Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-10 Thread Elaine Bradtke
Our system is run in the cloud. We felt this was more secure/reliable than
running it from our internal server.  We recently shifted from one virtual
machine to another, including a change in the version of Linux we run.  Of
all the online services we have, Koha was the easiest one to move, and had
the fewest problems with the changes.

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Jesse Lambertson jlambert...@sqcc.org
wrote:

 Thank you mark.

 We already do have a good plan for back-up. But with these other issues,
 your points are valid and jive with some other conversations I am having as
 we get ready to set this up (soonish).

 I will have to look at Brooke's other point about carefully picking the
 (external) hosting environment - one that gives me command-line access to
 update everything as needed.
 The idea in this thread here seems to be that hosting elsewhere means that
 it will not be as easy for me to update. But I have to imagine there is
 some host out there that has everything partitioned in a way so that I can
 manipulate my own data at will (maybe that is still just a dream).

 I will dig into that search next.

 Thank you everyone.

 Jesse

 On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Mark Tompsett mtomp...@hotmail.com
 wrote:

  Greetings,
 
  On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson 
  abesottedphoe...@yahoo.com wrote:
  [SNIP]
 
  The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in
  favour of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and
  suffer a local catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et
  cetera, there goes your data.
 
 
  Actually another cost consideration is the hardware costs vs. hosting
  costs. Hardware dies over time and needs to be replaced. Budgets get cut,
  and a monthly hosting cost is less likely to be axed compared to a new
  server cost ever 4-5 years. So, in some sense, I think hosting externally
  and not on your own local hardware is better.
 
  And comparing costs, you may be able to find hosting that works well for
 a
  cost that when amortized over 4-5 years is actually cheaper. That is,
  $20/month (let's say) * 12 months * 4 years = $960 for 4 years. This is
  comparable to some cheaper machines which perfectly suffice, but I know I
  prefer to drool over the $2500+ machines. :)
 
  Sadly, you aren't likely to be continually upgrading components. After 4
  years, a locally owned piece of hardware will have dropped from a middle
  class machine to low end machine, while the hosted environment may have
  progressed, because of hosting provider upgrades. :)
 
  And, you aren't having to do your own backups, if you hosting on the
  cloud. If you have locally hosted machine, you need to figure out how to
  back up elsewhere. A good backup plan has on-site same drive, on-site
  different drive, and off-site backups. A hosting provider tends to have
  these in place. Do you want the hassle of having that yourself? This is
  related to the point that BWS Johnson made.
 
  And what if your local machine dies? Sure you have a backup, but you
  actually have to spend the day rushing around buying a new server. With
  hosting, hardware failures like that are not your worry. No budget
  stresses, because you don't have the cash to go buy it now, and most
  service level agreements give you less than a hour downtime per year.
 
  GPML,
  Mark Tompsett
 



 --
 Jesse A Lambertson
 Librarian
 Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
 1100 16th St, NW
 Washington, DC 20036
 ___
 Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org
 Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
 http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha




-- 
Elaine Bradtke
Data Wrangler
VWML
English Folk Dance and Song Society | http://www.efdss.org
Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY
Tel+44 (0) 20 7485 2206 (This number is for the English Folk Dance and
Song Society in London, England. If you wish to phone me personally, send
an e-mail first. I work off site)
--
Registered Company No. 297142
Charity Registered in England and Wales No. 305999
---
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture
--Elvis Costello (Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52)
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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-10 Thread Jesse Lambertson
That's a very encouraging and affirmative recommendation.

Thank you Elaine.



On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Elaine Bradtke e...@efdss.org wrote:

 Our system is run in the cloud. We felt this was more secure/reliable than
 running it from our internal server.  We recently shifted from one virtual
 machine to another, including a change in the version of Linux we run.  Of
 all the online services we have, Koha was the easiest one to move, and had
 the fewest problems with the changes.

 On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Jesse Lambertson jlambert...@sqcc.org
 wrote:

 Thank you mark.

