“Every once in a while, it doesn’t clear in time before it hits that 100 percent, and everything crashes,” Xiao said. “Things are going to break, and that’s something we accept as a student organization. There’s not much we can do.”
TRANSITIONING TO THE CLOUD
This convergence of database and hardware problems led HCS leaders last spring to conclude the organization would be best served by transferring all its data from physical servers on campus to the cloud.
The group expects to transfer all services over to Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing platform, by the end of October. Former HCS presidents Deshpande and Salvatore Rinchiera ’14 spearheaded the project.
“The big push is for us to get to a brand new set of systems and update all of the software and hardware. For a lot of work moving forward in the next 10 years, people are very heavily going to be using cloud,” Deshpande said. “It’s a necessity, but it’s also the most practical thing to do.”
Waldo, for his part, said that he particularly aimed to push the club away from its current machinery, which he called “not so current.” According to Waldo, HUIT will continue to fund HCS by paying for its cloud services, but he expected the cost to be the same if not lower than what it is now.
For the five-person board, moving to the cloud will mean relief from the responsibility of fixing physical breaks and coordinating with HUIT to enter Harvard’s server room.
The initiative will also allow the group to easily upgrade and update its services, have minimal server downtime, and potentially lower costs.
“The goal of this transition, this migration, is for the inners of HCS to change and become more updated and for everyone else to feel like things are the same,” Deshpande said. He noted that a new feature will allow users to login to club accounts with their Harvard ID rather than an old unique password given to them at sign-up.
“With the new setup, when we are running an event like DataMatch, we can pay for a little more capacity. But during summer or Christmas break when people aren’t using our services, we can turn off some of the servers,” Deshpande said. “As prices go down on the cloud, it will be a lot easier and simpler to maintain these things in the long run.”
—Staff writer Amna H. Hashmi can be reached at amna.hashmi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @amna_hashmi.