Folks,
just a quick note to let you know that we were discussing budget options for the Xen Project Test Lab Expansion in 2016 in the December AB meeting. What we agreed was to follow a two-stage approach, on which I will base a more detailed 2016 budget proposal
and a community plan.
A) Provide enough funds for 2016 to fit our the remaining 5U for the Test Lab. This amounts to about 37.5K for new hardware, 12K for installation and set-up in the COLO and a 7.5K Linux Foundation GA charge.
B) After we have filled the rack, we will review the 2016 financials and then decide whether we can afford a second rack in 2016 or whether we need to defer to 2017. We will look at
a) Whether we underspent in some areas in 2016
b) How much financial reserve the project has to maintain to be safe in the long run (there is no clear LF guidance) and whether we thus can eat a little bit into the project's reserve to buy hardware.
c) See how much support from Credativ we are likely to need after 6 months of working with them: the goal is to not unwittingly increase the annual run-rate of the project. Currently the 2016 draft plan assumes a spend of $80K for everything related to
running the various bit of infrastructure for the project, excluding the running of a second rack (including the Linux Foundations GA surcharge). That is nearly 30% of the projects total income and we want to make sure we don't overstretch ourselves. Adding
an extra rack would increase our annual cost base by approx. another $25-27K per year including the GA charge.
Let me know if anyone has any issues with this approach.
Best Regards
Lars
