[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

[Walter Lewis]

Wong, Channing wrote:
> 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.
Not dispute with this, but ...

... an alternate use case:

Out library cares about digital library work.  We have about 50 SQL 
database sets, half a terrabyte of images (many of which are MrSid, so 
another application has to co-operate in serving them), along with tens 
of thousands of documents, and something between 10 and 20 million hits 
projected by the end of the year.  I've never bothered counting the 
bytes out over the wire. In short, not a five page website.

We couldn't begin to afford a commercial outsourcing solution.  What we 
have is a non-commercial arrangement with the local school board, who 
has a team of network specialists that take care of connectivity, 
firewalls, DNS and essentially all of the off-server services except 
remote monitoring.  We maintain the rack (remotely).  Oh, and it's no 
one's full time job.

All of this runs on a tiny fraction of the budget for "maintenance" of 
the local ILS (where "maintenace" equals recorded parrot saying "submit 
an enhancement request, awk".)

Walter Lewis
Halton Hills