By Fluffy Convict on

I build websites. Not the design part, but rather the technical backend. Since about a year, I have used a self-configured version of Drupal to do this.

It now occurs to me, that I would be better off solely providing Drupal hosted services, focusing on keeping the server / Drupal installation stable and promote this service to webdesigners and other internet professionals. Let them interact with the end user.

My question: are there any efforts being made to develop a mass hosting platform / module? If so, please point me to the appropriate source. If not, is anybody else interested in this? Perhaps we could bundle our resources to develop such a package or at least instigate that effort.

I believe a package like this would surely help market Drupal immensely :)

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

benofsky’s picture

benofsky commented

I would love to see such a module to be created. Although I have no skills in PHP/MYSQl, so I would be no help.
Ben
Benofsky Park.com

iandickson’s picture

iandickson commented

If you were offering a service that meant that I no longer had to worry about fiddling upgrades, and could concentrate on worrying about the fun stuff, that would be nice.

Of course it will all boil down to cost

Ian Dickson - community specialist.

plutado’s picture

plutado commented

Fluffy,

That's a great idea - I am involved in a similar approach, though I handle both backend and design work (my clients consist of nonprofit organizations in the areas of civil rights, youth issues, and arts, as well as some political clients). My suggestion to you would be simply to get a dedicated server, have it configured to work optimally with drupal, and give it a go!

I'm not one to suggest what dedicated host to go to, and there are threads on this site where people vouch for hosts that they are happy with.

Having said that, I'd like to hear more of your idea about developing a module. For a module to handle this need, that would imply that multiple (presumably diseparate) clients would be sharing the same code base and database of a drupal installation.

If I understand the service you would like to offer correctly, then what you really would need is a server on which you can host multiple drupal installations (ie. each client has an independant domain name, and each domain name has it's own configured drupal installation).

Let me know if I understand correctly.

Good luck with your business!

jasonwhat’s picture

jasonwhat commented

Dedicated and hosted services are offered by Bryght.com and a I believe they are hosting the Alpha stage civicspace on demand service, http://civicspacelabs.org

dgeilhufe@yahoo.com’s picture

dgeilhufe@yahoo.com commented

The CivicSpace On Demand service (www.civicspacelabs.com) uses Bryght's recently open sourced Hostmaster software.

Our CivicSpace Associate program is designed to deliver a service enabling Associates to create and deliver a pre-configured Drupal distribution (vanilla CivicSpace- which includes CiviCRM, or an Associate's custom install profile) to their customers at the touch of a button.

CivicSpace remains a comitted member of the Drupal community, working with others to get our innovations like our installer system into Drupal core.

David Geilhufe
Managing Partner, CivicSpace

Fluffy Convict’s picture

Fluffy Convict commented

[...] Bryght's recently open sourced Hostmaster software [...]

Where could I then download this software? I browsed the Drupal module pages and Googled for it, but wasn't able to find anything (except for a very nice Bryght powerpoint presentation of their business :)

ojkelly’s picture

ojkelly commented

Took the words right outta my mouth.
I am interested in this greatly as i wan to setup a FREE yes FREE drupal host. Of course there would be ads, but only to network all the sites together.

michaelangela’s picture

michaelangela commented

Quite interesting indeed. A bit of searching and these came up:

this - http://omarzblog.gnuvernment.org/en/node/540

which led to - http://omarzblog.gnuvernment.org/en/taxonomy/term/58
which led to - http://koumbit.org/en
which led to - http://koumbit.org/en/projets
which led to - http://www.alternc.org/

There are notes in some of those links about Bryght and Hostmaster and AlternC being somehow integrated. So apparently AlternC is already available but it is not yet integrated with Bryght's Hostmaster... which hasn't been found yet. Only one link on an archive of a mailing list mentioned that it's not yet documented and so not yet available. That was from a while back though.

--------------------
Michael
http://michaelangela.name

omar’s picture

omar commented

... but so far hasn't managed to do anything as we have been swamped with other work. It is still in the cards though. :-(

litebulb1’s picture

litebulb1 commented

If you post where to download hostmaster that would be great.

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edrupalec’s picture

edrupalec commented

Boris Mann is the point person for getting hostmaster. In the alpha phase, he is only dealing with experienced sys admins.

Drupal ecommerce, at http://www.drupalecommerce.com
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/troubleshooting
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/modulesexplained
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/47vs46
http://www.drupalecommerce.com/howto

rickvug’s picture

rickvug commented

I might just have to give him a ring. We are currently looking for a long term solution to creating, hosting and managing all of the sites that we are creating here at work. Thanks for the information.

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