Hosting ICA-AtoM in a small oraganization
131 views
Skip to first unread message
Whistler museum
May 1, 2011, 3:36:54 PM5/1/11
to ICA-AtoM Users
Hello,
As you know, I'm getting you guys to host our site for the rest of the
year, which is great. However, I do have concerns about this as a
permanent solution for our organization, mainly because our funding
seems to fluctuate wildly from year to year and so we can afford it
this year, but who knows about the next? And what happens after I
leave. My goal for the year is to be able to set the museum up to host
its database by itself, by this time next year.
The main problem with hosting it ourselves is linux, and the expertise
needed to use it. We do not have any IT support here whatsoever so
whatever we have needs to be understandable by a lay person and I have
been led to believe that this is not really possible with a linux
system (please correct me if I'm wrong). It is important that no real
training is involved, as even if I do train myself, I'm not planning
to stay in this position much longer than 2-3 years so I need to know
that our database will go on after me!
As you know we hosted our database ourselves for the past year, and
what you might not know was that this was NOT by using Linux. We had
absolutely no money when we set this up (I'm talking can't afford
paperclips kind of poor) so I roped my long-suffering software
engineer partner into modifying ICA-AtoM to run on Unix so I could
therefore run it on my Mac. It lived on an external hard drive so not
to take up too much space on my computer. Obviously though, this was
not sustainable, as we could not just upgrade to new versions easily,
and the long suffering partner has suffered enough, so now that we
have a bit more cash, I got you to host it instead.
I was wondering if having this software as Mac compatible would be
something you would be interested in developing? It would certainly
make it more accessible to small organizations like ours? I expect I
can give you the code that my partner wrote, although it is for a
couple of versions back, so I'm not sure how helpful that would be.
Otherwise, I'd be really interested in any advice you could give me
about hosting it ourselves, in a cheap and sustainable way so I can be
prepared in 2012.
Many thanks,
Sarah
As you know, I'm getting you guys to host our site for the rest of the
year, which is great. However, I do have concerns about this as a
permanent solution for our organization, mainly because our funding
seems to fluctuate wildly from year to year and so we can afford it
this year, but who knows about the next? And what happens after I
leave. My goal for the year is to be able to set the museum up to host
its database by itself, by this time next year.
The main problem with hosting it ourselves is linux, and the expertise
needed to use it. We do not have any IT support here whatsoever so
whatever we have needs to be understandable by a lay person and I have
been led to believe that this is not really possible with a linux
system (please correct me if I'm wrong). It is important that no real
training is involved, as even if I do train myself, I'm not planning
to stay in this position much longer than 2-3 years so I need to know
that our database will go on after me!
As you know we hosted our database ourselves for the past year, and
what you might not know was that this was NOT by using Linux. We had
absolutely no money when we set this up (I'm talking can't afford
paperclips kind of poor) so I roped my long-suffering software
engineer partner into modifying ICA-AtoM to run on Unix so I could
therefore run it on my Mac. It lived on an external hard drive so not
to take up too much space on my computer. Obviously though, this was
not sustainable, as we could not just upgrade to new versions easily,
and the long suffering partner has suffered enough, so now that we
have a bit more cash, I got you to host it instead.
I was wondering if having this software as Mac compatible would be
something you would be interested in developing? It would certainly
make it more accessible to small organizations like ours? I expect I
can give you the code that my partner wrote, although it is for a
couple of versions back, so I'm not sure how helpful that would be.
Otherwise, I'd be really interested in any advice you could give me
about hosting it ourselves, in a cheap and sustainable way so I can be
prepared in 2012.
Many thanks,
Sarah
peterVG
May 4, 2011, 2:19:16 PM5/4/11
to ICA-AtoM Users
Hi Sarah,
For our part, Artefactual does its best to provide free software and
free technical support by balancing the very limited resources we have
from client contract work. In doing so we are trying to reduce the
total technical costs for running archives software. However, it is
still up to the archival institution to figure out how to fund itself
and plan for the sustainability of its systems and other resources.
ICA-AtoM is a web-based application that is designed to run on a
webserver not a Mac workstation or laptop. Users can then access it
from a web browser running on any OS. Most open-source web software
runs on the Linux/Apache/Mysql/PHP,Perl,Python (LAMP) stack. If you
can't run that hardware yourself, you can get LAMP hosting for as
little as $10 per month, e.g. http://dreamhost.com or http://site5.com.
ICA-AtoM was designed to run on these types of hosting accounts. That
would be your cheapest option.
If you don't have the technical skill to install, configure and backup
your own copy of ICA-AtoM on your own web hosting account, Artefactual
offers an ICA-AtoM hosting service at $125 per month. This includes
backups and release upgrades. This is the service you've signed up
for. As per the software hosting agreement, at any time you can
request your hosted data back to import into your own ICA-AtoM
instance or to migrate to another application. That's basically a
summary of your options with ICA-AtoM. I'd encourage you to look at
other products and services as well but I suspect costs will be
similar if not more. I also want to point out that under the terms of
ICA-AtoM's GPL license, any other company or institution is free to
provide ICA-AtoM at a lower cost if they like.
Cheers,
--peter
Peter Van Garderen, President/Systems Archivist. Artefactual Systems.
For our part, Artefactual does its best to provide free software and
free technical support by balancing the very limited resources we have
from client contract work. In doing so we are trying to reduce the
total technical costs for running archives software. However, it is
still up to the archival institution to figure out how to fund itself
and plan for the sustainability of its systems and other resources.
ICA-AtoM is a web-based application that is designed to run on a
webserver not a Mac workstation or laptop. Users can then access it
from a web browser running on any OS. Most open-source web software
runs on the Linux/Apache/Mysql/PHP,Perl,Python (LAMP) stack. If you
can't run that hardware yourself, you can get LAMP hosting for as
little as $10 per month, e.g. http://dreamhost.com or http://site5.com.
ICA-AtoM was designed to run on these types of hosting accounts. That
would be your cheapest option.
If you don't have the technical skill to install, configure and backup
your own copy of ICA-AtoM on your own web hosting account, Artefactual
offers an ICA-AtoM hosting service at $125 per month. This includes
backups and release upgrades. This is the service you've signed up
for. As per the software hosting agreement, at any time you can
request your hosted data back to import into your own ICA-AtoM
instance or to migrate to another application. That's basically a
summary of your options with ICA-AtoM. I'd encourage you to look at
other products and services as well but I suspect costs will be
similar if not more. I also want to point out that under the terms of
ICA-AtoM's GPL license, any other company or institution is free to
provide ICA-AtoM at a lower cost if they like.
Cheers,
--peter
Peter Van Garderen, President/Systems Archivist. Artefactual Systems.
Peter Van Garderen
May 4, 2011, 2:23:09 PM5/4/11
to ica-ato...@googlegroups.com
That should read: "any other company or institution is free to provide ICA-AtoM
*hosting* at a lower cost"
*hosting* at a lower cost"
Whistler museum
May 4, 2011, 2:45:47 PM5/4/11
to ICA-AtoM Users
Dear Peter,
Thank you for this, I will investigate your suggestions...
Best,
Sarah
Thank you for this, I will investigate your suggestions...
Best,
Sarah
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages