7 ms·

I immediately thought about this as well, however I seem to recall reading somewhere (and I could be entirely wrong here) that NASA has a requirement to give aw

by dpcx 7y ago

I immediately thought about this as well, however I seem to recall reading somewhere (and I could be entirely wrong here) that NASA has a requirement to give away freely their science data.

jfk13 7y ago
If there's a marginal cost for each copy of the data that's transferred to a user, I don't think asking the user to cover that cost conflicts with a requirement to "give away the data". (If they distributed their science data in printed form, surely they'd be allowed to charge people for the cost of printing & mailing the paper copies; that's quite different from charging for the data itself.)
- elcritch 7y ago
  Why the downvotes? This isn't uncommon or unreasonable if you're downloading TB's of data. Also the data would be freely redistributable if someone took the data and put up a torrent. Still I'd rather see NASA host their own data. Put up an FTP server, torrent server and save a lot of money on hosting fees.
  - harlanji 7y ago
    Records departments always charge for copies, and that is the use I thought of immediately when I learned of Requester Pays. I’d be surprised if NASA couldn’t use it.
  - topkai22 7y ago
    While proxying through a torrent system is a good idea. I doubt it would get well seeded outside a few popular datasets- the agency would end up the sole seeder of the long tail. I’m willing to bet NASA saves a ton of money by going to a cloud provider- US government storage setups are insanely expensive. I remember a project I was on got a quote of over $10,000/TB in 2014, and there is no way egress is actually free right now- they are paying for a government regulation compliant internet connection one way or another. I do worry about vendor lock in to a degree, but I’m confident the agency and tax payers would save money going to any major cloud provider.
    - elcritch 7y ago
      Wow! That's good to know, if a bit disheartening. I guess I was thinking costs for small startup costs with some cheap-ish linux raid setups and likely massive fiber taps NASA must surely already have. Not government/big business costs.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      What causes a cost of $10000/TB? Even with multiple redundant failsafes I just cannot see how the cost could run up to that.
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        In 2014? You'd be buying something like an EMC vMax that can sustain 1M+ IOPS on lots of 15K spinning drives, with caching tiers on crazy expensive flash. To support that, you need a fibre channel network layer and a bunch of FTEs to attend to it. Usually compliance requirements require segmentation of roles, which increases cost. If you're a federal government entity, those FTEs are most likely contractors billed out at $125-300/hr. Figure $3-5M/year on labor costs alone, although that may be divided out over multiple systems. This happens in commercial business too. I had a buddy who was making about $150k in NYC to zone luns on a SAN. Basically he kept a spreadsheet and updated a specific configuration setting 2-3x a day and spent about 60-90 minutes/day doing that. The rest was waiting or studying for his MBA. It's pretty wacky to compare S3 to this type of storage.
        topkai22 7y ago
        At a technical level yes, it’s wacky. At a “this is what government departments actually do” level, it’s perfectly reasonable. I’m sure NASAs current system is actually pretty efficient as the us government goes, but having spent a career running into the sort of institutional pathologies that lead to an interdepartmental quote for $10k/terabyte, I’m willing to bet AWS is very competitive.
        2J0 7y ago
        A million iops from spinning rust? 200 iops per drive from 2.5" 15KRPM is good going.... Edit:iops auto spellings
  - xxs 7y ago
    Why FTP - torrent it all the way, perhaps have the AWS as nodes...
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.ht...
  - mentat 7y ago
    By the way, depending on where it's hosted, S3 can seed torrents automatically: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3TorrentRetrieve.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3TorrentRet...
