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Contributing € 12
Libre VPS 1 GB RAM, 1 CPU core, 25 GB SSD storage, 1 month subscription
1 TB transfer, unlimited network in, 100 Mbps network out. Special campaign price.
> 03 Backers
First 5 Days
20 | 12 | 2016
Newsletter now available
English: https://lists.vikings.net/listinfo/newsletter-en
German: https://lists.vikings.net/listinfo/newsletter-de
First, a big thank you to everyone who has shown support thus far for our project, also to those who have helped to spread the word on Twitter, GNU social, email, word-of-mouth etc. - thank you. Please keep on supporting us!
Your efforts have helped us reach us this critical phase and we are looking forward to achieving full funding.
However, the campaign has only just begun, and there is still a long way to go!
We have received a significant amount of valuable feedback since we've started and have noted several common themes which will be addressed below:
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Libre-Friendly Hardware Matters
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Cost of Sustainability and High-Availability
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Solutions for Businesses and Individual Users
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On Finding a Location
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Rewards/Services
Libre-Friendly Hardware Matters
The world has already entered the final stages of the computing lockdown predicted over a decade ago. When you purchase a new computer, you have zero control over the always-on, highly privileged, increasingly network-enabled firmware installed on that machine. Already, there are scandals around manufacturers abusing this high level of privilege to install persistent malware on machines sold to consumers, or simply leave the door open for someone else to do so. We can reasonably expect criminal actors have or will figure out similar methods to compromise these machines without the owner ever being aware.
For example the AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP). This is basically AMD's version of the Intel Management Engine. It has all of the same basic security and freedom issues as the the "Intel Management Engine" (Intel ME) has, although the implementation is different.
Intel ME is present on all modern Intel processors and is essentially a backdoor with full access to the entire computer - a security disaster waiting to happen. Due to the deeply entrenched interests of current big players (e.g., Intel and AMD), and the presumed jungle of legally binding contracts those interests have with their myriad partners, this situation will never improve and will only worsen.
Vikings, backed by the free/libre software community, represents a unique opportunity to reverse this dangerous trend by deliberately deciding for a open-hosting platform. Remember, free and open-source software allows everybody to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve it.
We are currently using the “Vikings D16” (based on original “ASUS KGPE-D16™” hardware, branded to “Vikings D16”).
This is a recent and powerful server mainboard that respects your freedom. The boot firmware for the ASUS KGPE-D16™ was ported to coreboot and has been merged into Libreboot in 2016. It functions with absolutely no proprietary software or firmware blobs.
While the Vikings D16 is something we are able to use now, we and many industry-leaders see the future on the libre-friendly, owner-controllable POWER platform. Anyone will find computing power, security, and flexibility on POWER. A central component of the POWER architecture is the firmware, which is being developed and provided as free/libre software under the roof of the openPOWER foundation.
Coming up in a special campaign update: More information about how to secure libre-friendly hardware in hosting situations and the POWER platform
Cost of Sustainability and High-Availability
An often-made comment is about the quite high campaign goal for the intangible rewards Vikings provides.
We have calculated our campaign goal thoroughly to cover all needs for a professionally built, secure data center for both business and individual users, and eventualities that might occur.
Speaking in numbers, we have planned for a initial power-capacity of approximately 120kW, keeping in mind that we could expand at some point in the future (modularity).
All components included in the data center, will be designed for this initial capacity. The main components being UPS system, generators, climate control systems, electric power infrastructure, raised floor and the approximate room size for all equipment. Many components will be built redundantly. In practical terms “redundant” means that e.g. a 120kW cooling system is built twice at approximately twice the cost.
We plan to be as efficient and sustainable as possible. This is particularly critical for data centers since almost 100% of the energy that goes in, is converted into heat. A traditional method is to cool the air down again (circulating air), which costs a lot of energy (and money). We will instead use modern methods of cooling where no or little mechanical cooling is needed. If possible, we would like to explore unsing the heat for heating adjacent buildings instead of wasting it.
Efficient and sustainable cooling systems are usually more expensive than “simple” compressor chillers. The extra procurement costs for energy optimized system are amortized after approximately a couple of years, depending on the energy input and the design maybe even earlier.
