[Web4lib] web hosting in the cloud

Fri Feb 4 15:21:00 EST 2011

Vmware is well-supported in academics with licensing and virtualization
solutions specifically addressing deployment in academic IT architecture:
http://www.vmware.com/partners/academic/

There certainly would be a cost advantage to using VirtualBox
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html  in for-profit environments or
for personal use. Use of Vmware appears advantageous  to academic computing
environments.

R. Balliot
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 1:52 PM, Cary Gordon <listuser at chillco.com> wrote:

> 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
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> Web4lib mailing list
> >> >> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> >> >> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Web4lib mailing list
> >> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> >> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Cary Gordon
> >> The Cherry Hill Company
> >> http://chillco.com
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Darkness spoons with you.
>  > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Cary Gordon
> The Cherry Hill Company
> http://chillco.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>