With the upcoming release of OpenACS 4, we at Orchard Labs, Inc.
are exploring the possibility of creating a low cost developer
hosting solution, $30-$50/month range with a moderate setup fee on
the order of $200-$250. The goal of this proposed service is not to
make money (we WILL try to break even), instead, it will be used as a
way to promote the use/experimentation of OpenACS 4 as a web
development toolkit. We would manage the machine configuration,
maintenance, network, DNS, etc.
The development machines would host about 20 to 30 sites each
using AOLServer's virtual hosting module nsvhr. And they are just
that - developer machines and are not meant to be production
machines. The overall transfer rate will be limited. We might be
able to offer burstable limits as long as the average stays within a
our bandwidth rate allocation. Users will be able to open a SSH
connection to the machine to write/upload code. Hosting will be at
UUNet/WorldCom.
We probably cannot guarantee 100% uptime and 100% security due to
the possibility of malicious users but we will try to prevent abuse.
Again, the purpose of the service is to allow users to try out
OpenACS 4 to see what it can do without having to spend the time to
buy (or scrounge up) a machine and configure it to run
AOLServer/OpenACS 4. If you want something with more security and
more bandwidth, furfly.net and other companies might be a better
choice.
The way we see it is that with more users playing around with
OpenACS 4, there will be more developers and more packages available
which will add to the functionality of OpenACS, which, of course,
benefits all users of OpenACS!
We are open to all feedback. Thanks.