Coming up in a campaign update: More information about efficient cooling.
Additionally, we will build a number of Vikings D16 machines on which we will host the services we offer (such as email, VPS, VPN), the number of servers depending on the number of backers we have attracted by then.
Speaking in numbers again, a rather high-end D16 server computer configuration with 256GB RAM, two CPUs, a larger number of high-end SSDs/NVMe, SAS-controller, high-end NICs, redundant PSUs, server case and other parts costs roughly between 6,000 and 10,000 EUR/piece.
Starting with a certain size allows us to offer rewards (or services) at a compatible price.
What's more: Have you heard about crowdfunding campaigns that were successfully funded and the companies running them went bankrupt shortly after because they didn't plan for all costs and/or common eventualities? That happened multiple times.
Vikings as a hosting platform has been in various colocation-situations in state-of-the-art and not-so-state-of-the-art third party data centers before (in Duesseldorf, Dortmund, Frankfurt and Amsterdam) since the late 90's. Vikings also has built and operated a small, modular data center in Frankfurt/Germany for 4 years, which was eventually sold. Over the time, we have grown in experience and gained a lot knowledge on how to operate something complicated as a data center/hosting provider. Knowledge which we are bringing into this project.
Solutions for businesses and individual users
Vikings has grown as a solutions provider for both individual users and businesses. We would like to address both groups with our crowdfunding campaign. While free/libre-software is equally important for both, some people have suggested to provide different levels of service for each group that, for example, guarantee different uptimes or provide different levels of service.
It can be agreed on that both groups often need different solutions, but we will not begin to treat an individual customer differently compared to a business customer for the sake of being “cheaper”. Instead, we would like to offer services that are affordable and of high quality to all, and we will not compromise on service or quality.
Coming up in a campaign update: More information about solutions for businesses and individuals
On Finding a Location
As already pointed out in the campaign text, Vikings will not build completely new structures, this would require a totally different campaign goal which most likely wouldn’t be doable by the means of crowdfunding. Instead, we will move into an existing building and make the necessary changes.
What exactly that means depends on a couple of specifics. In one building this could mean that we would need an additional room-in-room system for fire protection, in another building this could mean that we only would have to remove existing water-carrying-lines in order to be able to move in. Generally it can be said that many commercial buildings are quite similar, allowing a similar set up in many buildings.
We currently have Frankfurt/Main and Berlin in mind. Both cities have excellent conditions for building a data center. For example fiber connection and power grid infrastructure. Quality of life in either city should also help us in attracting qualified people to work with us in the future. In both cities, we have already certain buildings in our focus, so we won't start from zero.
Deciding on a location at this point in time would be wasted opportunity. Something better could turn up during our campaign because we are keeping a close look on new opportunities. We rather have multiple options available which enable us to choose the perfect building as soon as we're funded.
Rewards & Services
Some clever people have suggested alternative and more user-friendly ways of arranging the rewards/services you can back us with. Unfortunately we are not able to implement these on Goteo. this on the grounds that the campaign is already active.
We are sorry for the “mess” and the sorting issues with the rewards/services. Our initial idea was to offer the possibility of combining different services under different conditions, which would however resulter in an almost insane amount of individual rewards/services, since Goteo does not provide for this. We therefore eliminated many more options, such as longer subscriptions for VPSs and others.
Some issues can be bypassed by ordering multiple quantities or by choosing the sum you want to support us with. Despite the warning “I renounce to my personal reward, I just want to support the project” we will be able to convert this into a credit for rewards/services. That being said, we urge you to choose multiple quantities instead, so we can estimate which reward/services has been chosen at the end of the campaign.
If you can't afford a reward/service that interests you, please choose an individual pledge that fits you to support our cause. Any pledge is a welcomed pledge. Spread the word to everyone you know and then some. Help explain why this is important and make people aware of what’s at stake.
Please don’t hesitate to give us your feedback or ask questions:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vikingslibre
GNU social: https://quitter.se/vikings
Email: https://vikings.net/contact.html
Our thanks go out to Raptor Engineering for allowing use of campaign material and to Libreboot for allowing use of website material.
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