Use Cases for Shared Infrastructure

2:30pm Thursday 23rd September 2021

Attendees: Luke (Autonomic), Calix (Autonomic), Chris Webarch), Graham (MC3), Knoflook (Cyberia), Forest (Cyberia), Molly (Dev Society), John (Code-operative), Anna(FAC & Common Knowledge), Nick (Code-operative), Geoff (Animorph)

Background presentation

Slides presented by Calix

The idea of Servers.coop came about from a need to overcome the obstacles of using independent infrastructure. Due to prices from the client perspective, and costs from client/user perspective.

Servers.coop has been building their own infrastructure problem with an aim of running the apps on the server. Setting up the servers could become more accessible if more parties come together.

Drawbridging - Hetzner is an example - is when originally open-source solutions are eventually placed behind the wall.

Servers.coop has been inspired by Cyberia, who run ~100 machines in a community spirit. Servers.coop aspire to deliver something similar in CoTech context.

Servers.coop wants to be a VPS provider (using existing machines), and a template for other people to run their infrastructure. The theory of change is to deliver multiple servers & locations and scale in a decentralised way (geographically).

Aside from MBH, Webarch, Autonomic, also Cooperative Network Infrastructure and MC3 are involved. Of course Cyberia released Capsul, which is not only inspiring but also useful.

Forest describes Cyberia tech platform, which started by friends for fun. Originally people would send emails and then someone sets up the VM. The idea was to automate the process of email->VM. Payments are supported ($+BTC currencies). Half of payments comes through in crypto. Cyberia wants not to come into the client machines so the root passwords are destroyed, only SSH access.

There is a server space in Ashton donated, which will test servers.coop

Demo of yolo.servers.coop - source code

Innovation Cooperative from Greater Manchester is keen to see more co-operatives starting in the area. It offers a legal foundation by providing their own.

You can already run co-op hardware on Co-op cloud: return servers.coop

Needs:

CoTech co-op to pre-pay for some servers.
Help to find funding
Spread the word!

Needs discussion

John: Will speak to members and try to pencil the engagement.
Nick: Currently using Hetzner & Cloudron. Curious about costs.
John: There's no fixed co-op solution. Often we inherit running servers or buy, e.g. WinHost or Heroku.
Sz: Needs = understanding how people can get involved

Go-round - what hosting is used:

Sz: VPSs with WebArch. Sometimes Docker, mainly install Nextcloud, Mailcow, Django, postgres straight on the machine. Regular websites, APIs. Anticipate needing the ability to scale beyond original capacity some time soon. Paying fixed amount, for fixed amount of space. Functions as a service - machine learning, calculations. Future use-cases.
Ch: Easy to add more RAM, disk space to VMs.

Molly: Dev Society mostly use AWS for hosting of their apps. Interested in future planning towards more ethical ways of hosting. Main concern is about cost to accommodate for low budget of some clients; the other concern is security requirements, Dev Society has ISO27001(??) standard to comply with.
Chris: Could be useful for Servers.coop to pursue that.
Molly: Alex Tomkins(?) our technical director would be happy to share how they secured the ISO.

John: Usually hosting APIs and DBs.
Nick: Sometimes websites and email. Gmail for others.

Sz: Where are people hosting things? No shame, but it would help to make a plan, keep on inquiring - a form perhaps?

C: The priority is to make the smallest viable step and try it out. Things like [ISO27001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_27001] might be more of a medium-term concern while we get the required technical steps together, but we are hoping to experiment as we go.

Towards next steps

John: Hook people up with how to set up servers, for instance Founders and Coders are learning right now, and they will focus on things like Heroku. Perhaps supporting people in pursuing Servers.coop in a dev mode. Getting it into curriculum could be helpful!

Calix: Educational path sounds very good so let's talk about that.

What other things could be done?

Product offering is a very early stage, could be shared.

In terms of funding, so far trying to combine computer technology and social organisation/change/democratic control. The software is publishable, but so is process and how it is applied to wider society.

Luke: We want to build alternatives but also want to know how to get off the current solutions. How to talk to the colleagues about the idea of switching, and ways of speaking about it are important to develop.

Sz: Some of the things offered by corporate providers are not really beneficial. How to speak to your colleagues or fellow coöperators about this. Can bring this conversation to my coöp and chat to them. Make a form
Previous survey ref

C: Things to add?

backups
security requirements
features (functions as a service etc)

Will try to develop needs-finding form (based on the existing one?) by the end of the gathering and distribute round.

John: How soon could we get the product offering doc?

Hardware still needs to be commissioned. Can get something together in next couple of weeks.

Sz: 2 week cadence. Survey out for 2 weeks, product concept ready in 2 weeks, have another feedback period. CoTech fund could potentially support, if there's some evidence collected from the network, linked to offering in the initial way. Allows us to make a judgement. Make the longstanding community work visible.