Re: CDN Test Results - Should We Continue Using a CDN?

[Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com>]

Hello Ludovic!

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Hi Maxim,
>
> Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> Pardon me for asking, but how does using a CDN frees up resources?
>> Aren't the usual infrastructure preserved (e.g., ci.guix.info)? It
>> seems it'd be an extra layer to maintain?
>
> One of the motivations for this is that berlin.guixsd.org
> aka. ci.guix.info is a single machine, the head of our main build farm.
> If that machine goes down, we have no substitutes.  Having a cache like
> a CDN provides some redundancy: if the build farm goes down, we’ll at
> least still have cached substitutes, which leaves us time to fix the
> build farm.

I see. I understand that having the service continue running smoothly
while fixing ci.guix.info must be a good stress reliever.

[...]

>> I'd rather see this (even modest) amount put into the hands of a
>> motivated hacker to work on a distributed solution instead of
>> encouraging a company which do not share our free software ideals.
>
> As discussed before, I definitely sympathize with this.  Heck, if
> someone had told me I’d argue in favor of a CDN after all this time
> spent filling in CloudFare CAPTCHAs just because CloudFare decided that
> user privacy doesn’t matter and that Tor users should be penalized, I’d
> have laughed.  ;-)
>
> So it’s definitely not an easy decision.  Nevertheless, we have to
> acknowledge the fact that our current substitute delivery infrastructure
> is fragile.  If people volunteer to maintain a set of mirrors with some
> load balancing, that’s great, I’m all for it.  But for now, we don’t
> have that at all, hence the CDN.

Right. I understand better the motivation behind the CDN now, thank you
for taking the time to explain. Resiliency is indeed welcome and maybe
even necessary until better things come.

Maxim