On behalf of the PSF Infrastructure committee, I am happy to report that we have reached a recommendation for a new issue tracker for Python!<br><br>But first, I want to extend our thanks to all who stepped forward to provide the committee with a test installation of an issue tracker to use as a basis of our evaluations. Having several trackers to compare may have made this more time-consuming, but it helped to realize what people did and did not like about the various issue trackers and solidify what we thought python-dev would want. Thank you!
<br><br>The Infrastructure committee (Andrew Kuchling, Thomas Wouters, Barry Warsaw, Martin v. Loewis, and myself; Richard Jones excused himself from the discussion because of personal bias) met and discussed the four trackers being considered to replace SourceForge: Launchpad, JIRA, Roundup, and Trac. After evaluating the trackers on several points (issue creation, querying, etc.), we reached a tie between JIRA and Roundup in terms of pure tracker features.
<br><br>For JIRA, members found it to be a very powerful, polished issue tracker. But some found it to be a little more complex than they would like in an issue tracker.<br><br>Roundup, on the other hand, had the exact opposite points. While not as polished as JIRA, it is the simpler tracker which some committee members preferred.
<br><br>As for Trac and Launchpad, both had fundamental issues that led to them not being chosen in the end. Most of the considerations had to do with customization or UI problems.<br><br>With JIRA and Roundup being considered equal overall in terms of the tracker themselves, there is the tie-breaking issue of hosting. Atlassian, the company that created JIRA, has offered us free hosting of a JIRA installation. This cannot be overlooked as keeping an issue tracker running is not easy and requires supervision at various hours of the day to make sure possible downtime is minimized. There is also always the issue of upgrading, etc. that come with any major software installation.
<br><br>Details on the hosting is pasted in at the end of this email as provided by Jonathan Nolen of Atlassian. He has also been cc:ed on this email so as to allow him to answer any questions directly.<br><br>In order for Roundup to be considered equivalent in terms of an overall tracker package there needs to be a sufficient number of volunteer admins (roughly 6 - 10 people) who can help set up and maintain the Roundup installation. If enough people can be gathered, then Roundup will become the recommendation of the committee based on the fact that the trackers are roughly equal but that Roundup is implemented in Python and is FLOSS. If not enough support can be gathered, the committee's recommendation of going with JIRA will stand.
<br><br>If people want Roundup to be considered the tracker we go with by volunteering to be an admin, please email infrastructure at <a href="http://python.org">python.org</a> and state your time commitment, the timezone you would be working from, and your level of Roundup knowledge. Please email the committee by October 16. If enough people step forward we will notify python-dev that Roundup should be considered the recommendation of the committee and graciously turn down Atlassian's offer.
<br><br>-Brett Cannon<br>Chairman, PSF Infrastructure Committee<br><br><br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>[email from Jonathan, unedited, with details about hosting]<br><br><br>Hosting is with
<a href="http://contegix.com">http://contegix.com</a>. They host all of our servers, as<br>well as those of Cenqua, Codehaus, Jive (I think), and a bunch of<br>other folks in the Java community.<br><br>They have engineers online 24x7x365. I've contacted them at all hours
<br>of the night and weekend and never failed to get a response with 5<br>minutes, though they guarantee 30 minutes. The engineers I've worked<br>with have been universally top-notch. They've been able to help with<br>every kind of question I've thrown at them. It's hard to describe how
<br>great they are, but it's like having a full-time sysadmin on staff<br>who knows everything about your systems, who never goes to sleep, and<br>who is always seems chipper at the very thought of making any change<br>you might ask.
