Here's a link to the thread from January https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind1301&L=CODE4LIB#220 and here's a brief summary I made when I decided on Rackspace https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1301&L=CODE4LIB&F=&S=&P=52081
One thing I didn't mention was that Cloud Files doesn't have any version control or any way to roll back files. To compensate for that I am using Git on a local repo (not uploaded to GitHub, etc). It is a bit clunky, but for the small number of changes I need to make, it suffices. Tom On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Josh Wilson <joshwilso...@gmail.com>wrote: > Would you mind sharing what CDNs you seriously considered as alternatives, > and what led you to go with Rackspace? > > > On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Tom Keays <tomke...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > A couple of months ago I asked for suggestions for a CDN that a library > > without its own web server (other than our OPAC) might use to deploy > image, > > javascript and css resources for use on third-party systems such as > > LibGuides, Serials Solutions A-Z journal lists, etc. > > > > We're a small institution and I have just a handful of files I needed to > > deploy, so I figured that using a CDN could be much less expensive than > > contracting for a full-fledged web hosting solution. I weighed several > good > > suggestions sent to this list and decided to give Rackspace Cloud Files > [1] > > a try. Pricing is 10 cents/Gigabyte/month. > > > > It doesn't have a true nest folder file structure, but if you use > > Cyberduck, which supports the Rackspace API [2], it represents the > > directory structure of your original local repo in the URL -- e.g., > > > > > http://6423ab35994a822f653e-1cba4c36ec78f50a350878d40a7c96c2.r6.cf1.rackcdn.com/assets/js/jquery.cookie.js > > > > I didn't purchase anything but Cloud Files, so I don't have access to > > Rackspace CNAMES to give my URLs more friendly names (and campus IT isn't > > interested in providing that service for us). I decided this was not a > > problem on the whole. > > > > The system has been very fast and stable, with none of the intermittent > > outages I experienced when I was testing the idea by hosting some of > these > > files on my hobby website on Bluehost. > > > > The only gotcha is that if you need to upload a file, there is some > latency > > for changes to propagate across the CDN. The Rackspace technician I > talked > > too was surprised how long an old copy was hanging around after one of my > > updates, but we concluded that, ultimately, that's the proper function of > > the service (at least on this CDN). You can speed things up by deleting > the > > original and re-upping it, but changes are not instantaneous. > > > > After 2 complete billing cycles, we've yet to have enough traffic to > > generate a charge. This surprised me, since I thought there might be a > > minimum usage charge hidden somewhere, but we've not seen any to date. > I'm > > not anticipating this situation will change drastically. It will take > quite > > a bit of traffic for us to hit the 10 cent mark. > > > > I'm pretty happy so far. > > > > Tom > > > > [1]: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/public/files/technology/ > > [2]: http://trac.cyberduck.ch/wiki/help/en/howto/cloudfiles > > >
