[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Hankinson, Andrew]

I'm inclined to think that such an arrangement would actually make more
sense than 'in-house' support, especially for small libraries.  I just
signed on for my first (personal) hosting service, and so far I'm
extremely pleased.  For less than $10/mo, I get 10GB diskspace, 200GB
monthly bandwidth limit, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited websites,
and great tech support. (I'm not a commercial - I'm just impressed with
what you can get for hosts nowdays.)

I think it all comes down to focusing on core competencies.  A hosting
service exists to host things.  They don't have to deal with MARC or
OPACs or Cataloguing, but they do a great job at hardware & OS support,
dedicated data centers, redundant network connections, backup power
supplies, HVAC systems, 24-hour monitoring, firewalls, spam protection,
nightly tape backups, etc. - all things that are secondary to (IMHO) a
Library's core competencies of information literacy, organizing and
facilitating resource discovery, and providing public spaces.

Unless you're needing some very specialized system-level software, you
probably won't even need a host that provides root access.  This opens
up a whole realm of possibilities - just choose the right host that has
the right packages.

It hinges on economies of scale - you might spend $10,000+ on equipment
plus another $20,000/yr for a part-time tech's salary, and a further
$2-3,000/yr for maintenance and consumables (power, network, backup
media) just to get up to the point that $10/mo might get you, if all you
need is a simple CMS website, maybe a blog/wiki, and bulletin board.  On
the other hand, if you're hosting/serving a couple terabytes/month and
need the infrastructure in-house anyway for complex catalogue systems,
out-sourcing that would probably start costing in the hundreds of
dollars/month, negating any long-term benefits.

It is possible, through using a combination of DNS and Apache's URL
redirection, to set it up so that it's seamless to the user.  You could
even have your parent organization set their DNS to work with your
3rd-party system.  For example:
- Catalog.library.town.ca could point to the OPAC system hosted
in-house.  This would be set with your parent organization's DNS.
- Library.town.ca could point to your hosted website.  This would be set
with your parent organization's DNS simply by pointing requests for
library.town.ca to your host's IP.
- Library.town.ca/communitysite could point to a site hosted at your
parent organization, using URL redirects on your host.  With a little
imagination, and combining that with Apache rewrite rules, it could even
do that without changing the URL in the location bar.

If you stay with your parent organization's DNS, you could even forego
the annual Domain Name registration fee (i.e. .com, .org, .net) for
further cost-cutting.  (The DNS registration of "library.town.ca" would
be handled by whoever owns the domain "town.ca.")

Andrew


-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Mark Gilman
Sent: July 25, 2006 12:08 PM
To: 'Web4Lib (web4lib at webjunction.org)'
Subject: [Web4lib] blue sky thinking

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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