dovecot - Apr 2013 - Questions about the upcoming Object Storage Plugin for 2.2

Hi Timo,

I'm curious and have questions about the new Object Storage Plugin 
(OSP), and how it can be leveraged by an SMB like us.

First, am I reading this right where it could be used as a kind of 
'live/realtime backup' solution, where everything is stored *both* 
locally and in the cloud, with two-way syncing, ie, so local users could 
access the local server for faster access, and when outside the office, 
they'd access the cloud based storage and any changes made there are 
sync'd back to the local server? Or is it intended to be more as an 
alternative storage for storing older emails in a separate namespace? Or 
both/either?

Second, is SIS fully supported by the OSP?

Third - I'm a little confused by the Amazon S3 pricing page, especially 
on how to try to estimate the costs for usage (bandwidth, etc)... do you 
have any idea how to go about estimating that? Is there some kind of 
process we could use on our existing server to measure it over a given 
period of time that would give us an estimate of what to expect if we 
decided to switch over?

Last - have you established pricing for the OSP? Will it be per user, or 
per MB/GB, per month (or per year), or just a one-time cost? And/or will 
you include/bundle it with any/all of your support tiers?

Sorry if I'm jumping the gun here...

Thanks, really looking forward to the 2.2 release!

-- 

Best regards,

Charles

On 2013-04-11 8:31 AM, Charles Marcus <CMarcus at Media-Brokers.com>
wrote:
> Third - I'm a little confused by the Amazon S3 pricing page,
Specifically, the 'Request Pricing' shown here:

http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/

Also...

Would the plugin support the ability to use two different storage 
'namespaces', e.g., one for primary email storage (stored on S3's 
'Standard' storage tier), and one for 'older or 'archived'
emails stored
on the much cheaper 'Glacier' system/tier?

Probably not that big a deal though, since the cost for a TB of storage 
at the Standard tier is still only .095/GB/mo, which only comes to 
$95/mo... wow, this is looking better all the time...

-- 

Best regards,

Charles

On 11.4.2013, at 15.31, Charles Marcus <CMarcus at Media-Brokers.com>
wrote:
> I'm curious and have questions about the new Object Storage Plugin
(OSP), and how it can be leveraged by an SMB like us.
I'll give some more complete answers and examples and such within a few
days.. Or probably better if I write down some scenarios to some web page or
something.
> First, am I reading this right where it could be used as a kind of
'live/realtime backup' solution, where everything is stored *both*
locally and in the cloud, with two-way syncing, ie, so local users could access
the local server for faster access, and when outside the office, they'd
access the cloud based storage and any changes made there are sync'd back to
the local server? Or is it intended to be more as an alternative storage for
storing older emails in a separate namespace? Or both/either?
Currently you have a local cache (e.g. 100 GB total). You can also use dsync
replication to replicate it somewhere, either locally or to another server. With
dsync I think you can basically run it any way you want.
> Second, is SIS fully supported by the OSP?
Not currently, but could be added.
> Third - I'm a little confused by the Amazon S3 pricing page, especially
on how to try to estimate the costs for usage (bandwidth, etc)... do you have
any idea how to go about estimating that? Is there some kind of process we could
use on our existing server to measure it over a given period of time that would
give us an estimate of what to expect if we decided to switch over?
If you have large enough local cache, you're not really doing anything
except uploading messages. Also index files are periodically being uploaded for
each user (every 5 minutes if they have changed), but they are often also not
full index files but smaller diffs for them (although upload bandwidth is free
so doesn't really matter either). So ideally there would be no download
costs at all, because nothing is downloaded. And the number of requests per user
per day .. I haven't really counted, but I'd guess between a few hundred
and a thousand. Lets say a thousand, which means with 100 users/year it's
$182.50.
> Last - have you established pricing for the OSP? Will it be per user, or
per MB/GB, per month (or per year), or just a one-time cost? And/or will you
include/bundle it with any/all of your support tiers?
All of the above, I think ;)