On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Frederik Creemers < [email protected]> wrote:
> I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to build an open source learning > platform on app engine. Most open source platforms out there are built in > PHP in such a way that someone in the school would at least need to know > how to use FTP, and a lot of other technical details in order to install it. > > If I could package the app engine sdk in some kind of 'installer', that > would just deploy an instance of the app to an app id they registered, it > would require a lot less technical knowledge for them to set this up. > Are you determined on writing this in PHP, or some other language? The deployment options you have change with the language you're using, so you need to consider what language you're most proficient in. If you're writing in PHP or Python, you can use Git push to deploy ( https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/push-to-deploy ). You could write a simple installer that wraps the git library, pulls your code from your master Git repository, then pushes it to the school's App Engine application (for bonus points, you could set up this installer as an entirely web-based solution off a Compute Engine machine). If you're writing in a different language, then you'd have to wrap appcfg (which is a simple batch file for the Java SDK, a Python file for the Python SDK) and then your application could upload to the school's App Engine app id. Still doable. On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Frederik Creemers < [email protected]> wrote: > 1. Would it be easy enough for non-technical people to set up an app > engine account and create an app-id. > I occasionally guest-lecture at a local university about cloud computing topics. The undergrads there don't have a problem creating App Engine accounts; I would bet that non-technical people would be fine creating an App Engine account especially if you wrote up an illustrated guide to follow. On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Frederik Creemers < [email protected]> wrote: > 2. How would I make the billing clear to them? > For many features, it would be possible to analyse its resource usage, and > show for example how much it will cost to have 1 user with a number of > messages, files, ... But when the school gets billed, what they see is raw > resource usage, which will be hard to convert into usage metrics they > understand. > Yes, this is the hard part, the school will get the bill directly and it'll be broken down by resource usage. The best way would be for you to run the app yourself, and bill the schools in a way that they can understand. On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Frederik Creemers < [email protected]> wrote: > p.s. I'm not planning to create a multi tenant application, where schools > use an app I host. > > Reconsider this. This sounds like the perfect multi tenant app. You'd be able to set up billing as you wanted (take the bills from Google, rewrite them as you need to, bill the schools). You could also take advantage of scale; for instance if you have lots of long-running processes, they could be moved to Compute Engine for cheaper costs. ----------------- -Vinny P Technology & Media Advisor Chicago, IL App Engine Code Samples: http://www.learntogoogleit.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