<br><br>Ideally, we'd set it up so that the appropriate members of the Python<br>team could contact Contegix directly for any requests you may have.<br>You'll also have direct access yourself if you need to do any work on
<br>your own.<br><br>As far as the export, they will set it up any way you like. The two<br>obvious ways that come to mind are copying the XML backup or a<br>database dump each night (Or whatever frequency you specify). Either
<br>option would allow you to fully restore a JIRA instance to the point<br>of the backup with full history.<br><br>They will pro-actively keep your apps up to date as well. They<br>usually know as soon as we release new versions and will contact your
<br>to arrange upgrades almost immediately. They also perform things like<br>OS upgrades and patches on a regular basis without having to be<br>prompted.<br><br>Contegix will set up monitoring on your server(s) to watch things
<br>like disk-space, memory, CPU and networking usage. If any of those<br>resources starts to get maxed out, they'll let us know and offer<br>advice on how to fix it.<br><br>Right now, we have the Python stuff and the Mailman stuff on one
<br>server. There should be enough capacity for both, but if your usage<br>grows to the point where we need more hardware, we can arrange that<br>(within reason). If you ever needed to make your own arrangements<br>with Contegix, their rates are reasonable, and you can either buy or
<br>lease hardware as you choose. I'm also sure that they would be<br>flexible for a active, popular, open-source project such as Python.<br><br>When Barry and I spoke, he told me that you had four or five other<br>servers scattered around the world running things like SVN, mail and
<br>web. If you would ever be interested in consolidating those services<br>with Contegix, it is likely that we could help you out with those as<br>well. SVN would be a particular benefit, as the Fisheye Plugin for<br>JIRA is really useful, and will perform better over the local
<br>network. It can still be used from your current host, it'll just be a<br>little slower to get new information.<br><br>I should also mention that Atlassian will soon be introducing two new<br>products: Crowd, a user-management/single sign-on solution and
<br>Bamboo, a build server. if you guys are interested in trying either<br>of those, you're welcome to them. I can imagine both might be useful<br>to a project like Python.<br><br>I'm happy to help out, and we continue to be very interested in
<br>seeing the project happen. If there's anything further we can do,<br>don't hesitate to ask.<br><br>Cheers,<br>Jonathan<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>P.S. Here's is Contegix's material about their service:<br><br>
Data Center<br>Contegix's data center is located in the Bandwidth Exchange Building<br>on Walnut Avenue, which is the premier, carrier building for this<br>region. Security is very important to our clients and us. As a<br>
result, access beyond the lobby requires a code access for the<br>elevators. Once someone reaches our floor, all of our perimeter<br>doors require both a card key access combined with a matching<br>biometric palm scan to access our facility. Once someone has been
<br>admitted to our suite, they are then required to log in and IDs<br>checked against our Access Log for customers. Once authenticated, a<br>Customer Badge will be issued. Visitors are only allowed escorted<br>access to the data center and NOC on an as needed basis.
<br><br>In addition to all exterior doors being controlled access, all<br>internal doors leading to the data center also require an additional<br>card scan for access. Within the data center, all customer equipment<br>is located in locked cabinets or cages. In addition to restricted
<br>access, the facility is monitored with digital cameras 24x7 recording<br>all movement within the data center.<br><br>Technical Support<br>Our facility is staffed with Tier 3 Support Engineers 24x7x365. Our<br>engineers are available to assist you with any needs you may have at
<br>any time. Because the highest level of support available is key to<br>both of our businesses, Contegix engineers focus upon keeping your<br>application and data available at all times.<br><br>Therefore, we guarantee all support requests will be responded to
<br>within thirty minutes and the average response is three minutes. In<br>addition, through our custom monitoring system, we are capable of<br>actively monitoring almost anything you would like monitored.<br><br>Many of our engineers are Dell certified technicians. In addition,
<br>we maintain ample stock of spare parts for Dell servers including<br>hard drives, memory, etc. Rest assured, every precaution and measure<br>is taken to ensure your equipment will be up and running should a<br>hardware failure occur.
<br><br>Contegix Network<br>Contegix offers one of the strongest networks available in the<br>industry. Our network infrastructure is fully meshed, running<br>redundant Juniper routers and Foundry BigIron core switches. We have
<br>five Tier 1 providers including Sprint, Level (3), MCI, XO and WilTel<br>running BGP4. Because our data center is located in the Bandwidth<br>Exchange Building, which is the Internet hub for this region, all of<br>our connections to our providers in our managed network are "On Net"
<br>meaning we connect directly to the Internet avoiding local loops and<br>local connections.<br><br>Our core switching infrastructure provides the ability to deliver<br>load balancing without a significant investment in equipment. When
<br>your needs grow, Contegix will be able to deliver.<br><br>Our network is enhanced by our Intelligent Routing Solution and DDoS<br>Mitigation/Protection system, which drastically improves the quality<br>of our network performance and reliability. One of the benefits of
<br>our redundant, intelligently routed network is our 100% Network<br>Uptime guarantee, delivered in writing.<br><br>Power Infrastructure<br>Our power infrastructure was built with redundancy in mind. All power<br>supplied to the data center is clean and constant coming from the
<br>redundant UPS' (AC) or battery plants (DC). The PowerWare UPS<br>systems run in a redundant configuration to maximize reliability.<br>The UPS and battery plants are being constantly charged by our dual<br>grid connection to Ameren. There is an Automatic Transfer Switch
<br>between the two grids. In addition, if power is interrupted to the<br>UPS/battery plants, another Automatic Transfer Switch automatically<br>starts the diesel generator farm. All of this occurs instantaneously<br>without human intervention to eliminate potential mistakes or errors
<br>and maximizing performance.<br><br>Environmental Controls and Protection<br>Our Environmental Systems run in a redundant configuration. Each<br>Environmental Control Unit/CRAC has a redundant "twin" on stand-by to<br>
take over in the event of a failure or service affecting health<br>issue. These units maintain constant temperature (72°) and humidity<br>(45%) in the data center. Contegix has configured our data center<br>with hot and cold aisles for maximum cooling performance.
<br><br>Fire Detection / Suppression is configured with three independent<br>systems. The first two monitor for temperature and smoke. The third<br>system is a VESDA system that inspects air samples with a laser to<br>detect any potential fire hazards prior to an actual fire event. Our
<br>sprinkler system is dry pipe / pre-action which means the sprinkler<br>lines are filled with compressed air, not water.