Development Budget Request

Board Discuss
#1

Request for Budget

Rationale
---------

Last year, the development team successfully deployed, and switched
over process to the gerrit code review sysem [1] for submitting
patches to the LibreOffice project.

With the gerrit review infrastructure now firmly in place, the next
logical evolution is to test-build (almost) every patch submitted -
thus providing developers, that cannot build on all platforms locally,
with the safety that their change does not break the build for
others. This is slated to happen via a tweaked jenkins instance
[2]. To actually execute on the test building, the dev team though
needs dedicated build hosts.

Request
-------

Overall to leave room for community growth, with the current build
speed on windows, Norbert estimates we'd need about 10 Windows hosts,
to cope with an average of 50 commits/day.

We looked into some offers, and it seems e.g. Hetzner's EX4 is
economical in terms of spec/price ratio

http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex4

, and goes for 49.00 € / month including VAT.

Virtualisation IMO does not make too much sense here, Windows builds
are already io-bound, and we want raw metal speeds.

Additionally, one extra EX4 would complement the existing Linux
buildbots, jointly that should then cover the anticipated load,
totalling 11 EX4 machines.

For Mac, Norbert sponsors his own one, but we would need a second
machine to cover the load. Proposal is to buy a Mac Mini for that (I
am not aware of any rental offers there), that would then be either
hosted in Munich (Florian has an offer there), or at my place.

The requested specs are:

Mac Mini, 2,3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, DDR3 SDRAM 8 GB / 1600 MHz
– 2x 4 GB, 256 GB Solid-State-Drive for 1.229,00 € incl. VAT (German
Apple store).

In total, the request would be, for 2013, a budget of

** 8.000,00 € **

for this setup (plan is to start with one EX4 and then ramp it up,
thus we don't incur the full cost in the first months).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrit_(software)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkins_(software)

-- Thorsten

#2

Hi,

We looked into some offers, and it seems e.g. Hetzner's EX4 is
economical in terms of spec/price ratio

  http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex4

, and goes for 49.00 ¤ / month including VAT.

[..]

In total, the request would be, for 2013, a budget of

  ** 8.000,00 ¤ **

for this setup (plan is to start with one EX4 and then ramp it up,
thus we don't incur the full cost in the first months).

Is a Gigabit connection required for the machines? I doubt, but wanted to clarify, since that would add 39 ¤ per month per machine.

Plus, dues the above sum take into account the fee of a Windows Server license for those machines? Since we cannot bootstrap this on our own (i.e. cannot install a separatedly bought Windows license), and virtualization is not desired, we need to take Hetzner's offer here, which costs 15 ¤ per month for web edition and 25 ¤ per month for standard edition.

Florian

#3

Hi,

We looked into some offers, and it seems e.g. Hetzner's EX4 is
economical in terms of spec/price ratio

  http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex4

, and goes for 49.00 € / month including VAT.

[..]

In total, the request would be, for 2013, a budget of

  ** 8.000,00 € **

for this setup (plan is to start with one EX4 and then ramp it up,
thus we don't incur the full cost in the first months).

Is a Gigabit connection required for the machines? I doubt, but wanted to
clarify, since that would add 39 € per month per machine.

No

Plus, dues the above sum take into account the fee of a Windows Server
license for those machines? Since we cannot bootstrap this on our own (i.e.
cannot install a separatedly bought Windows license), and virtualization is
not desired, we need to take Hetzner's offer here, which costs 15 € per
month for web edition and 25 € per month for standard edition.

Then we need to find another provider.

Norbert

#4

Hi,

Then we need to find another provider.

so, as explained offlist, it's not a legal issue per se, but rather a technical one - how can I get Windows installed out of a running Linux box when I don't have physical access to the machine (for USB or DVD). Hetzner does not install your own licenses.

I'll check with my admin colleagues if there's a solution, otherwise we need to find another hoster for those boxes. (Although I am really scared of having a Windows 7 box directly connected to the Internet, but that's a different story...)

