Operational hosting providers for AwareIM

gmaya

Please share recommended hosting providers. Thanks

aware_support

We do not recommend any particular provider, but there are many providers that are able to host Aware IM-based applications. The choice of a provider largely depends on your needs and financial circumstances. There are several options:

1) Choose a provider that offers dedicated servers (there are many many providers who do this). This is the most convenient option as you will be able to work with the computer of the host remotely as if it was your own. You can install and run Aware IM on such a computer and the host will do a backup etc. This is also the most expensive option, even though you can probably find a dedicated server for about $60 a month.
2) Choose a provider with a server that is shared with others. The provider would need to be able to start and stop the Aware IM server or you would need to be able to do it remotely.
3) You can host Aware IM applications on your own computer - all you need to do is make sure that this computer has fixed IP address (you can ask your Internet service provider to give you the fixed address). This is also the cheapest option but you also need to do your own backups etc.

Like I said the choice between these options depends on your needs. How many applications do you want to host? How many users will be accessing these applications?

gmaya

It is a single international AwareIM application with 150 users using it as a calendering and coordinating operation. The forms will be most stable and require little modification after the first month of operation. This is a pro-bono endeavor that supports 150 volunteers in five countries who pay their own way.

A dedicated server is too expensive an option even at $60 (US) a month. I have previous international hosting experience where I was located in one country and the host in another. So, I do understand this option.

A shared server is preferable but most hosting providers contacted consider Tomcat too demanding. Having no track record on the number of starts and restarts, nor actual experience with AwareIM, it is difficult for me to lay out a standard hosting requirement.

A static IP situation I have also considered. For an international support system, however, I hesitate to go this route even with good UPS because of the demands of me and major thunderstorm history of our area.

Hence, my asking for any existing providers who have had experience with AwareIM. Thank you!

aware_support

The really low cost option you want may be difficult to achieve with any of the hosting providers. In your situtation we would probably recommend the static IP address solution - this will not be too demanding on you considering the relatively small amount of users and the voluntary basis of the program (even factoring in thunderstorms)

gmaya

AwareIM team: You have been unbelievably resonsive and most helpful. I do want to get AwareIM installed, but want to do it in the proper manner. I have succeeded in finding a $29.95 per month dedicated service that is sized about right for my initial applicaiton. Do you have any preferences regarding Linux versus Windows O/S? Have a great day!

aware_support

It's good that you have found an acceptable provider.

We do not have preferences between Windows and Linux - both are good platforms and Aware IM runs fine on both.

Best Regards

gmaya

My benchmark comparison shows the following:
Win and RedHat on 1.8GHz Pent 4 250MB RAM
OS X 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 with 1.25GB DDR SDRAM

Win fastest with scale of y (Fastest)
OS X next at 1.5y (Medium)
Linux Red Hat at 1.8y (Slowest)

I have not compared all functions. This is mostly on initialization.

This is not what I would have expected.
Does it conform with your stats?
Is there something I am doing wrong in configurations?

Thanks for reviewing this very cursory evaluation..

aware_support

Frankly, we have never performed Aware IM comparison tests between different operating systems. In our experience choice of a database matters more as far as performance is concerned. In this department MySQL was the fastest among all databases Aware IM runs on.

It is really hard to compare performance of Windows vs Linux vs Mac in general - there are too many factors that can have an impact. If this is really an issue, you need to perform bechmark tests on the exact configuration that you will be using in production and you should go with whatever your tests show, no matter what other people tell you.

Best Regards