[Web4lib] web hosting in the cloud

[Cary Gordon]

Just get a dev box and launch test environments using Virtualbox. You
can run as many of these as you like until you run out of memory.

Cary

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:51 AM, c <cbpurcell at gmail.com> wrote:
> The situation for me has been that I like the ability to tweak php and mysql
> settings as well as all of my modules on a separate box where I can test the
> results of all those changes without impacting my production environment.
> Truthfully I can get by with a 2 stage environment as long as I completely
> blow away the testing/staging box each time, make it an exact copy of
> production and then run my tests on only one thing at a time.
>
> One thing that has been a difficulty in the past is that I frequently have
> several projects going at the same time. I might be testing something that I
> am working on more long term when an issue comes up on production. If I have
> a 2 stage environment, I then need to wipe the state of staging, recreate it
> from production and work on the highest priority issue, losing some of the
> work I was doing on the longer term project.  That is why I lean towards a 3
> stage environment. Yes, I could have multiple copies of production running
> on the staging server in different directories and just accept that I have
> to be really careful when I am messing about with mysql and php settings.
>
>
> Chris
>
> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Cary Gordon <listuser at chillco.com> wrote:
>
>> I can see justification for having a separate dev box, if you are
>> actually developing software, as opposed to developing content. I
>> could probably write a (depressing) book about my adventures in
>> blowing up dev boxes. Who knew a comma in the wrong place could make a
>> floppy disk catch fire?
>>
>> On modest-scale systems with single application/webservers, it is
>> probably better to actually stage content on the same server to
>> eliminate environmental differences.
>>
>> Cary
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Ross Singer <rossfsinger at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I guess I have a few questions here:
>> >
>> > 1) why do you need a lot of hardware for PHP and MySQL?
>> >
>> > 2) why do you feel you need 3 VPSes?  It doesn't seem like you're
>> > doing anything that could just as easily be done with one - just use
>> > different Apache ports and database names
>> >
>> > 3) how much PHP/database tuning do you really foresee?
>> >
>> > I get the desire to move to a more stable network, but there are other
>> > considerations: who will administer and back up your VPS?  Will you
>> > have any sensitive (for instance, personal) information in your hosted
>> > MySQL db?  If the campus network is so flaky, isn't it just as likely
>> > that you won't be able to get to the library sites, too?
>> >
>> > It seems perhaps as worthwhile to focus on fixing the campus
>> > networking problems as it would be to move into the cloud.
>> >
>> > -Ross.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 11:57 AM, c <cbpurcell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> My boss would like me to look into the potential of hosting all of our
>> >> library sites in the cloud. Boss likes the hardware redundancy potential
>> of
>> >> the cloud. I like this as well but I have my concerns and thought I
>> would
>> >> shoot out a question to see what other people's experiences and opinions
>> >> are.
>> >>
>> >> Right now we run a pretty uncomplicated stack:
>> >> - drupal
>> >> - wordpress
>> >> - mysql
>> >>
>> >> I really would like to have a 3 level environment, at least for our
>> primary
>> >> site (production, staging and test). In this situation I have the
>> ability to
>> >> actually change php memory settings, tweak drupal, mysql, and wordpress
>> as
>> >> needed, without my tweaks on test potentially impacting the controlled
>> >> environments on production and staging.
>> >>
>> >> It seems to me that we would need 3 VPSs then and I am not sure that we
>> gain
>> >> much since that is basically the setup we have with central IT, except
>> that
>> >> with external hosting we are not down when the campus network is down
>> and
>> >> any host is going to have more hardware than we do.
>> >>
>> >> My initial thought was to look into dreamhost and mediatemple. Has
>> anyone
>> >> had any good experiences with them or any other hosts?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Thanks,
>> >> Chris Purcell
>> >> Web Developer
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cary Gordon
>> The Cherry Hill Company
>> http://chillco.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Darkness spoons with you.
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-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com