We're growing!

TPA has grown considerably over the years.  I just want to tell everyone thanks for putting up with myself in building up TPA to this level.
First I'd like to take a moment to thank an anonymous donor that made much of this possible, at least to happen this fast.


Change #1 -  All EU servers are being decommissioned.
TPA has maintained a network of 3 EU servers for over 2 years, with the first server being in commission before TPA even existed.

While they function fine, they're paid in Euros, as the US dollar has fell, this has cost more and more every month to maintain.  They're cheap for euros, 20-25 euro each, for enough resources to host several large format sites each.  However costs went from 50 USD for the ones TPA uses to almost 90 USD, this is unacceptable.

There are a couple services that users rely on in the euro zone, this primarily is the high performance CDN that we rely on for the My Little Pony Anniversary Stream, we will make sure to have something at that time for our Euro users.

The secondary reason the EU servers are being decommissioned is that they're not used nearly as much as they used to be.  Before high performance changes were made to Spikebot (more on that later) the servers were transferring large amounts of data as exit nodes to the archive system.  There was very little traffic on these nodes for the past 6 months, so I could have saved money by decommissioning them sooner, but was honestly afraid of doing so - then needing to purchase them back at higher prices. (30 euro average per server now.)  

Third reason: I need to save that money for something coming up.


Change #2 - New Server #2

Wait, what?  TPA is in the build-up process of making a new server to replace all compute / game server / bandwidth nodes within the network.

It'll be the most powerful single server in our network when completed.  It'll help simplify the network as well, this increasing efficiency and security.
The specs are still in the works but this is the most likely path, including expected prices:

Base system: $600 - Paid
Adapter Card for NVMe boot disk: $50 - Paid - Donated by Champions of Equestria
NVMe Boot drive: Samsung PM953 1TB - $110 - Paid - Donated by Anonymous & PonySFM.
Ram: DDR4 2400 ECC 128GB  (32GB DIMMS)- $320
HDD: 6x 8TB HGST - $900
CPU: 2x E5-2680v4 - $340

Expected Total before shipping: $2,320

28 cores / 56 threads - 2.4-3.3GHZ
19TiB HDD array for node storage.
1TB NVMe boot disk.
128GB Ram.

Once in place: This will mean there are only 2 leased dedicated metals left in the TPA network.  1 of these will then be decommissioned as the new server takes over for it entirely.  It's faster and has more storage and bandwidth.

Change #3
It's come time to decommission our very first server, Canterlot.  She had a lot of teething problems as I learned how to do server administration on expensive production level equipment.
Back when 1 8TB disk cost $650.  (But at least they came with warranties!)  
Canterlot is coming home to me where she'll likely be parted out.  Unfortunately there are likely only 2 good parts left in her, the Powersupply and the 32GB ram kit.  
She stopped responding on the network about a month ago, however things were hectic and I've only sent in the request for shipping back home about a week ago.

I'm going to assume the motherboard died again on her, this is a bad habit of the Intel Avoton C2550 / C2750 motherboards - the CPU's themselves are flawed.  The motherboard was a C2750D4I.  I'll probably put her in a shadowbox and bring her to cons.

The hard drives (3x 8TB HGST) are low usage, but high power on hours.  I considered using these in the new server build but would rather get used low hour drives than reuse my own high hour drives.  These high hour drives will likely be wiped and offered to patrons in return for a donation, as a trinket of the original archive. 

The 2U case is self-admitted trash.  I would like to kick myself just a bit for thinking a case that used an ATX PSU was a good idea. (It isn't trust me. I know better now.)  There were a couple ideas floated around for uses of the old case, but no one even hinted at reusing it so that's a good sign.  1 idea was to cut it up and laser etch momento tokens out of the first server and send these out to donators.  The other idea was to ask donators of the archive to send in pictures which would be printed on stickers, and graffitied onto the case.  This would then be auctioned off as a unit.

The PSU is just a Corsair 400 or 450w psu.  At the power draw Canterlot experienced, this psu barely got a workout with a 30w cpu.  Likely still functions fine, despite being aged and high hours.  Likely can keep this around as a work bench thing.

Ram kit is a 32GB DDR3 kit from G.Skill, it's the only part of the system that never had a problem despite not being ECC memory. (Again, don't do that for servers.)  Not sure what I'll do with this.

This change does not affect TPA in any way, although it does leave a spot in the data center for a 3rd machine.  I'll make use of this soon, but I gotta do one thing at a time.

The Pony Archive ended up fulfilling the void in my life that was missing media that I liked.  Continuing to build up TPA is a big priority, even with corona bringing me down and making me unable to actually work at a physical job. (This is due to mask requirements by almost all employers or goverments now.  I can't wear a mask for very long without ill effects.)
Spikebot had two accidents in the same day, and ended up getting delayed a bit for a refactor.  I had to redo part of the proxy module and I also updated the whole bot to the latest discord.py implementation.  It is now functioning at a slightly reduced capacity, to ensure stability.  New features can now be added without too much hassle so I will begin working on that in the following weeks.
Other Ventures have presented themselves as time went on.  I now operate more than just TPA.  I run a print-on-demand business for badges and 3D printed materials.  I will be offering printed badges for donations soon.  Some of you may recognize them from Brony Bash Online, where con badges were sold after the con.
The My Little Pony Anniversary Stream - Yeah it's quickly approaching.  We know.  Be there, it'll be fun.

I probably made a lot of grammatical mistakes in this long post, bug me if I messed something up or if you think something is a typo.
If you're interested in donating for the 2nd server, let me know via PM on Discord.