[OSM-dev] Creating Easy Map Embedding

[Andy Allan]

On 10/22/07, David Earl <david at frankieandshadow.com> wrote:
> On 22/10/2007 16:27, Andy Allan wrote:
> > What problem are we trying to solve?
>
> It appears that the current server is unable to deliver tiles
> efficiently, given the number of failures presently; and the discussion
> arose partly because of the speculation that Oxford University
> "borrowing" tiles would overwhelm the server.
>
> > Bandwidth is effectively unlimited...
>
> So it is the server itself then.
>
> > If it's the load on the machines, then we would be much better off
> > with tile1 - tile5 all sitting behind a load balancer and under the
> > control of the same person in the same facility.
>
> Perhaps so, but would require continuous investment to cope with demand.
> That was the "we aren't Google" problem where this started.

Only if we were to commit to doing it for ever-increasing numbers of
people. If we were to decide that we could run a second server
identical to tile for third parties, we could offer it to the first
thousand third parties and set the limit for each site at 1/500th ish
of whichever resource is the bottleneck (which would almost certainly
be enough for hobby sites and small commercial entities). By the time
we have 1000 more sites using OSM, we'd probably have a high enough
profile that other options are available. :-)

Oh, and if anyone reading wants to put the
http://www.gravitystorm.co.uk/osm tiles on their website, I've
currently got bandwidth going spare!

Cheers,
Andy

> BitTorrent and Skype have both demonstrated the value of distribution
> though.
>
> > But I think a reasonable setup would be to offer free use of
> > tiles.osm.org bandwidth up to a certain monthly limit, at which point
> > we would expect third parties to host (if not render) their own tiles.
> > So small websites have a low barrier of entry, and those big enough
> > for us to notice are asked to provide their own resources.
>
> Possibly so.
>
> David
>