[HCoop-Discuss] VPS hosting for HCoop

[Michael Potter]

I'm a little suspicious that you're pushing this as an alternative way 
to bring on paid staff by at least partially outsourcing them as the 
staff of a VPS provider. All the same, the idea is worth some thought 
when we consider how many issues we've had with the hardware and 
geographic limits for admins. On the other hand, another con you missed 
was the problem of finding a VPS provider willing to let us use our own 
kernel.

I work with a VPS and it does have some interesting issues you don't get 
with regular hardware. For example, I once had to shut down the httpd 
server to install an rpm because it kept claiming there wasn't enough 
memory, but it's supposed to have up to 2GB of "RAM." I suspect Xen was 
slow in expanding its memory from its set minimum.

There is also the philosophical angle to consider, whether a co-op 
should move down one tier closer to retail and feed the for-profit 
world. From running all VPSes, it's only one more step to mass 
purchasing a web hosting package from a commercial provider with a group 
discount, and so outsourcing tech support and software configuration. It 
would be more in keeping with the cooperative approach to move UP a 
level and provide its own rackspace. This is not exactly trivial though.

Michael


Adam Chlipala wrote:
> This discussion seems to have sputtered out.  Personally, I'm thinking 
> of 100% VPS hosting (probably spread among multiple providers to some 
> extent) as the best option for HCoop going forward.  Rob Gubler 
> mentioned some file system/IO failures he's experienced with 
> virtualization.  Shaun Empie said he doesn't think moving to 100% VPS is 
> a good idea, but he didn't give any reasons, and he hasn't responded yet 
> to a query about what they are.  Nathan Kennedy has been saying for a 
> while that we should own our own servers.  Besides that, I think we've 
> only seen positive opinions about the VPS option.
>
>