GAE for Education

[Charlie]

I heard a lot of talk at Google I/O that there may be different
pricing for academic users of App Engine. Is there any truth to this?
or has there been any news on this front?

I'd be very interested in using App Engine in a number of projects.
My University is already heavily integrated with Google Apps. As far
as pricing, free would be great. But I think many of us would even be
willing to pay for this. The problem is that usage based billing is
VERY difficult to build into grant proposals. I'd like to recommend
to Google that they consider some form of fixed cost plans for
educational users. If we over estimate demand for the project and
have to return the money, it looks bad. If we underestimate and the
service stops working, it looks bad. More control over throttling
could also solve this. I.E. if we can set a $ amount for the year and
App Engine will throttle accordingly, so that we don't go over
budget. That addresses underestimates, which can be adjusted if we
find (the need for) more money.

Charlie (@Arizona State U.)

[g-man]

Just my two cents, but what's the worry?

As it is, you can have 3 apps with 5 million page hits a month PER
account, and you can have as many accounts as you want... is that too
little?

If you start going over that amount of page hits, the idea is that the
ad revenue will more than pay for the service. Believe me, Google
wants us all to succeed, because that helps Google; that's why they
started the App Engine.

I think most people underestimate how hard it is to drive such massive
traffic to a website... 7000 hits per hour!

People all over the world are working night and day to come up with
the next Facebook, however, few have grasped the concept of many less
visitors, with those users being very dedicated customers who use an
essential service the site provides, a la 'backpack', 'campfire', etc
from 37signals.

I realize that without some form of payment (either through ad revenue
or subscription), nothing can survive, but that's the challenge of
business.

Otherwise, be happy to have a live Internet presence for zero dollars,
as I am!

http://archi-checker.appspot.com

... and yes, it's a learning/hobby platform for me right now.

[Charlie]

I can think of a lot of creative uses for GAE that could surpass 7000
hits per hour with only a few visitors. ;-) Also, I don't think NSF,
NIH, NIJ, or the other large govt. funding agencies would appreciate
us generating ad revenue off work they paid for.