Autonomous Infrastructure

You should make this a proposal.

Would be amazing. This thread: https://www.loomio.org/d/Z7dPrGBI/business-management-software might signal* that it's a challenge to operate with such autonomy.

*like me, have others switched to Signal : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software) ?

Hi Steven. I've seen discussion amongst those that know about such stuff that Signal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Lots of talk about http://matrix.org being a better option...

Absolutely! Two threads to this:
Physical infrastructure - DCs, racks etc - Brighton DX one co-op example
Cloud infrastructure - thread already on Slack about co-op cloud

Just to say that when we were setting up earlier this year (We Are Open Co-op) our aim was to be entirely self-sufficient and away from proprietary providers. We attempted to self-install Etherpad, and to use the Sandstorm.io range of apps.

Unfortunately, practicalities and pragmatism won the day, but we'd definitely be up for collaborating on this. We've got a face-to-face planning session from today (Weds) until Friday so I'll make sure we discuss this at some point.

Do we have a sense of who would take the lead on this? I think an audit of what people are already using might be a sensible starting point :)

I think Doug's suggestion is good to I have created a wiki page where co-ops can list what applications they are self-hosting for their internal use, I think I have added the main ones Webarchitects use but have probably forgotten several, I also added a couple that I think Outlandish and Agile are using.

In terms of Brian's point:

I worry this is purity for purity's sake, and that actually we could get more done if we allow ourselves to get a little dirty.

Are you saying you are against us having an aim to "to self-host our own internet infrastructure"?

I'm not proposing we should host everything ourselves, just that we should aim to, self-hosting Loomio doesn't appear to be a practical option at this time, for example.

I suspect that if we all document what systems we are all already using we might find that between us are already self-hosting everything we might need...

Stepping back a bit, would it help to start a wiki page for ideas regarding what our overall aims might be? I missed the session at Wortley Hall on this but think it might be good to have some concrete things on the agenda for the next time we all meet face to face?

Thanks Chris! I actually meant what people were using overall as we don't know what we don't know. For example, it's fine to make the decision to use Trello once you know that Jira and Wekan exist, but if you think that's the only app in the world that works like that, it's not an informed choice.

I like the fact that the wiki page is set up in a way that not only lists the app but also what it does does. I've hacked the format to add a section on the apps that We Are Open Co-op would like to transition towards; many of them are a click away if we had a collective instance of Sandstorm.io :)

Aside: our co-op is a consortium of limited companies, so we have a 'bring your own infrastructure' for the most part. My company, Dynamic Skillset, basically runs off Google G-Suite as it makes my life easy. If anyone has experience with other solutions (e.g. MyKolab) please message me off-list!

Thanks @dougbelshaw for the wiki edits, I have made it broader still, hows this?

This is a page to document what self-hosted systems co-ops are using, would like to use, non-self hosted systems they would like to find alternatives for and systems they are hosting for others.

Also there was a session on this at Wortley Hall and I guess some things from that page could be merged in?

Just to remain as the sole dissident voice in this conversation :)...

I'm not against hosting our own tech, per se, I'm against expending effort for bad reasons.

Doing it to bring business to CoTech members feels like a good reason to me. But doing it to gain some kind of digital autonomy just doesn't do anything for me. You all know much more about it than me, so I'm out of my depth here, but my understanding of cloud services is that their USP is the effort and cost they save you compared to self hosting. If another coop could host all Outlandish's tech, then great, but if we need to maintain it ourselves, less great.

Maybe if you could just clarify that point for me (in terms of what would this mean for Outlandish - what extra effort we would have to put in to running our own systems) then perhaps I could drop out of the chat and leave you all to it :)

There are really two threads to this conversation:

1. has 'infrastructure' meaning tools and services for internal use that CoTech members currently buy/use from cloud/SaaS providers, and (possibly) some of the infrastructure supporting these further down the stack.

2. has 'infrastructure' meaning the infrastructure that supports services that CoTech members currently use to provide service to customers and ,may bundle in their products - eg servers for web hosting.

While autonomy, independence and capturing more of the value chain are relevant to both:

1. • being about internal matters - has the discussion focused on autonomy

2. is more about value chain.

2 is also where my attention personally is focused. I'm not too bothered about 1 personally - although only because it doesn't affect me much.

So in answer to @brianspurling "why bother":

Two business reasons:

a) We coops can add more value if we run more of the stuff. Simple as that.

b) In many cases AWS and similar are expensive and not actually that easy to use.

(There is also an argument that says that Amazon is a ghastly company, but you don't have to go there. There are - in some cases, not all - plain old business reasons to use alternatives.)

Now, a coop cloud provider could, if done well:

Provide good vfm
Provide great service
Also, as a side point be coop and green(ish)

It would also be cool.

Shaun