TL;DR: Borg is useful, it will be moved in to the backroom and we will
monitor power consumption.
So first off the 'eatallthepower' machine that is/was in the main room
will not be Borg, we're going for a lower power version. There's been
a lot of debate about Borg. Most of the concern has been about:
1. That it is taking up space,
2. Will it be useful,
3. The electricity costs.
I am pro Borg but these are valid concerns. Usefulness is a pretty
easy one to deal with. It can be used for many things including
recording the cams to give poor Babbage a bit of breathing room,
putting individual shell accounts on there so Babbage doesn't get
overloaded and eventually putting Babbage out to pasture. Other
suggestions have included giving people an environment for
crosscompiling (moving it from Lovelace) and moving a lot of the
random computers around the space that do just one thing.
This will have the benefit of saving us some power by sharing it in
one machine. This goes some way to help offset the extra power Borg
will take.
Obviously Borg may still consume more power and some people are
concerned about the extra cost. We (tgreer and me) will be monitoring
the usage as closely as we can, our goal is to be under 275W.
Admittedly a number I plucked out of my arse but seems like a
reasonable goal based upon similar hardware that is heavily used. We
costed this to be about £27 per month but obviously this is the
maximum and we aim to be well under that. If it goes over 275W
regularly we can then have a discussion about how best to either
reduce it, or using a different solution entirely.
We will of course be keeping a careful eye on the power consumption to
get a baseline. We'll also try to get a gauge from Babbage, Lovelace
and Tesla to have a comparison.
As for location, we have devised a cunning plan. It has been
previously discussed that the Laser Cutter be placed in the back room
in the workshop, potentially we could move that in there and stack the
Borg underneath it. It's not ideal, it may not fit, and we need magic
solexious approval, but it's worth a try, and it gets it out of the
main or quiet areas. I'll be in the space on Monday so I'll attempt to
measure stuff up and move whatever needs moving (help would be
appreciated). Tgreer is north of the border until Tuesday so it will
be worked on then.
I'm open to better suggestions there does seem a general consensus
that it Borg is a good idea, and a very vocal minority totally against
it for one reason or another. Hopefully greater transparency and a
proper plan will improve that.
On 4 October 2012 20:41, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As for location, we have devised a cunning plan. It has been
> previously discussed that the Laser Cutter be placed in the back room
> in the workshop, potentially we could move that in there and stack the
> Borg underneath it. It's not ideal, it may not fit, and we need magic
> solexious approval, but it's worth a try, and it gets it out of the
> main or quiet areas.
I've been against this every time this has been brought up mostly as this
would make it a huge PITA to do maintenance on it should it be shoe horned
into there. That's not to say Borg couldn't be put in there anyway.
> I'm open to better suggestions there does seem a general consensus
> that it Borg is a good idea, and a very vocal minority totally against
> it for one reason or another. Hopefully greater transparency and a
> proper plan will improve that.
I suggest you get the 'non-vocal majority' to speak up as they don't seem
to exist as part of the communicating community, something it would be
great to see as until then the majority of the vocal membership seem to be
against it. (I'm neither one way or the other on it, should it be low power
and take up little room, but saying "most people agree but they don't say
anything" isn't a good argument in your favour)
On 4 October 2012 20:55, Charles Yarnold <charlesyarn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 October 2012 20:41, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As for location, we have devised a cunning plan. It has been
>> previously discussed that the Laser Cutter be placed in the back room
>> in the workshop, potentially we could move that in there and stack the
>> Borg underneath it. It's not ideal, it may not fit, and we need magic
>> solexious approval, but it's worth a try, and it gets it out of the
>> main or quiet areas.
> I've been against this every time this has been brought up mostly as this
> would make it a huge PITA to do maintenance on it should it be shoe horned
> into there. That's not to say Borg couldn't be put in there anyway.
Sure, I understand that. Let's say we don't move the Laser Cutter in
there and we do move Borg in, are we good to move the Laser Cutter
around a little bit?
