[NCUC Finance] Hosting the NCUC E-Platform

[William Drake]

On Feb 20, 2013, at 22:22, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> My understanding of the bylaws is that the Executive Committee approves expenditures. The FT is a planning team created recently, is not mentioned in the charter, and has no specific authority other than to recommend. 

Sure.  But insofar as the bylaws are already pretty far removed from practice in key respects, and the issue was one of developing a working process for building consensus which need not be specified in them, this wouldn't seem to be a deal stopper if people had wanted to do something else.  That said, elsewhere in this thread I agreed that there was no particular need to add a cycle of FT endorsement if people were ok with leaving it to the EC.  Having heard no arguments to the contrary, let's stick with the SQ.
> 
> My advice would be to prepare a more specific proposal detailing requirements and costs and send it to the EC. 
> 
> One must be careful of ongoing expenditures, especially if they lock us in to anything that would be costly to get out of, but $400/year is certainly not out of reach. 
> 
> It does seem a bit high (without knowing the requirements) as the current Ning site is $235/year but if VPS does something that normal hosting doesn't, I am sure you can convince EC to approve it. 

Wilson and Tapani, were there other vendors/options?  Agree with MM a little more detail/background wouldn't I hurt for an ongoing expenditure, even if it's less for a decade than we spend at a time on other stuff.

Thanks
> 
> Another item to be sure to address is how much manual maintenance and updating the new arrangement will require, who will - with ABSOLUTE reliability - take those responsibilities, how you will migrate all current materials to the new platform, and the absolute need for continuity, so don't create a technically demanding platform that no one will know how to deal with when this specific crew is gone.
> 
> --MM
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: finance-bounces at lists.ncuc.org [mailto:finance-
>> bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of Tapani Tarvainen
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 3:45 AM
>> To: finance at lists.ncuc.org
>> Subject: Re: [NCUC Finance] Hosting the NCUC E-Platform
>> 
>> Moving to finance team only,
>> 
>> This is the first time we're doing this kind of thing with the team,
>> so the process isn't routine yet, but my idea would be that the
>> finance team reviews the request and either forwards it to the EC for
>> decision or bounces it back to the e-team if additional info or
>> clarifications are needed.
>> Once EC approves, it'd go back to the e-team again to create
>> the server and have the bill sent to Milton.
>> 
>> Am I on the right track?
>> 
>> Tapani
>> 
>> On Feb 19 10:29, Tapani Tarvainen (ncuc at tapani.tarvainen.info) wrote:
>> 
>>> On Feb 19 11:15, Wilson Abigaba (wilson at isoc.ug) wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Dear Maria, Milton,
>>>> 
>>>> The e-platform team has resolved to revamp our current website and
>>>> build a new one with a whole lot of features that will benefit & grow
>>>> the constituency. To achieve this, we need our own server and the
>>>> cheapest way is to buy a virtual private server (VPS) from a hosting
>>>> company, at a cost of about $400 annually.
>>>> 
>>>> We are thus requesting you to purchase the VPS so that we can go ahead
>>>> with this, as per the detailed request, attached. We are on standby to
>>>> answer any clarifications or assist in any way. If approved, we'll
>>>> need to create an account at the hosting company.
>>> 
>>> Actually I think we could use the same account we're now using
>>> for DNS registration of ncuc.org, which Brenden has created
>>> and where Milton already is the billing contact.
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