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.

== Cost ==

=== 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.

=== auro.io ===

[[https://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

=== Linode ===

 * afs+kerberos master with block device (12G, $80)
   * will also include databases (7.2G, light usage, not financially
     sensible to split out)
 * 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. ([[https://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=15333|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

=== DigitalOcean ===

[[https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/|Pricing]]

 * 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?

=== 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

=== 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

=== Other VPS providers? ===

 * [[https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/|Amazon EC2]]
 * [[https://cloud.google.com/pricing/|Google Cloud Platform]]
 * [[https://www.ibm.com/cloud/pricing|IBM Cloud]]
 * [[https://ovhcloud.com/products/public-cloud/public-cloud-compute-instances|OVH]]
 * [[https://www.hetzner.com/|Hetzner]]