[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Wong, Channing]

Really, for most outfits there is no reason not to outsource hosting
services.  For less than $20/mo you can get an account from higher end
outfits like PAIR that include multiple (my or pg)sql databases, php4,
apache, and full cgi-bin access which is all the components that are in
the lamp stack.  It is hard for most outfits to provide the power and
net connection redundancy that a data center provides.

If you insist on building yourself a server, Debian and FreeBSD are the
most widely used server operating systems on the Internet for good
reason.  They have command line interfaces, are easy to manage (if you
read the documentation in detail), they are not exciting, and they are
stable.  Apt-get (Debian) and the FreeBSD ports system makes installing
the packages you need easy.  There are also binary security updates for
both.  For FreeBSD, you can get a system up within half an hour via a
FTP install, and maybe and hour or two for installing all the packages
that you need (apache, php, etc.).  Again, read the documentation, then
read it again, before you even get started. Better yet, there are
quality books written for these two, rather than the quantity of drivel
written for stuff like Red Hat.  There's a reason why these two are the
usual chosen operating systems for hosting companies (just look at
netcraft stats).

Lastly, it is extremely foolish to hire a full time employee for $100k a
year just to admin a few servers.  For someone that needs to manage
maybe 3000 to 4000 servers (the number of servers for a small hosting
company), that would make more sense.  You would also expect for this
person to travel long distances on their own time and be on call.  If
you hire a consultant, or a contractor for a few hours of work, $50/hr
does make sense.  


-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of John Fereira
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 10:54 AM
To: Aslin, Verna
Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] blue sky thinking

Aslin, Verna wrote:
> I can guardedly endorse the suggestion that libraries outsource their
> websites to a commercial server. We have been running a site on an
> external server for the past 4 years. 
For the most part it seems that much of the discussion so far in this 
thread has been focused on the merits of outsourcing the administration 
and management of a commercial server which hosts a website.  I thought 
I'd chime in as a web application developer with some other issues to 
consider.

Basically, for website projects that I am involved with it takes more 
than one server to fully support it.  Typically there is one machine 
that is considered the production server, a desktop machine that I use 
for development, and ideally a machine that is used as a "test" 
environment that may or may not be used as a redundant machine in case 
the production machine goes down.   In other words, I never make changes

directly on the production machine, but rather,  manage the code base 
from a central location (using a source control system) and build and 
deploy the web application first to my development machine so that other

team member can evaluate/test any changes before deploying them to the 
production machine.  It might make sense to farm out support for a 
production machine but for larger projects, IMHO, you're still going to 
need systems (and someone to manage them) in house for development.

Someone else mention the need to have root access to the machine.  
Speaking personally, I've been a programmer and system administrator 
since the early 80's and have almost always had root access on machines 
that I've worked on.  I feel crippled otherwise.

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