>> I'm open to better suggestions there does seem a general consensus
>> that it Borg is a good idea, and a very vocal minority totally against
>> it for one reason or another. Hopefully greater transparency and a
>> proper plan will improve that.
> I suggest you get the 'non-vocal majority' to speak up as they don't seem to
> exist as part of the communicating community, something it would be great to
> see as until then the majority of the vocal membership seem to be against
> it. (I'm neither one way or the other on it, should it be low power and take
> up little room, but saying "most people agree but they don't say anything"
> isn't a good argument in your favour)
I didn't and wouldn't say that. I would say most people at best are
indifferent, and indifference is fine. It is all anecdotal in the end
but there seems to be a general trend on IRC that as long as we have
thought about each persons concern which falls in to one of the above
3 categories they move in to indifference or even pro-Borg, which is
why I sent this e-mail out. If people have another concern I'm happy
to try to address it.
> On 4 October 2012 21:46, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 4 October 2012 21:37, Monty <monty...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What/Where is the backroom?
>> I'm lead to believe it's behind the Laser Cutter. I'm prepping my
>> spelunking gear for Monday.
>> Matt
>>> On Thursday, 4 October 2012 20:42:16 UTC+1, Matthew Copperwaite wrote:
>>>> TL;DR: Borg is useful, it will be moved in to the backroom and we will
>>>> monitor power consumption.
On 4 October 2012 20:41, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Obviously Borg may still consume more power and some people are
> concerned about the extra cost. We (tgreer and me) will be monitoring
> the usage as closely as we can, our goal is to be under 275W.
> Admittedly a number I plucked out of my arse but seems like a
> reasonable goal based upon similar hardware that is heavily used. We
> costed this to be about £27 per month but obviously this is the
> maximum and we aim to be well under that. If it goes over 275W
> regularly we can then have a discussion about how best to either
> reduce it, or using a different solution entirely.
If you can keep it below 300W, and you're removing Babbage, then you
have my go-ahead. Babbage needs replacing with a better machine. If
it's using more power than that, then I'd like to see exactly what
extra benefit it's giving the space.
I agree with Solexious that the back room isn't going to be big enough
to put the laser cutter in, but I'm not entirely sure what that has to
do with the core of this discussion anyway.
On 4 October 2012 21:14, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure, I understand that. Let's say we don't move the Laser Cutter in
> there and we do move Borg in, are we good to move the Laser Cutter
> around a little bit?
I would rather the cutter wasn't moved around at all as its easy
to misalign it with bumps and cause a couple of hours of tweaking to get it
back on its feet. If its totally necessary give me a shout and I will come
down to help :)
On 4 October 2012 22:14, Charles Yarnold <charlesyarn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 October 2012 21:14, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Sure, I understand that. Let's say we don't move the Laser Cutter in
>> there and we do move Borg in, are we good to move the Laser Cutter
>> around a little bit?
> I would rather the cutter wasn't moved around at all as its easy to misalign
> it with bumps and cause a couple of hours of tweaking to get it back on its
> feet. If its totally necessary give me a shout and I will come down to help
> :)
Yes, I completely agree with both you and Russ there. I was under the
impression the Laser Cutter was in the way of the door but a quick
look at the cams show it is clearly not and can be totally ignored
from this discussion.
+1 to the general idea of having one of these servers doing useful tasks
and replacing some of the aging kit that is currently consuming space and
power anyway.
If the team sorting this stuff out can produce some actual figures and a
sensible plan for the use of the equipment then we can make an informed
decision. So far all we seem to have is wild guesses and supposition.
Phil
-- " et cognoscetis veritatem et veritas liberabit vos. "
On Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:41:53 +0100, Matthew Copperwaite
<mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> TL;DR: Borg is useful, it will be moved in to the backroom and we will
> monitor power consumption.
> I'm open to better suggestions there does seem a general consensus
> that it Borg is a good idea, and a very vocal minority totally against
> it for one reason or another. Hopefully greater transparency and a
> proper plan will improve that.
On Thu, 4 Oct 2012, Matthew Copperwaite wrote:
> On 4 October 2012 21:49, Kimball Johnson <kimb...@bowerham.net> wrote:
> > That sounds like the darkroom/bio lab. That's not an available room.
