Forum OpenACS Q&A: openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's?

1: openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's?

Posted by Carl Coryell-Martin on 07/20/00 06:46 AM

So we're putting some proposals together for some smaller non-profits,
and I was curious if anyone is doing openACS hosting. If not we will
probably get into the business ourselves.

These are likely to be pretty low traffic, low db load sites, and
before we set up a dedicated server for it, I thought I might check
for existing options. I am of course curious if anyone is doing ACS
hosting also.

Thank you,

Carl Coryell-Martin

civilution llc

2: Response to openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's? (response to 1)

Posted by MaineBob OConnor on 07/20/00 12:51 PM

<p>Check out <a href="http://www.furfly.com/">www.furfly.com</a> on their home page:

<p>"Soon we'll be offering hosting for OpenACS developers. For details send email to <a href="janine@furfly.net";> janine@furfly.net</a>."

<p>Currently, I'm working remotely on an ACS development on a partner's distant system hosted on a roadrunner cable modem system. Yes, the IP address changes now and again but it works well
for Telnet, FTP(not :21), and HTTP(not :80). Of course we'll need something better for production... like our own box at an ISP.

<p>-Bob

3: Response to openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's? (response to 1)

Posted by Li-fan Chen on 07/20/00 02:27 PM

If you end up running your non-profit site on a @HOME or DSL you could try dynamic dns. It allows you to have a fairly permanent domain name while your ISP makes your ip number hop around. See www.dyndns.org and the like.

4: Response to openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's? (response to 1)

Posted by Li-fan Chen on 07/20/00 02:37 PM

I think furfly is trying very hard to help ACS developers put their development or production boxes on a quality cohost. So if you think you can afford that (by yourself with with a bunch of friends--all websites run a DB and web server after all) yup you must check em out.

Actually I am working on enhancing ACS's chat and bboard services and want to cohost soon. I could shell out a basic server and around CA$250 for my part of the hosting fee. I am very interested in working with furfly to see if I can find others to share my server and cohosting cost. So that we can afford more than CA$250/mo in the end. I have heard of USD$500/mo sites where they give you quite a bit of traffic (some ISPs think in terms of overall load per day--4 Mbits/sec or less is about what I am after per server ..and they are nice enough to not charge by the gig) and that's very exciting to me.

So unlimited traffic (within reason) or high quality cohosting in Boston? I think I can afford one or the other--especially by sharing the box and rental fees.

5: Response to openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's? (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 07/21/00 03:02 AM

Furfly's slowly getting ramped up to provide OpenACS hosting. As a lesson to the unwary and/or overly trusting Dell fan, their Linux-based server didn't come with sources for the Adaptec RAID controller Dell includes. And the included binaries didn't link with kernels re-compiled from the kernel sources provided (re-compiling the kernel being one of the favorite first steps taken by folks running Oracle under Linux).

A bunch of other gotchas cropped up when they moved their operation from Exodus in SoCal to Exodus in Waltham, MA.

So things have taken longer than first predicted. They've gotten stuff ironed out, now, though. Unfortunately, firing up a server, installing and configuring software, etc a new service like OpenACS hosting has necessarily taken a back seat to getting existing customer sites up and running, and new servers up and running for a couple of client sites furfly's been working on this spring/summer.

6: Response to openACS/ACS hosting options--Any ISP's? (response to 1)

Posted by Janine Ohmer on 07/21/00 03:45 PM

Thanks Don!

Yes, 'tis true, we're running way behind schedule. In addition to all the delays Don mentioned, we're also waiting for our lawyers to draw up a contract for the service and we can't launch without it, unfortunately.

Just to clarify things a bit, the service we plan to offer is hosting on our own shared server, not helping people colocate their own systems. We can't really help with that because Exodus has steep insurance requirements which essentially force us to own all the hardware on our rack.

I'm trying hard to keep from turning these forums into a classified ad section so people should e-mail me (janine@furfly.net) if they want to be on my mailing list for further details.