River Tarnell wrote:
- 3 new databases to provide a redundant replica of each cluster. ~EUR8'000 each, EUR24'000 total.
- a ZWS license for stable, which would improve web hosting reliability by replacing our current software (switchboard). ~EUR1'300
- a paid admin. ~EUR15'000/year
All of these are bigger than what Wikimedia Sverige can afford right now. We could have these numbers as goals for our fundraising during the year, and for a grant application in September, but that wouldn't solve the problem for 2009.
(i understand most of the problem are caused by people having a lack of time, which isn't really something we (= admins) can fix).
It's not a technical system administrator's job, but it's a project coordinator's job to recruit more volunteers as they are needed. It seems we might need more developers, not inventors for new projects, but support developers for existing "stable" projects. Even if they are volunteers, that might incur some travel costs. That's the level (tens or hundreds of euro, rather than thousands) where Wikimedia Sverige can help in the near term.
Besides being able to replicate databases from WMF (input), what is the needed server capacity from usage of the tools (output)? Will the toolserver need capacity upgrades soon? Do you know from statistics which tools require more capacity, and how can we economize with that? If we can postpone the next 8K euro investment by 6 months, that is worth some thinking.
Ah, always this WMF bottleneck. While we're waiting, could we send someone more along Werdna's path?
i don't think we would have much luck trying to get the WMF to employ someone just so we can make them a TS admin.
I have the impression that WMF has more money than they know how to spend. It seems they are slow or late to hire, and might need help in finding talented people. I could be wrong, though.
this server would need to be completely separate from the existing Toolserver infrastructure, which would significantly increase admin workload. it would make more sense for it to be run by someone else, unrelated to the Toolserver.
I agree in full. Perhaps the Norwegians could look at this.