[Lowdown] May First/People moves, doubling our capacity

Alfredo Lopez alfredo at mayfirst.org
Wed Jul 23 18:15:37 EDT 2008


Hi everyone,

Big news...please read...important for all members to know.

In mid-August May First/People will embark on one of the biggest server 
overhauls in our history. Why? Because we're growing - not only in terms 
of members and our own server capacity, but in terms of our 
relationships with other groups.

We're going to move all of our servers currently at 25 Broadway to a new 
location in Manhattan: 111 8th Avenue.

This is a major equipment move, probably the largest we have ever done 
and it follows a very intense period of discussion, evaluation and good 
old "shopping around".

Our new arrangement is an excellent deal for our organization. For the 
same price we are paying now, we get twice the bandwidth and twice the 
electricity, allowing us to double what we can do.

It's also a major step forward in our growing relationship with Riseup, 
a collective with whom we've wanted to work with more closely for a long 
time. We're going to be sharing our new server racks with Riseup and 
Micah Anderson from Riseup was absolutely central to this process -- his 
thinking and clear-eyed evaluation of the various offers we had was 
essential to getting the deal we did.

Just some background on this move and a bit about how it will affect 
members and members services.

Most of our production servers (the ones that actually link members to 
the public through websites and email) are in a rack that is *not* in 
our offices. This is for security reasons as well as stability (better 
power sources, etc.)

We pay for that, obviously. In fact, it's our largest monthly cost and 
that cost is established by contract.

Our contract at 25 Broadway (Telehouse) was expiring and, because of the 
explosive rise in electricity costs, we could expect a huge increase in 
costs. We decided to seek alternatives.

When you move servers like this you can't just pick them up and put them 
in a new place. Our servers are linked to the Internet through a 
provider called Hurricane Electric and, of course, they have an array of 
IP addresses attached to them. All that has to be preserved or, if not, 
replaced in a quick and efficient way.

Working with RiseUp, we looked into what we felt was every alternative 
possible: examining capability, looking at pricing, inquiring about 
whether they could hook up to Hurricane Electric and then thinking about 
those IPs.

After considering everything we decided to sign a contract with Bandcon, 
a major provider with lots of space in the Chelsea area of New York 
City. They don't hook up directly to Hurricane Electric but, for a fee, 
they'll patch up a connection and that fee, when added to the low 
colocation price, saves us a considerable amount of money monthly.

The main thing, however, is that this deal allows us to share our 
facilities with RiseUp and to grow as we add new members (something 
we're doing every day). These are both components of our strategy for 
the future: to expand our membership and to expand our collaborative 
relationships with other movement organizations like ours. RiseUp 
qualifies eminently and this is indeed a very important moment for MF/PL.

And while we're at it, every member should thank Micah Anderson for his 
amazing and tireless work on this move.

The move itself takes place sometime in mid-August (date to be 
announced). It will involve the physical move of our servers to the new 
location and the start-up of those servers at that new spot. We're 
planning the move for between 1:00 am and 6:00 am on that still to be 
announced day.

We are anticipating a two to four hour outage during which services 
won't be available to any member.

Clearly, we will advise all members of this date the moment we have it.

Jamie, Daniel and I worked with Micah on this but many members gave 
their support and help. Thanks to all.


Abrazos,

Alfredo

-- 
Alfredo Lopez, Co-Director
May First/People Link
Growing Networks to Build a Just World!
http://www.mayfirst.org
718-303-3204 -- (ext. 106)
Members Local 1180, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO
Public Key: http://www.alfredolopez.net/alfredopublickey



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