.
Servers
Web: 6GiB RAM, 6 CPU
Login: 3GiB RAM, 4 CPU
Mail: 2GiB RAM, 4 CPU
Infra (AFS, KRB5): 4GiB, 2 CPU
Misc: 2GiB, 2 CPU
Network: current usage unknown
Our current cost per month at Peer1 is $680.
1.2. auro.io
Auro is a Canadian OpenStack provider
Servers
- 1 x 2 GiB, 2 CPU
- 2 x 4 GiB, 2 CPU
- 1 x 4 GiB, 4 CPU
- 1 x 8 GiB, 4 CPU
Storage
- 2TiB in addition to what is included with servers
Network is currently free.
The above would come to $514/month
1.3. Linode
- afs+kerberos master with block device (12G, $80)
- will also include databases (7.2G, light usage, not financially
- sensible to split out)
- will also include databases (7.2G, light usage, not financially
- tiny secondary afs volserver/kerberos (1G, $5)
- member shell server (8G, $40)
- web server (8G, $40)
- mail server (4G, $20)
block storage is $.10/G per month, we are using ~400G including dead volumes now so could start with 600G to avoid downtime for resizing volumes (or annoyance of vicepa, vicepb...)
80 + 5 + 40 + 40 + 20 + 60 + 10 = $255
outpost is $10 per month, could downgrade to $5 per month as well
The SSD block storage in NJ is at capacity as of 2017-01-25; it's currently only available in CA on hard drives, and still in beta. (Linode forum thread) Could put the AFS server on a larger instance, e.g. Linode 48 (0.75 TB) for $180 more, or use multiple file server instances.
The backup service is roughly $.10/GB/month.
Custom kernels supported
1.4. DigitalOcean
- 16GB afs: $80
- 1GB misc: $5
- 8GB shell: $40
- 8GB web: $40
- 4GB mail: $20
- 2GB outpost: $10
- block storage $.10/GB
- backups 20% of instance price
Total: 80 + 5 + 40 + 40 + 20 + 60 + 10 = $255
Custom kernels?
1.5. IBM Cloud/SoftLayer
- 8 CPU / 16GB ram / 100GB storage afs: $268
- 1/2/100 misc: $36
- 4/8/100 shell: $138
- 4/8/100 web: $138
- 2/4/100 outpost: $72
- Storage around $0.06/GB (750GB: $44)
- Location: Toronto
Total: $696
1.6. Google Cloud Platform
- About $17/vCPU, $2.4/GB RAM
- 6 CPU / 12GB RAM afs: $130
- 1/1 misc: $20
- 4/8 shell: $87
- 4/8 web: $87
- 2/4 outpost: $44
- Storage around $0.02 per GB ($12 for 600GB, $20 for 1TB)
- Location: Iowa
- Discounts for prepayment
Total: $382