Without wanting to hi-jack Willy’s thread I thought it would be the right moment to raise attention for the ‘svr1’ server which NuDroid relies on since December 2014. Svr1 hosts the blockexplorer nubitsexplorer.nu and act as a backend server for NuDroid.
Termination of service
After 12-15 months the Custodian will gauge the appetite of the Nushares
stakeholders whether they like to invest in continuation of this
service and with that continue to cover the maintenance fee for another
12-18 months after the agreed 18 months period. When this is not the
case notifications on the NuBits forum will appear before the service is
shut down and at least 1 month in advance. Transfer of hosting services
to another Custodian is also an option after this 18 month period.
We are now in month 13 and I like to hear feedback from the Shareholders about the continuation of this server. Together with “Anton” both servers are setup as backup for each other in the NuDroid client (also called hot failover).
The current server runs on a very limited infrastructure (1Gb memory, 1 CPU, 20Gb SSD) for about 10 NBT/month. It also has Cloudflare PRO level protection and SSL certificates to prevent easy hi-jacks/imposters.
Given the current issues it has with the Nu daemon I suggest that we upgrade to a 2Gb, 2 CPU server at double the cost rather sooner than later.
A proposal grant for another half year would look as follows:
Server 2Gb, 2CPU 20 NBT x 6 months = 120 NBT
Cloudflare PRO 12,50 NBT/month x 6 = 75 NBT (shared subscription with LiquidBits)
Total: 120+75+180 = 375 NBT -/- remaining grant 1/3 of NBT450 (*) =150 = 225 NBT.
I identified three options:
Upgrading together with the start of the “Anton” grant in the next few weeks at above cost. This basically strenghtens NuDroid’s continuity further as it would bring “SVR1” to a similar level as “Anton”
Continuing the current service till July 2016 as per contract and then discontinue.
Continuing the current service and review this closer to the end of contract e.g. in 3 months time.
Interested to hear some feedback before drafting a proposal.
The main issue is the memory as the Nu daemon is a real memory hog. 1Gb appears to inadequate as many forum posts from others have shown e.g. with Raspberry Pi. The processor can deal with it easily, it stay under 35% on the VPS all the time. I hoped that the problem would go away with the release of NU 2.1, but I doubt that would be the case, although it is likely to improve the memory issue somewhat.
Stepping up the VPS from 1Gb to 2Gb memory with my current provider would require a 20 NBT/month fee.
When no one else is wanting to comment on this I prefer to have it up for voting as per option 1 in first post (OP), but extend it for a year. Sounds fine?
At least one the I’m aware of!
And I’ve found that NuDroid is very useful to show people the utility they can have with NBT.
More than once I offered people to pay me some bucks with NuDroid instead of giving me cash - to no avail so far.
I won’t give up, though
Given the feedback, although limited I decided to put this up for voting with a few adjustments:
Summary:
Proposal to upgrade the original server for NuDroid and double the memory capacity and continue to host for another 12 months. The proposal takes into account already paid funds from the original NuDroid grant. Further details here:
Although I am not a user of Android, I think it is important to offer a solid NuDroid experience because ultimately NuBits is about payment in daily life and we must show to the world that NuBits is not only about liquidiy on exchanges.
Also, NuDroid should pave the way for releasing an equivalent app on iOS.
Exactly!
Nu can’t afford to be used only on exchanges fot hedging forever.
The NBT/BTC pairs cost Nu a lot of money just to prove the concept and to advertize Nu’s product(s).
The future of Nu will be products for payment, other profitable services - or bankruptcy.
That would be in the long term at best. It costs about 20k to develop and there is the uncertainty that Apple rejects it from their App store at their whims. In my opinion not a very compelling business case unfortunately.
Even if Windows Phone has much less market share, it might be better to create an app for that as Microsoft is much more blockchain friendly than Apple:
Just upgraded the VPS to the new environment with 2CPU and 2Gb RAM. The server also runs Nu v2.1. Together that should vouch for a much more stable server going forward.
All just tested with NuDroid and appears to work fine. Blockexplorer is also up to date. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with either of those or drop a comment in gitter: https://gitter.im/Cybnate/NuDroid
Just a quick reminder and update:
NuDroid is still ‘on air’ and functional. Just upgraded the server with the new v3.0 client. Hoping this provides a better stability going forward.
I’ve just upgraded the NuDroid server to 4Gb of memory. It is no longer possible to run the current blockchain in 2Gb as per the last contract in the OP.
This also fixed the problems with the blockexplorer: https://svr1.nubitsexplorer.nu/chain/Nubits which is now up to date again. Although you can still keep and spend NuBits in NuDroid the Shapeshift functionality is broken as NuBits was delisted late last year. Apparently there was no reliable blockchain available and calls to respond from Shapeshift went dead when some key members of the community went MIA.
I have reached out to Shapeshift today hoping to have at least NuBits and possibly NSR relisted again in the next few weeks or months. If this is successful I hope the shareholders will support me again in hosting and maintaining NuDroid going forward. I will also have to reassess any new developments for NuDroid as the last roadmap is becoming at least partially outdated. I will come back to that later, most likely when I have secured Shapeshift and shareholder support.
The current contract for the NuDroid server has run out last January so I’m now funding this myself at ~ USD50,- / month which I believe is not a desirable and sustainable situation for such a key service.
Edit: there still appears to be another problem with the blockexplorer as it has stopped at 6 March due to unknown addresses and reorganisations.