> Don't worry, if it's obviously in use we're not going to start
> throwing servers in there.
It's the room to the left of the darkroom/biolab ("The Otters pocket").
It currently has, in the handbasin area:
The vacuum kit, currently bring worked on by Sci. This stuff is important and should not be messed about with in anyway.
A broken bandsaw - i talked to Phil about it recently and he was of the opinion that it was junk and should be chucked. If anyone knows anything about bandsaws and wants to have a look at it that would be great.
and in the toilet area:
Some long large dia. plastic tubing that was the golf ball race/cupcake delivery system thing.
some golf balls.
some parts for an electic bike conversion (or something like that), with an expired(?) DNH sticker - I phoned the number on the sticker but got no reply to the message i left, it can be chucked out now.
There was a load of other stuff in the toilet area that i clared out over the last week or 2 with a view to putting the 19in rack that came back from emfcamp in that room, but it's clear now that we can't really justify putting a full rack in there, and there isn't really enough room for it anyway. (It would have to go in a corner and it would be a real pain to mount stuff in it).
That room dosn't have power or a network connection, it also carries the fume extraction pipe from the laser cutter and everything in the room is covered in a thin layer of brownish gunk from mdf cutting fumes. Personaly I don't think it's a good place to put a server cos of the fumes, but we don't have much choice.
We could put it on a shelf high up in one of the real toilets. The noise wouldn't be a problem and it would help to keep the toilets warm (esp. important as we get into winter!) and the pretty flashing lights would give people something to look at while they do there business :P
P.S. The space has a nameing scheme for servers etc:
Maybe 'neumann' since it will have multiple vm's on it?
P.P.S. in case it isn't clear to people this vm machine will be running 24/7 (as it's a replacement for babbage), The 'monster' machine is a seperate idea, and will only be on when we are using it, and may not be i the space for ever.
> > On 4 October 2012 21:46, Matthew Copperwaite <mattc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 4 October 2012 21:37, Monty <monty...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> What/Where is the backroom?
> >> I'm lead to believe it's behind the Laser Cutter. I'm prepping my
> >> spelunking gear for Monday.
> >> Matt
> >>> On Thursday, 4 October 2012 20:42:16 UTC+1, Matthew Copperwaite wrote:
> >>>> TL;DR: Borg is useful, it will be moved in to the backroom and we will
> >>>> monitor power consumption.
If Borg is intended to run VMs, does that include desktops? If so, why not use it to replace Lovelace/Tesla as well? The only constantly utilised system in the space seems to be Babbage, VMs and "net-access terminal" are both infrequently used. If power use is a big concern and we're upgrading hardware anyway, why not run them all on one machine as several VMs?
Also, with all but one of the computer systems (the lasercutter PC) being in unit 24, why the aim to fit it in unit 23? Seems like it'd mean spreading upkeep a bit wide. (also the laser has had problems with proximity to the plasma cutter and welders, I'd be concerned even more delicate equipment like a server being moreso)
> TL;DR: Borg is useful, it will be moved in to the backroom and we will
> monitor power consumption.
> So first off the 'eatallthepower' machine that is/was in the main room
> will not be Borg, we're going for a lower power version. There's been
> a lot of debate about Borg. Most of the concern has been about:
> 1. That it is taking up space,
> 2. Will it be useful,
> 3. The electricity costs.
> I am pro Borg but these are valid concerns. Usefulness is a pretty
> easy one to deal with. It can be used for many things including
> recording the cams to give poor Babbage a bit of breathing room,
> putting individual shell accounts on there so Babbage doesn't get
> overloaded and eventually putting Babbage out to pasture. Other
> suggestions have included giving people an environment for
> crosscompiling (moving it from Lovelace) and moving a lot of the
> random computers around the space that do just one thing.
> This will have the benefit of saving us some power by sharing it in
> one machine. This goes some way to help offset the extra power Borg
> will take.