 We already do have a good plan for back-up. But with these other issues,
 your points are valid and jive with some other conversations I am having
 as
 we get ready to set this up (soonish).

 I will have to look at Brooke's other point about carefully picking the
 (external) hosting environment - one that gives me command-line access to
 update everything as needed.
 The idea in this thread here seems to be that hosting elsewhere means that
 it will not be as easy for me to update. But I have to imagine there is
 some host out there that has everything partitioned in a way so that I can
 manipulate my own data at will (maybe that is still just a dream).

 I will dig into that search next.

 Thank you everyone.

 Jesse

 On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Mark Tompsett mtomp...@hotmail.com
 wrote:

  Greetings,
 
  On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson 
  abesottedphoe...@yahoo.com wrote:
  [SNIP]
 
  The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in
  favour of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and
  suffer a local catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et
  cetera, there goes your data.
 
 
  Actually another cost consideration is the hardware costs vs. hosting
  costs. Hardware dies over time and needs to be replaced. Budgets get
 cut,
  and a monthly hosting cost is less likely to be axed compared to a new
  server cost ever 4-5 years. So, in some sense, I think hosting
 externally
  and not on your own local hardware is better.
 
  And comparing costs, you may be able to find hosting that works well
 for a
  cost that when amortized over 4-5 years is actually cheaper. That is,
  $20/month (let's say) * 12 months * 4 years = $960 for 4 years. This is
  comparable to some cheaper machines which perfectly suffice, but I know
 I
  prefer to drool over the $2500+ machines. :)
 
  Sadly, you aren't likely to be continually upgrading components. After 4
  years, a locally owned piece of hardware will have dropped from a middle
  class machine to low end machine, while the hosted environment may have
  progressed, because of hosting provider upgrades. :)
 
  And, you aren't having to do your own backups, if you hosting on the
  cloud. If you have locally hosted machine, you need to figure out how to
  back up elsewhere. A good backup plan has on-site same drive, on-site
  different drive, and off-site backups. A hosting provider tends to have
  these in place. Do you want the hassle of having that yourself? This is
  related to the point that BWS Johnson made.
 
  And what if your local machine dies? Sure you have a backup, but you
  actually have to spend the day rushing around buying a new server. With
  hosting, hardware failures like that are not your worry. No budget
  stresses, because you don't have the cash to go buy it now, and most
  service level agreements give you less than a hour downtime per year.
 
  GPML,
  Mark Tompsett
 



 --
 Jesse A Lambertson
 Librarian
 Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
 1100 16th St, NW
 Washington, DC 20036
 ___
 Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org
 Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
 http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha




 --
 Elaine Bradtke
 Data Wrangler
 VWML
 English Folk Dance and Song Society | http://www.efdss.org
 Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1 7AY
 Tel+44 (0) 20 7485 2206 (This number is for the English Folk Dance
 and Song Society in London, England. If you wish to phone me personally,
 send an e-mail first. I work off site)
 --
 Registered Company No. 297142
 Charity Registered in England and Wales No. 305999
 ---
 Writing about music is like dancing about architecture
 --Elvis Costello (Musician magazine No. 60 (October 1983), p. 52)




-- 
Jesse A Lambertson
Librarian
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
1100 16th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
___
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Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
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[Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread Jesse Lambertson
Happy Tuesday everyone,

I have a question about installation of Koha.

Relative to hosting Koha in the cloud as opposed to on our own local
servers on our domain (which I assume most people do), what is the thinking
about the ease of installing and updating if it is hosted externally
versus on our own servers?

What steps might drastically change if we install Koha in the cloud?

Are there any security issues I should be concerned about in either case?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Jesse

-- 
Jesse A Lambertson
Librarian
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
1100 16th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
___
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Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread BWS Johnson
Salve!

 I have a question about installation of Koha.
 
 Relative to hosting Koha in the cloud as opposed to on our own local
 servers on our domain (which I assume most people do), what is the thinking
 about the ease of installing and updating if it is hosted externally
 versus on our own servers?
 