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If there's a marginal cost for each copy of the data that's transferred to a user, I don't think asking the user to cover that cost conflicts with a requirement to "give away the data". Charging the user for data, even if it is on a marginal cost basis, conflicts with a mandate to give data away freely. Because “at the marginal cost of delivery” is not “free”. (It's true that it is common for mandates to specify something like at marginal cost of delivery rather than free—sunshine laws providing copies of public records often work that way—but that's not the applicable mandate here; in fact, since without the separate mandate here the data would be available on a marginal cost basis under FOIA, the main reason for a separate mandate is to negate that cost.)
  - jfk13 7y ago
    Do you have a citation for the "mandate to give data away freely"? I found https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPD&c=2230&s=1 https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPD&c=2230&s=1, which mentions things like "Ensure public access...", but I don't see anything there mandating such public access to necessarily be at zero cost.
    - 3pt14159 7y ago
      Also, public access can mean that once someone gets a copy of the data they can host it for free as well. It's not as if it's under a commercial license.
teruakohatu 7y ago
Isn't requestor pays just like I pay for gas to drive to my local library, when I can't bike because I want to borrow so many books, but the books are free to loan.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure its like when I buy a book, and than I pay for it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- SteveNuts 7y ago
  It's more like we both have a library, the books are free, but if I want to take some of your books I have to pay for shipping.
dylan604 7y ago
While the data is free, the cost of getting the data to you can be charged. Originally, it was to cover the expense of someone pulling the data, making copies, and then mailing that data out to you. If it was photographic, you'd be charged for the prints. I'd see using Requester Pays in the same vein. They are not charging you for the data, but any fees incurred to obtain the data would be at your expense.
wikiman 7y ago
I'm not an expert, but most government agencies are allowed to charge reasonable fees for access to their data. I don't know if this qualifies, but it at least seems like a possibility, especially if it's transparently just passing along their costs in the form of AWS' own cost structure
TallGuyShort 7y ago
It's required to be public domain. IMO it's comparable to FOIA requests still requiring the requester to attach a stamp to the envelope their request goes in. Or at most, include a self-addressed stamped envelope too. Requiring you to pay S3 is little different than requiring you to have Internet access, and thus pay whichever company includes you in THAT monopoly, IMO.
- macintux 7y ago
  To me it feels very different. Imagine for a moment that in order to access NASA data sets you had to have a Fastmail email account. Gmail won't work, Outlook won't work, it has to be Fastmail alone. That would be very objectionable (as much as I adore Fastmail). Ability to pay one specific cloud provider should not be a gate for public domain government data.
  - somethingwitty1 7y ago
    I don't think this analogy works. For Fastmail, there is a cost regardless of whether you want to access government data. You have to pay for the account itself. For most cloud providers, there is zero cost for having an account. Even if they hosted this themselves, they could just as likely charge for data transfer costs...and get to choose how to collect that. They could choose PayPal and you have to create an account. Or they take credit cards...and you must have a card belonging to one of the networks they support. The barrier to entry doesn't change regardless of how many cloud providers there are, all it does is increase infrastructure costs unnecessarily.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    The alternative here, though, to get comparable distribution / durability, etc. by spending way more of the public's money upfront regardless of who wanted it. I get the purist / idealistic argument here, but it feels a bit like cutting off one's nose to spite their face.