> Obviously Borg may still consume more power and some people are
> concerned about the extra cost. We (tgreer and me) will be monitoring
> the usage as closely as we can, our goal is to be under 275W.
> Admittedly a number I plucked out of my arse but seems like a
> reasonable goal based upon similar hardware that is heavily used. We
> costed this to be about 27 per month but obviously this is the
> maximum and we aim to be well under that. If it goes over 275W
> regularly we can then have a discussion about how best to either
> reduce it, or using a different solution entirely.
> We will of course be keeping a careful eye on the power consumption to
> get a baseline. We'll also try to get a gauge from Babbage, Lovelace
> and Tesla to have a comparison.
> As for location, we have devised a cunning plan. It has been
> previously discussed that the Laser Cutter be placed in the back room
> in the workshop, potentially we could move that in there and stack the
> Borg underneath it. It's not ideal, it may not fit, and we need magic
> solexious approval, but it's worth a try, and it gets it out of the
> main or quiet areas. I'll be in the space on Monday so I'll attempt to
> measure stuff up and move whatever needs moving (help would be
> appreciated). Tgreer is north of the border until Tuesday so it will
> be worked on then.
> I'm open to better suggestions there does seem a general consensus
> that it Borg is a good idea, and a very vocal minority totally against
> it for one reason or another. Hopefully greater transparency and a
> proper plan will improve that.
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Jasper Wallace <jas...@pointless.net> wrote:
> A broken bandsaw - i talked to Phil about it recently and he was of the
> opinion that it was junk and should be chucked. If anyone knows anything
> about bandsaws and wants to have a look at it that would be great.
I'm not sure which one this is (there have been so many ..) but if
it's the vertical one I bought from Earthshine's friend, and which
eventually burnt out the motor, it's fine to chuck it away. Though I
thought it already had been, so it might be a different one...
> On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:18 AM, Jasper Wallace <jas...@pointless.net> wrote:
>> A broken bandsaw - i talked to Phil about it recently and he was of the
>> opinion that it was junk and should be chucked. If anyone knows anything
>> about bandsaws and wants to have a look at it that would be great.
> I'm not sure which one this is (there have been so many ..) but if
> it's the vertical one I bought from Earthshine's friend, and which
> eventually burnt out the motor, it's fine to chuck it away. Though I
> thought it already had been, so it might be a different one...
On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 1:59 AM, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
> I'm curious about a couple of things;
> If Borg is intended to run VMs, does that include desktops? If so, why not
> use it to replace Lovelace/Tesla as well? The only constantly utilised
Not sure how you'd provide the screen /.console, which is a
fundamental part of having Lovelace. A thin client is a possibility
but people seem to be impatient with low-performance machines and a
think client is always going to be slower than something with local
processing.
> Also, with all but one of the computer systems (the lasercutter PC) being in
> unit 24, why the aim to fit it in unit 23? Seems like it'd mean spreading
The big advantage would be keeping a relatively noisy machine out of
the main room. If it's not noisy (I'm not sure which machine is
proposed, maybe it's quiet) it matters less.
> upkeep a bit wide. (also the laser has had problems with proximity to the
> plasma cutter and welders, I'd be concerned even more delicate equipment
> like a server being moreso)
Exactly what warning does OSX need? maybe a 'This may cause you to buy
overpriced shit' warning.
Seriosly though, if we're gunna be moving out soon, is it worth doing
lots of heavy moving and putting up new cabnets? might just be better
to wait until we get a new space
On 4 October 2012 22:41, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
> Can we mount it in a filing cabinet in there? And install OSX 10.5 on it?
> With appropriate warning sign, of course.
So there is a server rack but for the reasons Jonty explained
(admittedly after your e-mail) it would most likely be impractical.
We'll be looking at other 'solutions'.
As for installing a particular OS, I don't see why not but let's not
start choosing the colour of the curtains just yet.
I picked 'borg' as it was on the list of potential names
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Borg). Although I did also mostly
choose it because it was a large, annoying square box and was going to
'assimilate' other systems in the space.
> Maybe 'neumann' since it will have multiple vm's on it?
