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Folks,
As you may recall, a couple of years ago we went through an analysis where we figured out a "way forward" for the site. Ultimately, the decision was made to do a short-term renewal (1 year) for a medium-grade server to allow us to re-assess in a year's time, which we did. We are now at 1 year minus 1 week from that renewal, which means next Thursday (28 April 2016) our server reservation expires. That does not mean we will be off the air; Army.ca will continue regardless, however it does mean our pre-paid server reservation expires, and we start paying a much higher hourly rate.
I have been planning for this by working some consulting gigs to cover the cost of renewal, however things haven't gone exactly as planned. (Mostly due to additional database and site traffic expenses and slow customer payment.) On average we pay about $210 CAD / month for hosting fees, largely because a year ago we rented the server with 100% of the cost paid up front. The remaining cost breakdown is attached, and as you can see, the cost is split between:
If possible, I would like to renew the current 1 year contract on the server to keep the monthly costs where they are. If we don't renew, the costs go up to about $305 / month, which gets expensive quickly. As a stretch goal, I have spec'd out an upgrade to m3.2xlarge, which is a decent server upgrade to accommodate for future growth. It is not critical that we hit that goal, however doing so would help "future proof" the site as we continue to grow.
I do hate to hit the membership up for assistance, but any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. In a nutshell:
Thanks to everyone for their support, and I apologize for the call for help - it was not my intent! :'(
How are we doing?
Server Renewal Progress
Cheers
Mike
As you may recall, a couple of years ago we went through an analysis where we figured out a "way forward" for the site. Ultimately, the decision was made to do a short-term renewal (1 year) for a medium-grade server to allow us to re-assess in a year's time, which we did. We are now at 1 year minus 1 week from that renewal, which means next Thursday (28 April 2016) our server reservation expires. That does not mean we will be off the air; Army.ca will continue regardless, however it does mean our pre-paid server reservation expires, and we start paying a much higher hourly rate.
I have been planning for this by working some consulting gigs to cover the cost of renewal, however things haven't gone exactly as planned. (Mostly due to additional database and site traffic expenses and slow customer payment.) On average we pay about $210 CAD / month for hosting fees, largely because a year ago we rented the server with 100% of the cost paid up front. The remaining cost breakdown is attached, and as you can see, the cost is split between:
- EC2: Site storage and backup
- RDS: Database usage
- Data Transfer: Site traffic
If possible, I would like to renew the current 1 year contract on the server to keep the monthly costs where they are. If we don't renew, the costs go up to about $305 / month, which gets expensive quickly. As a stretch goal, I have spec'd out an upgrade to m3.2xlarge, which is a decent server upgrade to accommodate for future growth. It is not critical that we hit that goal, however doing so would help "future proof" the site as we continue to grow.
I do hate to hit the membership up for assistance, but any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. In a nutshell:
- If you are not already a subscriber, please consider subscribing - there are lots of benefits!
- Why not consider some Army.ca swag, you can support the site and look cool too 8)
- If for some reason you don't like special status or cool swag, you can always donate
Thanks to everyone for their support, and I apologize for the call for help - it was not my intent! :'(
How are we doing?
Server Renewal Progress
Cheers
Mike
