How My Website Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud
- 1. How My website Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the CloudEduComm 2010
- 3. Playing the role of…Mike RichwalskyDirector of Marketing Services, John Carroll UniversityNITLE Technology Fellow 2009-10HighEdWebTech.comTw/FB: mrichwalskyHigherEdCloud.com
- 4. If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.Stanley Kubrick
- 5. What is the cloud?Use of external infrastructure to solve internal technology issues and needsUse resources only as you need themScale up and down quickly and easilyPay only for what you use.
- 9. New hotness.
- 10. It can cost less to take advantage of external infrastructure than building your own from scratch, especially for short-term projects.
- 12. It’s not all or nothing.
- 13. The days of custom writing web apps for every single possible scenario are coming to an end. Not because I don’t want to write and support them, but other places and companies can do it way better than I ever could.
- 14. 10 ways to integrate the cloud
- 15. Content Delivery
- 16. Content DeliverySpeed and reliabilityGeo-targetingBandwidth + access are cheapAsset hosting+CMS
- 17. Which elements are cloud served?
- 18. Which elements are cloud served?ImagesCSSjQueryjavascripts
- 19. CMS User AssetsOn-campus: finite storageCloud: limitless storageSecurity for uploaded contentServed quickly and efficientlyCMS Plugins:WordPressJoomlaDrupal Module
- 20. Forms
- 21. FormsUgh.Remember FormMail.pl?Ever write custom ASP or PHP?Custom CGI per form does not scale.
- 23. I <3 WufooGive access to campus users to do their own formsSecure out of the boxBranded for the institutionConditional processing
- 24. I <3WufooContinuity across all formsEmail, Database, Excel outputPayment processingEmbed in site or Wufoo url
- 26. If you build it…Offices saw a dramatic increase in student response rates and interest when a form was included with an email.Continuity is niceThe form they filled out to receive info is the same form they’ll see when they’re on campus.
- 27. Backups
- 28. Backup to the cloudYes, your IT team do backupsMore is always betterCloud storage + bandwidth is inexpensive
- 31. Backup your web server to S3Command-line scripts and tools written in a variety of languagesPHP, Python, Ruby, Perl and moreControl to just backup web content and/or MySQL databasesZipped up, these are small and cheap to move and store
- 34. Media Streaming
- 35. But we have have YouTube!Not every video we create is meant for YouTube.Fundraising, admissions, on-campus only videosThe cloud gives my video super fast availability and speed across the globe.
- 36. Case Study: Allegheny College
- 37. Case Study, Allegheny CollegeNeed to provide high quality video experience for fundraising effortOutsourced video hosting to Amazon S3Site handled initial load+long tailTotal Cost: $9
- 39. Spin up a serverTest a plugin, piece of code, new version quickly and easilyIf it breaks, no problem. Shut it down and start over.
- 40. CMS DerbyTotal Cost:In the course of an afternoon, we tried 7 CMS systems$1.10WordPressDrupalJoomlaUmbracoHippoSilverStripeTypo3
- 41. How did we do it?Started up pre-built Amazon Servers$0.085 per hourStarted up some Rackspace Cloud Servers$0.01 per hour, no pre-built images. We wanted to see how easy or hard it was to install, setup, customize and break.
- 42. Case Study, Pace UniversityMaharaePortfolioPlatform Testing + BuildoutStarted Amazon EC2 server to develop on before launching production environment on campusTotal cost: ~$60More info: http://bit.ly/anUCxH
- 44. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloudhttp://aws.amazon.com
- 46. DNS
- 47. DNS? Seriously?DNS is not sexy. At all.But…OpenDNS and Google DNS refresh faster and easier than on-campus DNS, which is helpful if you’re doing testing, pushing site updates, adding domains, etc.
- 48. World’s Largest Focus Group
- 49. Mechanical Turk“Mechanical Turk is a marketplace for work.”What does that mean?
- 50. Mechanical Turk
- 51. Mechanical Turk
- 52. Instant Focus GroupSpend a few dollars to get opinions, research, answers from an audience you can qualify and pay for their work/opinions. Quicky test a design element, graphic or navigation UI. HITs are easy to create, via web, API or spreadsheet.http://mturk.com
- 55. Management made easyBasecampWrikeQuickbaseZohoThese systems make managing projects across campus and contributors much easier.
- 58. Collaboration
- 61. Google DocsThis has become an integral tool in our web development group.Share information, best practices, researchMultiple people can have accessIncluding students who do my research
- 62. WordPress use in Higher Ed
- 63. Encoding & Crunching Lots of Data
- 64. We shoot a lot of videoWe encode video for multiple audiences, platforms and devices. Can do on my desktop Mac, but this is time consuming.Don’t have access to all codecsLook to the cloud!
- 65. Encoding.com
- 67. Why are these interesting?APIPay as you goHey!Watch as low as $0.40 for HD with 2 pass encoding for high qualityMultiple codecs, platforms with just a clickTime saves = win.
- 68. SecurityYour data and services are only as secure as you make them. If data and processes on your campus are not secure, your cloud data and processes will not be secure.
- 69. Quick Cloud Project ChecklistWhat is the duration of your project?What type of service do you needRemember the cloud is better at some things than othersAmount of data you need to move in and outYou often pay for both upload and download
- 70. Questions?Twitter: @mrichwalskyEmail: mrichwalsky@gmail.comSlides posted at EduComm Site and HighEdWebTech.com