The servers are taking forever to get setup
We work with a company in San Francisco, who takes care of setting up, deploying and managing our servers. Amigo is going to be hosted on a single LAMP box at 365 Main (one of the world’s best data centers, in my opinion).
They were really responsive and wonderful when we worked with them on DropSend, but they’ve gotten really busy lately and it’s taking them forever to get our server deployed.
This has made it hard on Dave, our developer. He’s had to use his Linux box as a dev box. It’s not in a data center, so the connection is unreliable at best.
Lesson we learned: get your servers deployed at the beginning - don’t wait.
I can fully relate. Setup for development environment and things has taken longer than expected too for us, especially we took someone very good to do it and being very good they are busy :)
Comment by Oliver Thylmann — May 12, 2006 @ 9:41 am
I just saw the amigo-splashpage and must say: I like the style of it :)
Comment by Tim — May 12, 2006 @ 10:44 am
If they can’t get it done in time, why not find someone more reliable?
Comment by Brandon — May 12, 2006 @ 1:08 pm
I have used three CoLo’s in my time. First was Rackspace, and that was awful. Next was HE.net. They were OK, but three overheat problems in a year is a bit much (they need to fix their AC). The last was BayArea.net. At BayArea.net, we has our servers installed and online within two hours. Excellent service, and I’ve never talked to them since. It’s been over 9 months and not a single problem. Oh, and major bandwidth. I download updates to FreeBSD in like seconds.
Comment by Phill Kenoyer — May 12, 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Why would you choose a data center in the Bay Area? I know that the area is full of very competant techies, but all you need is for a large earthquake to hit and there goes your business.
Comment by Sean — May 12, 2006 @ 6:01 pm
I’ve had similar headaches with colocation - but I think it partly has to do with paying so much money for something that you never get to see or touch. :)
On a related note - this question is based on the assumption that you’ll be processing credit card transactions. I apologise in advance if that’s not the case. This is a question that I’ve never satisfactorily answered. You’re using a single server for this app, so how do you go about securing your customers’ data on it? Will you store credit cards on it? Or do you have another db server available from your DropSend setup? Is it possible to securely store CC info on a single server? Again, sorry if this is a bad assumption, but I am curious.
Comment by Ryan Heneise — May 12, 2006 @ 11:43 pm
Why not use the yahoo small business setup. It’s less than a tenner a month. I know it seems like cheating but…
Comment by Sean (the real one) — May 13, 2006 @ 8:57 am
Hi, I have a question: What are you using to manage your project (the screenshot)? Is something you’ve developed or it’s an existing app? Thanks!
Comment by Oriol — May 13, 2006 @ 7:30 pm
“They were really responsive and wonderful when we worked with them on DropSend, but they’ve gotten really busy lately and it’s taking them forever to get our server deployed.”
Not to be a downer, but anyone with experience with a variety of data centers knows this is the kiss of death. If they are so overworked that they can’t get you set you up in a reasonable time, what else are they not having time to do? I’d gone through that experience with several data centers before finding ev1servers.net, and my experience is that going with a company like this that is VERY large is a big plus. Then all you do is find a good part time sys admin (or someone within your company) to keep an eye on the boxes, and you’re golden. My business is very seasonal, and there are times when I need to add a box or two on a days notice, and I’ve never had a problem with them.
Comment by Jeremy — May 14, 2006 @ 5:11 pm
@ Oriol:
The project management webapp they’re using is the excellent “Basecamp”:http://www.basecamphq.com/ from 37 Signals (the guys behind Ruby on Rails). It’s free for the basic package so go and try it out. Highly recommended!
Ryan:
I presume that for Amigo you will have an international target audience, but did you consider UK hosting? If not, why not?
Comment by Chris Eaton — May 14, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
I’ll let Ryan answer that one - but I think what he will say is ‘too expensive’.
Comment by Gillian Carson — May 15, 2006 @ 8:44 am
We don’t store credit card numbers on our servers. We use a third party company. It’s much to dangerous to store this data ourselves.
I’ve toured the data centre personally, and I was amazed with their earthquake systems.
I’m not familiar with Yahoo Small Biz setup, but I assume it’s not very configurable and that the support levels aren’t very high?
We decided to co-lo at the same place where DropSend is, as we were already happy with the facility and support. Plus, it’s much cheaper than hosting in the UK, as the dollar is weak.
Comment by Ryan Carson — May 16, 2006 @ 8:30 am
What do you use to process payments? I want to set up a monthly subscription system for my app like you. But I don’t have the know how of programming and integrating it into my app. Is there a third party system that can easily integrate into a web app?
I’ve been trying to figure out how to process credit card monthly subscriptions for a while now! Any help greatly appreciated :)
Comment by JT — May 17, 2006 @ 7:10 am
We use Secure Trading and their XPay module. It’s great for recurring payments.
Comment by Ryan Carson — May 17, 2006 @ 12:54 pm
Thanks Ryan :) It looks like they do all the leg work for you as far as upgrades, subscriptions, etc. One question:
Do you have to plan the app and build it around the payment system? Or is it as easy as just adding a table or simple Paid/Unpaid field to the user table in the database?
Or do you think I can just build my app and worry about payment integration later?
I really think it would be great if you could dedicate a post to how you integrate this subscription system :)
Thanks!
Comment by JT — May 17, 2006 @ 8:21 pm
uh, why don’t you just lease a server and set it/them up yourself? If you are in the web app business and don’t know how to quickly take a raw Linux or Windows server and set it up for whatever dev and app environment you will need, then you aren’t familiar enough with the dev/app env in the first place, which means you are in the wrong business most likely.
Comment by joseph — May 31, 2006 @ 11:49 pm
I haven’t got any reality working with the Amigo system.
What are the pluspoints with using this system?
Comment by Phil de Fontenay — September 17, 2006 @ 2:54 pm
Hi Joseph,
The issue here wasn’t getting *a* environment setup (I’d done that as Ryan mentioned), it was getting the final environment setup. Also, as Ryan mentioned, “a company in San Francisco” do that.
Yes, I could have setup the final environment as well. However, the question isn’t a technical issue. The issue is what is the best use of my time?
Comment by David Stone — September 17, 2006 @ 6:12 pm
Rackspace was terrible. i will not use them again. We are in Canada and found a company in Toronto. Setup time wasn’t the best. But all has been well since. We aimed for extra time. So not going to complain to much.
Comment by barrie ontario business card printing — September 17, 2006 @ 6:43 pm