I’ve been thinking about ways to promote OSS here in Brunei. One suggested method is to set up an OSS mirror here.
A mirror is essentially a local copy of software, that is sync with the providers. Changes in the central sites are reflected here locally. This can save bandwidth for all users, and improve the availability of OSS here in Brunei.
If you don’t have access to that Facebook page … here it is:
CURRENT SITUATION:There are a total of Zero publicly accessible OSS mirrors operating in Brunei at this time. Lets discuss the logistics of setting up a mirror here in Brunei. Our two ISPs should appreciate any initiative to conserve scarce international bandwidth.
WHAT DO WE WANT TO MIRROR:
1. Ubuntu Linux. A full-featured Linux distribution with a growing user base within the ICT community in Brunei.
2. Fedora Linux. A full-featured Linux distribution with ties to the market leader Red Hat Inc, a NYSE listed company. Fedora Linux is the base on which Red Hat engineers it’s Enterprise offering, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
3. FreeBSD. An open source Unix distribution which has a reputation for being high-performance, robust and secure. Mirroring this is very beneficial because this repository includes source code packages that can be used by a number of different systems, Mac OS X for example.
4. OpenSolaris. Sun Microsystems’ Open Source enterprise operating system. This will form the base of their future versions of Solaris.
5. OpenOffice.org. An open source Microsot Office replacement, which supports open document standards (ODF) and has a large consortia of supporting companies (IBM, Novell, Sun Microsystems, etc).
HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO IT:
a. Get some hardware to run the mirror on. To mirror the selected packages above, some 7TB or so of storage would be neeeded.
b. Approach our 2x ISPs and discuss feasibility of co-locating these mirrors, which will be for local use only, on their networks.
WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?:
1. Advocating the use of OSS and promoting its dissemination is beneficial for our ICT Industry as a whole. A recent IDC report on piracy in Brunei states that for every $1.00 spent on software licenses, an additional $1.25 is also spent in value added services. Because we are in a net importing position of foreign IPR, any initiatives to reduce the Brunei ICT industry’s reliance on buying foreign proprietary software would improve this balance of payments.
2. Increasing availability of OSS to the local ICT community is beneficial. Exposing our future generations of scientists, mathematicians and engineers to the wealth of OSS at an early stage will help our nation to grow. Improving the local talent pool by equipping them with modern tools in a cost-effective manner will help the industry in the long term.
3. Increasing visibility of OSS. With current trends in Brunei’s ICT industry, OSS will become more important on organisational agendas.
Well, my friend Redhuan suggests: “Why not mirror all of SourceForge” ? So today I was checking out this article where an Australian ISP sets up a mirror of the whole of SourceForge. The mirror is 32 Terabytes as of June 2008.Next question is … how do I store 32 Terabytes of data?
Could go Dell … One PowerVault M1000 configured with 15 1TB SAS drives = approx $17k. Combined with an R300 w/ 16GB RAM and External RAID PERC5e = approx $5k. And I think you need to daisy chain 3x arrays for 45TB of disk. So that’s approx $56k, consumes 10U’s in a rack (9U’s for the arrays and 1U for the server).
Could go Sun … a single Sun Fire X4500 configured with 48 TB of disk = USD$62k = approx $90k, consumes 4U in a rack.
Then again, we’re comparing apples to oranges here.
The Sun “Thumper” (as the X4500′s are called) is much more space efficient, consuming less than half the space, but at a price premium of some $34k. Then again, the Thumper in this configuration would also have 2x Dual Core Opteron 290′s, (vs. a Single quad-core Xeon) 4x gigabit ethernet ports (vs. 2x gigabit ethernet ports). Because of it’s design which favours high bandwidth, the Thumper is probably more suited to data warehousing and online analysis and processing applications. So it’s probably overkill for running a mirror, but this would make a great MySQL server in a LAMP stack.
A more “fair” comparison vs. the Dell would be the Sun X4150 & Sun Storage J4200 SAS array, which is down as a promo this December. $10k for server + disk array … although you’d need more disk space to really compare vs the Dell. So get 2x of the J4400 array for $9k and buy 24 1 Terabyte SAS drives for each array. I think Sun make a healthy mark-up on the SAS drives, I’m not sure what the risks are buying them 3rd party for the J4400 array. But say $1k for a 1TB SAS disk is probably a fair budget. So that’s around $66k for 2x fully loaded J4400 with 3rd party 1TB drives. All in = $76k, consumes 11 U’s with space for a further 10x drives in the J4200 SAS array. (8U’s in the J4400, 2U’s in the J4200 and 1U in the X4150).
For simplicity’s sake you might want to get the big boy J4500 and get it fully loaded with 48 TB of disk … but that would be $138k on the array alone, in a 4U form factor. Well … that’s a real hardcore enterprise spec, meant for running big mission critical databases and applications.
The Bottom Line
If you were only going to deploy an online mirror, then the Dell server w/ the SAS array is probably sufficient if your aim is to minimise costs. If space is not a luxury, then consider a higher density option.
Mirroring the entire of Sourceforge could be somewhat overkill at these prices for Brunei alone. Opening up the mirror for our ASEAN brothers & sisters would be a whole different ball game, as this far there is no Sourceforge site that is located in ASEAN. If you think about it – this could be a cheap form of marketing to get instant cred in ASEAN markets.
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I’m not sure of all the details of the Brunei siutation, but I imagine having a local version of something like http://www.mirrorservice.org/ would be of huge benefit.
Is there a university in Brunei that could help with hosting? Having a mirror service of a huge array of software could be very useful for them, as well as businesses and individuals.
It might also be worth speaking to someone like Dell or Sun about the project to see if they would be interested in sponsoring (read: donating) the hardware. Sun I know have a good history of supporting open source projects with hardware. Supporting an ASEAN mirror like this could well be the kind of project they could see potential in.
Hi Tooky.
1. I agree a Brunei-type version of UK’s Mirror service would be awesome. I thought of the University but I’m not sure they have the resources available to dedicate to this kind of endeavour. It might be worth investigating … let me ask around
2. I think you’re right that a strong sponsor would be able to make good publicity from this kind of thing. I have the impression Sun might be less inclined right now though with the economic downturn affecting the industry. Then again, it could be a way for Sun to move some slightly older kit and still generate some marketing oomph.