[BioPython] Open Bio Project(s) Awarded Sun Microsystems Hardware Grant

[chris dagdigian]

{Apologies in advance those who see multiple copies of this email}


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                       Open-Bio Project Announcement:
                       Sun Microsystems Hardware Grant
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Greetings from Copenhagen and the BOSC'2001 and ISMB'2001 conferences
where many of our members and hard working volunteer developers are
currently attending scientific talks and events in between
collaborative coding and hacking hijinks at the conference message center.

On behalf of the open-bio.org core team and all of our various project
leaders and managers I'd like to take this time to formally announce
that the Open Bioinformatics Foundation has been awarded a significant
hardware grant from Sun Microsystems.

This is a very significant award and represents a milestone
achievement in our collective project history. The servers and storage
systems donated by Sun will allow us to roll out our third generation
of servers and project infrastructure services.

The list price of the donated hardware is approx. $39,000 USD and
includes the following components:

     o Three Netra T1 high density rackmount servers
     o One Netra st A1000 RAID storage array
     o One Sun Cobalt RAQ 4 rackmount server appliance

Our current plans are to split the multiple servers out according to task:

     1) Web, email listserv, DNS & FTP services
     2) Core project development server with hardware RAID
     3) anonymous CVS front-end and nightly build system

A firewall/IDS system is being worked on as a separate project.

We will be building, integrating and rolling out these systems in
stages over the next several months. Expect to see a few more
announcements and solicitations for volunteer assistance as things get
under way.

Concurrent with the integration of our new hardware will be a project
aimed at rolling out a new content management system and a new unified
look and feel for our various websites.

The following Sun employees provided invaluable assistance during the
grant and application process: Loralyn Mears & Stefan Unger. The grant
would not have been awarded to us without their efforts and support.



On behalf of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation,

Chris Dagdigian
<dag@sonsorol.org>