DSSP-001: Essential Philosophy Document
		  Revision 1.3 (05/09/19)


		       John P. Willis

		    Datashed Proprietor


			  ABSTRACT

	  The Essential	Philosophy Document, or	 "EPD",
     summarizes	 the  overall philosophy of information
     technology	guiding	technology  decisions  in  data
     center  design, equipment deployment, and software
     deployment	 employed  in  the  Datashed  and   its
     environs.

     The primary goal of the Datashed is to  provide  a
     1990s-style data center environment, eschewing the
     modern, homogeneous approaches  to	 equipment  and
     operating	system	selection.  To	that  end,  the
     Datashed will host	the majority of	its services on
     non-commodity  hardware,  using  a	wide variety of
     operating systems.

     The Datashed does,	however,  make	concessions  to
     modern  practices	in  select areas.  Its physical
     cabling plant is structured, the core of its  net-
     work  secure  and	performant,  and some commodity
     x86/Linux equipment is used for monitoring, backup
     storage, and occasional hardware emulation.



1.  Heterogeneous Environment

The Datashed offers a heterogeneous  hardware  and  software
environment.  This  means  that	services will be provided by
and available to  non-commodity	 hardware.  Racks  will	 not
match each other, servers will be more than commodity x86-64
hardware running Linux,	networks will be varied	 beyond	 the
standard UTP-based Ethernet.

This derives from a belief that	choice	and  variety  in  IT
deployments  is	 a  good  thing,  and  though  we value	con-
sistency, our adherence	to it is not slavish.

2.  Relaxed Approach

We feel	that the IT industry takes itself too seriously.  We



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want to	provide	an alternative.	Just by	looking	at the decor
(such as wall scrolls),	one can	tell that  the	Datashed  is
not  a somber place. It	seeks to be as inviting	to humans as
it is to servers, switches, and	routers.

Though we attempt  to  maintain	 a  well-managed  structured
cabling	 plant,	 the Datashed is not unfriendly	to the occa-
sional experimental or ad hoc deployment.

3.  Traditional	Administration

We don't believe that building up a server interactively  is
a bad thing. Not everything needs to be	scripted and repeat-
able, except where it's	important. One	will  not  encounter
complex	  DevOps  orchestration	 tools	in  wide  use  here,
although tenants are free to use them in their own colocated
environments.

4.  Open Community

We strive to make technical details of our projects known to
members	 of  our  community,  and  the Internet	community at
large. We believe this will foster an  environment  that  is
both fun and educational.

5.  DIY	Ethic

We follow a DIY	ethic.	With  limited  resources,  a  small,
non-commercial	data  center such as ours must be both prag-
matic and  resourceful.	 If  a	standard  practice  that  is
accepted in large, commercial data centers is impractical or
financially unfeasible,	we will	develop	 a  robust  alterna-
tive, rather than giving up and	saying it cannot be done.

We don't typically have	support	contracts with	hardware  or
software  vendors,  even  if it	means that we do not receive
the latest and greatest	updates. Often,	our equipment is old
enough that the	vendor either no longer	exists,	or would not
provide	support	anyway.	We mitigate threats  ourselves,	 use
secondhand  and/or  EOL	equipment whenever we can, and don't
shy away from exposing old operating systems to	 the  Inter-
net.

6.  Reasoning for DSSP Standards

The DSSP standards are in place	to  help  us  stay  on-track
with our overall philosophy, and give us reminders for tasks
that we	want to	do consistently	each time. There  are,	how-
ever,  no committees or	bureaucracies dedicated	to enforcing
them. The DSSP standards exist to  serve  us;  they  do	 not
exist for us to	serve them.

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