2023 in Review: Infrastructure

Among the myriad of ways the FreeBSD Foundation supports FreeBSD, helping to maintain the Project’s infrastructure is one of the most important. We work in conjunction with the cluster administration team to ensure they have the hardware they need to keep everything running smoothly.

In 2023, the FreeBSD Foundation ordered 15 new systems as part of a cluster refresh.  The systems specifications were determined by the Cluster Administration team and consist of:

With five new, beefy package builders, expect a quicker turnaround from when updates are committed until the associated packages are available.  FreeBSD users on both coasts of North America can expect faster package downloads with the new package mirrors, and the continuous integration (CI) servers will help catch problems introduced to the src repository sooner by launching new builds each time changes are committed.  The firewalls and admin bastion are required to install a new FreeBSD cluster site.  These newer servers were originally intended for the cluster site in New Jersey, USA.  However, the data center was unable to accommodate the new servers, so the Foundation accepted a generous offer from NYI to host a new site in Chicago.  In addition to the new servers, the Foundation also purchased two new PDUs and has allocated funding for data center staff and members of the cluster administration team to install the new site in early 2024.  The total investment for this cluster refresh is expected to be over US$100,000.

Our efforts to sustain the Project’s infrastructure are only possible because of support from the FreeBSD community. Thank you to all who have invested in FreeBSD so far this year. If you’re able, please consider adding your support in 2023.