by dpcx 7y ago

I immediately thought about this as well, however I seem to recall reading somewhere (and I could be entirely wrong here) that NASA has a requirement to give away freely their science data.

jfk13 7y ago

If there's a marginal cost for each copy of the data that's transferred to a user, I don't think asking the user to cover that cost conflicts with a requirement to "give away the data". (If they distributed their science data in printed form, surely they'd be allowed to charge people for the cost of printing & mailing the paper copies; that's quite different from charging for the data itself.)

elcritch 7y ago
Why the downvotes? This isn't uncommon or unreasonable if you're downloading TB's of data. Also the data would be freely redistributable if someone took the data and put up a torrent. Still I'd rather see NASA host their own data. Put up an FTP server, torrent server and save a lot of money on hosting fees.
- harlanji 7y ago
  Records departments always charge for copies, and that is the use I thought of immediately when I learned of Requester Pays. I’d be surprised if NASA couldn’t use it.
- topkai22 7y ago
  While proxying through a torrent system is a good idea. I doubt it would get well seeded outside a few popular datasets- the agency would end up the sole seeder of the long tail. I’m willing to bet NASA saves a ton of money by going to a cloud provider- US government storage setups are insanely expensive. I remember a project I was on got a quote of over $10,000/TB in 2014, and there is no way egress is actually free right now- they are paying for a government regulation compliant internet connection one way or another. I do worry about vendor lock in to a degree, but I’m confident the agency and tax payers would save money going to any major cloud provider.
  - elcritch 7y ago
    Wow! That's good to know, if a bit disheartening. I guess I was thinking costs for small startup costs with some cheap-ish linux raid setups and likely massive fiber taps NASA must surely already have. Not government/big business costs.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    What causes a cost of $10000/TB? Even with multiple redundant failsafes I just cannot see how the cost could run up to that.
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      In 2014? You'd be buying something like an EMC vMax that can sustain 1M+ IOPS on lots of 15K spinning drives, with caching tiers on crazy expensive flash. To support that, you need a fibre channel network layer and a bunch of FTEs to attend to it. Usually compliance requirements require segmentation of roles, which increases cost. If you're a federal government entity, those FTEs are most likely contractors billed out at $125-300/hr. Figure $3-5M/year on labor costs alone, although that may be divided out over multiple systems. This happens in commercial business too. I had a buddy who was making about $150k in NYC to zone luns on a SAN. Basically he kept a spreadsheet and updated a specific configuration setting 2-3x a day and spent about 60-90 minutes/day doing that. The rest was waiting or studying for his MBA. It's pretty wacky to compare S3 to this type of storage.
      - topkai22 7y ago
        At a technical level yes, it’s wacky. At a “this is what government departments actually do” level, it’s perfectly reasonable. I’m sure NASAs current system is actually pretty efficient as the us government goes, but having spent a career running into the sort of institutional pathologies that lead to an interdepartmental quote for $10k/terabyte, I’m willing to bet AWS is very competitive.
      - 2J0 7y ago
        A million iops from spinning rust? 200 iops per drive from 2.5" 15KRPM is good going.... Edit:iops auto spellings
- xxs 7y ago
  Why FTP - torrent it all the way, perhaps have the AWS as nodes...
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.ht...
- mentat 7y ago
  By the way, depending on where it's hosted, S3 can seed torrents automatically: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3TorrentRetrieve.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3TorrentRet...
dragonwriter 7y ago
> If there's a marginal cost for each copy of the data that's transferred to a user, I don't think asking the user to cover that cost conflicts with a requirement to "give away the data". Charging the user for data, even if it is on a marginal cost basis, conflicts with a mandate to give data away freely. Because “at the marginal cost of delivery” is not “free”. (It's true that it is common for mandates to specify something like at marginal cost of delivery rather than free—sunshine laws providing copies of public records often work that way—but that's not the applicable mandate here; in fact, since without the separate mandate here the data would be available on a marginal cost basis under FOIA, the main reason for a separate mandate is to negate that cost.)
- jfk13 7y ago
  Do you have a citation for the "mandate to give data away freely"? I found https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPD&c=2230&s=1 https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPD&c=2230&s=1, which mentions things like "Ensure public access...", but I don't see anything there mandating such public access to necessarily be at zero cost.
  - 3pt14159 7y ago
    Also, public access can mean that once someone gets a copy of the data they can host it for free as well. It's not as if it's under a commercial license.

teruakohatu 7y ago

Isn't requestor pays just like I pay for gas to drive to my local library, when I can't bike because I want to borrow so many books, but the books are free to loan.

NikolaeVarius 7y ago
I'm pretty sure its like when I buy a book, and than I pay for it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
SteveNuts 7y ago
It's more like we both have a library, the books are free, but if I want to take some of your books I have to pay for shipping.

dylan604 7y ago

While the data is free, the cost of getting the data to you can be charged. Originally, it was to cover the expense of someone pulling the data, making copies, and then mailing that data out to you. If it was photographic, you'd be charged for the prints. I'd see using Requester Pays in the same vein. They are not charging you for the data, but any fees incurred to obtain the data would be at your expense.

wikiman 7y ago

I'm not an expert, but most government agencies are allowed to charge reasonable fees for access to their data. I don't know if this qualifies, but it at least seems like a possibility, especially if it's transparently just passing along their costs in the form of AWS' own cost structure

TallGuyShort 7y ago

It's required to be public domain. IMO it's comparable to FOIA requests still requiring the requester to attach a stamp to the envelope their request goes in. Or at most, include a self-addressed stamped envelope too. Requiring you to pay S3 is little different than requiring you to have Internet access, and thus pay whichever company includes you in THAT monopoly, IMO.

macintux 7y ago
To me it feels very different. Imagine for a moment that in order to access NASA data sets you had to have a Fastmail email account. Gmail won't work, Outlook won't work, it has to be Fastmail alone. That would be very objectionable (as much as I adore Fastmail). Ability to pay one specific cloud provider should not be a gate for public domain government data.
- somethingwitty1 7y ago
  I don't think this analogy works. For Fastmail, there is a cost regardless of whether you want to access government data. You have to pay for the account itself. For most cloud providers, there is zero cost for having an account. Even if they hosted this themselves, they could just as likely charge for data transfer costs...and get to choose how to collect that. They could choose PayPal and you have to create an account. Or they take credit cards...and you must have a card belonging to one of the networks they support. The barrier to entry doesn't change regardless of how many cloud providers there are, all it does is increase infrastructure costs unnecessarily.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  The alternative here, though, to get comparable distribution / durability, etc. by spending way more of the public's money upfront regardless of who wanted it. I get the purist / idealistic argument here, but it feels a bit like cutting off one's nose to spite their face.