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
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
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 <abesottedphoenix@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 _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
-- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
Greetings, On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson <abesottedphoenix@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
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 <mtompset@hotmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,
On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson < abesottedphoenix@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
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 <jlambertson@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 <mtompset@hotmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,
On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson < abesottedphoenix@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)
That's a very encouraging and affirmative recommendation. Thank you Elaine. On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Elaine Bradtke <eb@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 <jlambertson@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 <mtompset@hotmail.com> wrote:
Greetings,
On 10 December 2014 7:06:37 am NZDT, BWS Johnson < abesottedphoenix@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
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 <jlambertson@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
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participants (6)
-
BWS Johnson -
Chris Cormack -
Elaine Bradtke -
Jesse Lambertson -
Mark Tompsett -
Sudhir Gandotra