As long as you have access to the command line and can update and change 
things at will, then there is no difference between the cloud and a physical 
local server. That latter bit seems to be a big problem with a lot of 
companies, though. So choose a service provider with great care and after a lot 
of testing. You not only needs be able to update Koha, but all of Koha's 
dependencies as well.



 Are there any security issues I should be concerned about in either case?

 


The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in favour 
of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and suffer a local 
catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et cetera, there goes your 
data. If you found a cloud based service that allows you to maintain things 
routinely, there shouldn't be any difference. You're trusting someone else when 
you select a hosted service, but this would be the same trust you would put in 
a normal vendor in most cases, anyway. If you hire a new employee for your 
building and give them a set of keys, you're taking a security risk, too, but 
in both cases that risk ought be calculated.

Security issues in general are shared over a specific listserv that's 
populated by trusted Community members. Bugs on that list are fixed with 
extreme prejudice.

My final note is to consider if you're going to actually *need* the data 
that you collect and keep. A certain naughty Library that shall remain nameless 
used to keep the Social Security Numbers of all of their Patrons in a note 
field on a non Koha system that would literally pop up *every* time someone 
checked out.

Cheers,
Brooke
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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread Chris Cormack
Hi all 
I agree with Brooke, the cloud is just someone else's computer. With all the 
advantages and disadvantages that brings. 

Chris 

On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson abesottedphoe...@yahoo.com 
wrote:
Salve!

 I have a question about installation of Koha.
 
 Relative to hosting Koha in the cloud as opposed to on our own local
 servers on our domain (which I assume most people do), what is the
thinking
 about the ease of installing and updating if it is hosted
externally
 versus on our own servers?
 


As long as you have access to the command line and can update and
change things at will, then there is no difference between the cloud
and a physical local server. That latter bit seems to be a big problem
with a lot of companies, though. So choose a service provider with
great care and after a lot of testing. You not only needs be able to
update Koha, but all of Koha's dependencies as well.



 Are there any security issues I should be concerned about in either
case?

 


The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in
favour of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and
suffer a local catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et
cetera, there goes your data. If you found a cloud based service that
allows you to maintain things routinely, there shouldn't be any
difference. You're trusting someone else when you select a hosted
service, but this would be the same trust you would put in a normal
vendor in most cases, anyway. If you hire a new employee for your
building and give them a set of keys, you're taking a security risk,
too, but in both cases that risk ought be calculated.

Security issues in general are shared over a specific listserv that's
populated by trusted Community members. Bugs on that list are fixed
with extreme prejudice.

My final note is to consider if you're going to actually *need* the
data that you collect and keep. A certain naughty Library that shall
remain nameless used to keep the Social Security Numbers of all of
their Patrons in a note field on a non Koha system that would literally
pop up *every* time someone checked out.

Cheers,
Brooke
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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread Sudhir Gandotra
There is absolutely no problem, as long as you have access to the hosted
machine.

best wishes,

Sudhir Gandotra
Koha demo :  http://koha.openlx.com


On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Jesse Lambertson jlambert...@sqcc.org
wrote:

 Happy Tuesday everyone,

 I have a question about installation of Koha.

 Relative to hosting Koha in the cloud as opposed to on our own local
 servers on our domain (which I assume most people do), what is the thinking
 about the ease of installing and updating if it is hosted externally
 versus on our own servers?

 What steps might drastically change if we install Koha in the cloud?

 Are there any security issues I should be concerned about in either case?

 Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

 Jesse

 --
 Jesse A Lambertson
 Librarian
 Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
 1100 16th St, NW
 Washington, DC 20036
 ___
 Koha mailing list  http://koha-community.org
 Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
 http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha




-- 
*Wishing you the Freedom to be Human*
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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread Mark Tompsett

Greetings,

On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson 
abesottedphoe...@yahoo.com wrote:

[SNIP]

The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in
favour of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and
suffer a local catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et
cetera, there goes your data.


Actually another cost consideration is the hardware costs vs. hosting costs. 
Hardware dies over time and needs to be replaced. Budgets get cut, and a 
monthly hosting cost is less likely to be axed compared to a new server cost 
ever 4-5 years. So, in some sense, I think hosting externally and not on 
your own local hardware is better.