Florian

#5

Hetzner will allow you to rent a kvm over ip for 25 euros per use to do
those installations yourself.

#6

Actually that later point is indeed scary... so maybe so solution to
both is to run W7 in a vm on a minimalist host OS, with ~all ressource
allocated to that one vm.
I could not find clear and convincing pages about the impact of vm vs
native... but I think we can at least give it a shoot on one box to
see what kind of build perf we get.

Norbert

#7

I think something else that needs to be considered is the virtualization platform, there is xen kvm etc each offering their own benefits.

#8

Hi,

I think something else that needs to be considered is the virtualization
platform, there is xen kvm etc each offering their own benefits.

virtualization is part of the next infra platform due in summer or fall, but was specifically not asked for the buildbots in order to not waste resources, so...

But let's move those technical discussions over to the website list.

Florian

#9

Hi,

I thought the request for Windows machines was for desktop machines for
testing and building purposes? I thought that's why they requested
bare-metal rather than virtualised? I guess this is a separate request?

no, the request is for buildbots, i.e. Windows servers for compiling LibreOffice on.

Florian

#10

Hello,

In total, the request would be, for 2013, a budget of

  ** 8.000,00 ¤ **

for this setup (plan is to start with one EX4 and then ramp it up,
thus we don't incur the full cost in the first months).

because installing your own Windows with Hetzner is a tedious if not impossible task, or you have to rent expensive licenses, we are evaluating various options right now. Norbert is currently working on a donated machine to see if we can virtualize everything and if that particular machine can be used. There's also another sponsor offer available that might work out.

Therefore, I propose we hold off from this for the moment, and request a new budget when required. Given we have approx. 30.000 ¤ unallocated for the 2013 planning, this should work out.

Florian

#11

Well, in the request above there was also
1/ a couple of these EX2 to be use for linux gerrit buildboxing
2/ budget to get a Mac to do release on a TDF owned and controlled
box, which will also help for builbot when not doing release build.
(on top of the 2 I already provide)

These two should still move along...
Beside, I would ask that the above budget be 'reserved' until the
situation clarify. if we find way to do it cheaper great... but I
would not want to be stuck until next year because everything has been
spent already, nor would I like for us to have to dig in the reserve
for that predictable and anticipated need.

Norbert

#12

For the windows stuff has amazon’s ec2 been considered?

#13

Norbert Thiebaud wrote:

Beside, I would ask that the above budget be 'reserved' until the
situation clarify.

I concur with Norbert. Having a budget does not mean to spend
it. There is a very definitive need for build hardware - if that need
can be satisfied w/o all the money, even better.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

#14

Hi,

I concur with Norbert. Having a budget does not mean to spend
it. There is a very definitive need for build hardware - if that need
can be satisfied w/o all the money, even better.

ok, sorry, I simply missed this then. :slight_smile:
Can you briefly rephrase your request then? Is it 8k ¤ for development machines, or what shall I put into the budget proposal?

Florian

#15

Florian Effenberger wrote:

Can you briefly rephrase your request then? Is it 8k € for
development machines, or what shall I put into the budget proposal?

Even more specifically, development build hardware. For the
gerrit/jenkins setup, we need a (small) build farm.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

#16

Hi,

Even more specifically, development build hardware. For the
gerrit/jenkins setup, we need a (small) build farm.

ok, I have added 8.000 ¤ budget proposal for development hardware onto the budget in WebDAV, which is used as basis for my regular mailings. :slight_smile:

Florian

#17

Regarding the build farm how many Linux machines are we looking for. I am running some tests and I am on a virtual server provider called linode. I am building on their 512mb virtual private servers and they are quite quick and 16 euros a month.

#18

Hi Jonathan,

Regarding the build farm how many Linux machines are we looking for. I am running some tests and I am on a virtual server provider called linode. I am building on their 512mb virtual private servers and they are quite quick and 16 euros a month.

the initial proposal is here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg02815.html

Let's move the technical discussion onto the website lists, where it's better suited, IMHO.

Florian

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