Upgrading our Tech Stack and available hosting resources

[rmd6502]

Posted by Alex Vanino - alex.vanino@gmail.com - @alex Vanino on slack.

Description

This issue was created to discuss options available to us for additional VPS/Server hosting options. We should also consider some of the other cloud based services that we can take advantage of, such as cloud e-mail and collaboration hosting.

Problem

Our current hosting solution using Heroku Dyno's is too limited due to the nature of containers. It's also not going to be sustainable from a cost standpoint if we grow and need to utilize more resources on the Heroku account.

Benefit

If we can get a decent linux VPS or dedicated server, there is a lot more we can offer and do such as:

• Reduce cost of hosting larger, more resource intensive applications
• Better control over our server platforms (Ability to use custom kernel modules, direct SSH access-without needing exec)
• Ability to provide server resources to ProgCoders projects.

Steps

1. Create an inventory of currently hosted and available resources.

2. I would Highly recommend if we aren't already is to register with https://www.techsoup.org/. Techsoup is an organization that works with 501c3's to help them gain deep discounts on commercial products. It's free, with no commitments, so I see no reason why we shouldn't sign up.

To Do's

• Look around for a CHEAP vps solution (I'm talking like $5-10 a month. A company like digital ocean might be able to do it. I know the old CTO of DO, so I'm going to reach out to him and see what the options are.

• Look for other VPS hosts that offer a 501c plan for a cheap price.

• Look for a VPS host to sponsor us. We are a largely growing tech community, and that is what most VPS company's enjoy marketing too.

• Look at 501c3 options for other cloud hosting services.

• Do we have a staffer who has access to a high speed internet connection in a reliable datacenter and can donate 2 to 4 u's of space in a rack? If we do, I can donate two dual quad core CPU poweredge 1950's with 32gb of ram each. This would be plenty to maintain us for awhile.

Solution Options & Reference link(s)

All of the solutions below will offer either extremely cheap, but reliable services, or Free services.

VPS Hosts

Both of these hosts are great. You can't go wrong with either one of them. VPS's generally start at $5 a month, and both hosts support building out a private network.

• https://digitalocean.com

• https://www.vultr.com/

Dedicated Hosts

• http://soyoustart.com (Cheap, Great Hardware, Reliable, Good support)

• https://www.kimsufi.com/ (Very Cheap, Okay Hardware, Fairly reliable, Horrible support)

The following hosts are cheap but generally offer crap support and mediocre hardware.

• http://volumedrive.com

• https://www.wholesaleinternet.net

Cloud Hosting

• Amazon Web Services - https://aws.amazon.com - Offers a free tier to many of their services. This free tier only lasts a year though. The AWS Credit Program for Nonprofits offers $2,000 of AWS Promotional Credits annually to 501c3 organizations or global equivalents. https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/nonprofits/

• Google Cloud Platform - https://cloud.google.com/ - Offers free tier, but it only lasts for 1 year, or $300 in credit usage; Whichever comes first.

• Microsoft Azure - Microsoft offers $3500 credits of Azure for non-profits on all of their premium services. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/nonprofits/azure. In addition to needing a techsoup account, you are also required to sign up(free) on https://nonprofit.microsoft.com.

Each cloud host offers their own introduction credits or time period. On top of that their are discounts as well.

Your prices on compute are going to depend on your particular use case and your discounting approach with AWS and Azure, since Google Sustained Usage Discounts are automatically applied.

If you are not using AWS Reserved Instances and don’t have a Microsoft EA discount for Azure, Google Cloud is going to be cheaper in most scenarios.
If you commonly need the performance requirements of local SSD (vs attached storage like Persistent Disk), you’re going to pay a premium for it on Google Cloud.
Azure consistently matches or beats AWS on price for on-demand.
AWS is likely not going to be the cheapest in most of these scenarios but it is often in the middle.

Taking advantage of all the free credit promotions would be the way to go here.

E-Mail and Team Collaboration Services

• Office365 - Office 365 has a deeply discounted enterprise package at $3 per user per month. They also offer a completely FREE basic package that has everything we would need. https://products.office.com/en-us/nonprofit/office-365-nonprofit-plans-and-pricing?tab=1

• Google Suite - Google also offers a completely free basic plan(https://gsuite.google.com/compare-editions/) to non-profits. https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/apps-for-nonprofits.html
  Since we already highly rely on google services, this would be a great and free choice for us.

Project Management

• Jira for non-profits - Jira offers free licenses to eligiable non-profits. Jira is the most popular project management system for developers and engineers. https://www.atlassian.com/software/views/community-license-request

Decision Making

1. Get quotes or offers from VPS companies or people willing to host colocated hardware.
2. Present offers/quotes from step 1 at an Operations Meeting.
3. Community vote on options.
4. Implement, Deploy solutions that were chosen.