And comparing costs, you may be able to find hosting that works well for a 
cost that when amortized over 4-5 years is actually cheaper. That is, 
$20/month (let's say) * 12 months * 4 years = $960 for 4 years. This is 
comparable to some cheaper machines which perfectly suffice, but I know I 
prefer to drool over the $2500+ machines. :)


Sadly, you aren't likely to be continually upgrading components. After 4 
years, a locally owned piece of hardware will have dropped from a middle 
class machine to low end machine, while the hosted environment may have 
progressed, because of hosting provider upgrades. :)


And, you aren't having to do your own backups, if you hosting on the cloud. 
If you have locally hosted machine, you need to figure out how to back up 
elsewhere. A good backup plan has on-site same drive, on-site different 
drive, and off-site backups. A hosting provider tends to have these in 
place. Do you want the hassle of having that yourself? This is related to 
the point that BWS Johnson made.


And what if your local machine dies? Sure you have a backup, but you 
actually have to spend the day rushing around buying a new server. With 
hosting, hardware failures like that are not your worry. No budget stresses, 
because you don't have the cash to go buy it now, and most service level 
agreements give you less than a hour downtime per year.


GPML,
Mark Tompsett 


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Re: [Koha] Cloud-based Koha vs locally hosted Koha

2014-12-09 Thread Jesse Lambertson
Thank you mark.

We already do have a good plan for back-up. But with these other issues,
your points are valid and jive with some other conversations I am having as
we get ready to set this up (soonish).

I will have to look at Brooke's other point about carefully picking the
(external) hosting environment - one that gives me command-line access to
update everything as needed.
The idea in this thread here seems to be that hosting elsewhere means that
it will not be as easy for me to update. But I have to imagine there is
some host out there that has everything partitioned in a way so that I can
manipulate my own data at will (maybe that is still just a dream).

I will dig into that search next.

Thank you everyone.

Jesse

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Mark Tompsett mtomp...@hotmail.com wrote:

 Greetings,

 On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson 
 abesottedphoe...@yahoo.com wrote:
 [SNIP]

 The only difference I can spot might actually weigh as a positive in
 favour of cloud based service. When you have a physical server and
 suffer a local catastrophe, such as an earthquake, fire, sinkhole, et
 cetera, there goes your data.


 Actually another cost consideration is the hardware costs vs. hosting
 costs. Hardware dies over time and needs to be replaced. Budgets get cut,
 and a monthly hosting cost is less likely to be axed compared to a new
 server cost ever 4-5 years. So, in some sense, I think hosting externally
 and not on your own local hardware is better.

 And comparing costs, you may be able to find hosting that works well for a
 cost that when amortized over 4-5 years is actually cheaper. That is,
 $20/month (let's say) * 12 months * 4 years = $960 for 4 years. This is
 comparable to some cheaper machines which perfectly suffice, but I know I
 prefer to drool over the $2500+ machines. :)

 Sadly, you aren't likely to be continually upgrading components. After 4
 years, a locally owned piece of hardware will have dropped from a middle
 class machine to low end machine, while the hosted environment may have
 progressed, because of hosting provider upgrades. :)

 And, you aren't having to do your own backups, if you hosting on the
 cloud. If you have locally hosted machine, you need to figure out how to
 back up elsewhere. A good backup plan has on-site same drive, on-site
 different drive, and off-site backups. A hosting provider tends to have
 these in place. Do you want the hassle of having that yourself? This is
 related to the point that BWS Johnson made.

 And what if your local machine dies? Sure you have a backup, but you
 actually have to spend the day rushing around buying a new server. With
 hosting, hardware failures like that are not your worry. No budget
 stresses, because you don't have the cash to go buy it now, and most
 service level agreements give you less than a hour downtime per year.

 GPML,
 Mark Tompsett




-- 
Jesse A Lambertson
Librarian
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center
1100 16th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
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