I think we can be assured that OIT will be very price competitive --- because they have to.  They suggested this during the meeting.  

We can host University sites on off-campus servers, so it's in OIT's best interest to compete with the 3rd party vendors that are being alluded to in this thread (and are already being used, in some cases).  There are highly regarded hosting companies in town, just a phone call away, so the local service is reliable and the price is right.  But on-campus hosting would still be preferable, in my opinion.

Kris


Kristofer D. Layon
Director of Web Design & Online Collaboration
- - - - - - 
Office of the Senior Vice President for System Academic Administration
University of Minnesota Twin Cities

On Jan 22, 2010, at 8:06 AM, Tony Thomas wrote:

On Jan 22, 2010, at 7:29 AM, Samir Nassar wrote:

On 1/22/10 7:06 AM, Tony Thomas wrote:
A Linux server with PHP & MySQL running would suit my needs pretty nicely. The bigger problem I've had in the past with central hosting is the level of access I was granted. It's essential for me to be able to log in via ssh and do a few things from the command line. I think I could get by without root access if I could "sudo" some commands.

Another issue for me has been cost. Currently there only seem to be two options:

1. Cheap hosting with limited access that inhibits development and configuration.
2. Virtual Server that is $300 per month (when I got a quote two years ago)
Virtual Private Servers have come down dramatically in costs. For the quote you got two years can and do get hosting for close to a year that gives me all the benefits of having smart people manage the things I don't want to worry about (hardware, data centers, cooling) and let me worry about the things I like to worry about (Apache, MySQL, Postfix, PHP, and Content Management Systems.)

There are several really good virtual server providers out there, but my experience has come from using only one and I am quite happy.

Do you have a virtual private server on campus? The $300/month price was from OIT here. I've seen virtual servers as low as ~$20/month elsewhere. If we could get something on campus in the neighborhood of $50-60 per month, I would be very interested in that.