On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Nate Vack wrote:
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Jill Ellern <[email protected]> wrote:
I know we can put this open source software on a PC...and we've done that but
this isn't a solution for a production level web service
What is the average cost of hosting a drupal server out there in the cloud?
Are there things we should know? Would you recommend anyone that does this for
libraries?
It all depends on what "production level web service" means to you --
do you get lots of traffic? A little? Do you want to call someone on
the phone when it goes pear-shaped? Even if the problem is with a
customization you're making? How much downtime is OK? How snappy does
it need to be?
It sounds a bit like your IT department is trying to give you a
brush-off ("This sounds like a pain. Let's make them use a dedicated
server, and say it'll cost INFINITY DOLLARS.") Sitting down with
someone, being very clear with your expectations for support, and
finding out what their major concerns are might help.
As someone who's worked as a sysadmin for an ISP, a university IT
department and a government agency that is the target of a lot of
intrusion attempts, let me tell you that it *is* a pain.
For the first one.
The incremental cost is insignificant, but each new piece of software that
you have to support is yet another round of finding out how the server
needs to be tuned ; if it plays well with other software you're running ;
more websites to watch for security updates ; more patches to apply ; more
log files to watch to suspicious activity.
Once you're hosting 10+ of the same piece of software, the incremental
cost is relatively insignificant -- but that first instance sure as hell
is not cheap in terms of man-hours (if you don't want your machine getting
hacked, then get your domain black listed when someone starts pumping mail
through it, etc, etc.)
Generally, hosting will run something like $5-10/month for cheap
shared hosting, and maybe $30-40/month for a small VPS.
Yes, for a site that already has lots of Drupal instances they're already
maintaining.
-Joe
