[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Andrew Darby]

We've been doing this for some time, splitting our site between the
campus server for the static pages and a .com address (the .edu was
already taken) for the dynamic.

There are some minor organizational irritations with this setup, which
would be solved by completely migrating over to the .com.  As for
that, our 8 dollar a month host (lunarpages) has served our needs
fairly well, and in almost two years has only had one unexpected,
prolonged (two hour) and unexplained patch of downtime--and campus IT
can just as easily provide such an event.

Andrew Darby
Ithaca College Library
http://www.ithacalibrary.com/newsite/

On 7/25/06, Mark Gilman <mgilman at dallaslibrary.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is just blue sky thinking and not pertaining to any institution in
> particular.  What if an institution wanted to gain the benefits that accrue
> to libraries that have excellent server access and support in, say, a LAMP
> (Linux / MySQL / Apache / Php & PERL) environment but had limited means and
> possibilities.  Is there any reason why something like this scenario
> wouldn't work?
>
> 1)  buy cheap space on a Linux shared hosting server that provides root
> access such as
>       http://www.spry.com/plesk-vps/ <http://www.spry.com/plesk-vps/>  /
> http://support.jodohost.com/showthread.php?t=1726
> <http://support.jodohost.com/showthread.php?t=1726>  /
> http://www.linode.com/products/linodes.cfm
> <http://www.linode.com/products/linodes.cfm>
>
> 2) identify open source tools that significantly expand capabilities (i.e.
> Content Management Systems or other database server driven tools)
>
> 3)  either install and configure these tools oneself or simply outsource it
> to someone via a site like http://www.elance.com/ <http://www.elance.com/>
>
> 4) point a DNS at this server only for those pages that rely upon the LAMP
> environment, but leave everything else "in situ".  What would be the best
> way to do that? Could www2.yoursite.com be made to point to a different
> server from www.yoursite.com <http://www.yoursite.com>  (the difference
> being the insertion of the Arabic numberal two just after the www, or is
> that not workable?)
>
> Apart from the obvious potential downwides (i.e. the guy who bids the job
> proves not be sufficiently capable) is there a fly in this ointment?  Seems
> like the upside would be to enable public libraries to participate in some
> of the innovation that academic libraries are able to access by virtue of
> being embedded in technically forward looking environments with lots of
> computer science folks running around pushing the envelope, etc.
>
> Regards,
> Mark
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Andrew Darby
Web Services Librarian
Ithaca College Library
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/
adarby at ithaca.edu