Ask HN: Will you or anyone use this service?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1815344

by europa • 16 years ago

27 40 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

One liner : Build Linux servers on cloud platforms(aws,racxkspacecloud/slicehost etc.) to your specification.

Workflow :

1. You provide your specifications(linux distro, web server, app server, database server, other software) for your Linux server and the cloud platform you want it be build on.

2. Receive a quote of price and expected delivery time for you specific build.

3. You agree on price / delivery date/time

4. Build server for your specification

5. You verify

6. You pay.

Idea is to help potential customers to save time at least on the following but not limited to

1. Installing required software and its dependencies 2. Hardening for security 3 .. etc...

I still need to figure out how to deliver the custom machine image after building it on racksapcecloud/slicehost. On AWS it is straight forward

aitoehigie• 16 years ago

I definately would pay for that. I am a web dev first and foremost, I usually dont like sys admin tasks, so I would gladly outsource that aspect to more professional handlers

jarsj• 16 years ago

NO.

Your target audience are developers. And it's already super easy to do what you want done with pre-built images, yum etc. Then there is a trust issue with someone who's new.

If you want to go ahead and provide a service to setup distributed architectures using Nutch/Hadoop etc, you have an audience, but it's a lot of work and there are people already doing it.

europa9• 16 years ago

You are right, my target audience are developer and invariably for most of them it is trivial to build their own servers. But still it required some time to be spend on these tasks which can be utilized for something else more valuable for his /her business. And 'trust' that's what exactly I want to harvest from my customers for the success of my service.

You suggestion of more advanced/complicated setup (Nutch/Hadoop et) is well taken. Thanks

Edit:Spelling

cridal• 16 years ago

YES. Not every developer (or a technical startup founder) is a sys admin or wants to get deep into server provisioning/software installation issues. This is orthogonal to what they are trying to build (at least in the beginning). I believe your idea has legs. Pursue it.

ZeroMinx2• 16 years ago

I don't know about the providers you list, but Linode has something called StackScripts, which gives you the possibility to easily build a new machine with all the software etc you want installed. They've got ready StackScripts for a lot of the common setups.

I'm not sure why I'd pay another service for this. What would the added value be?

theDoug• 16 years ago

Ditto'd regarding Linode, with some notes on why we'd hesitate: While we as an enterprise love moving things to Linode, or just generally "out," I don't know if many in your planned market would be okay with someone else setting up their systems.

If you're going for bigger group (which will mean larger deploys with far larger payments), make sure you're bonded, can prove security, that you're not running virtualization on top of our systems, etc etc etc. Your primary benefit as I see it is currently convenience, but trust is just as valuable.

uxp• 16 years ago

> I don't know if many in your planned market would be okay with someone else setting up their systems.

This is what I'd be concerned about. I imagine there is a very small market in between the types of server users that have no idea what a kernel is and that it is configurable and the types of users in the 'enterprise' that either already have these automation scripts built themselves, or have strict enough security practices that prevents them from going outside their department for this.

europa9• 16 years ago

I think , the value addition will be customization and time saving. As you suggested the StackScripts can build/install common things, what if you want something else ie. a different version of software etc. Thanks for the feedback. Edit: Grammar

ZeroMinx2• 16 years ago

So in effect, this is hiring a Linux sysadmin consultant for a short/fixed term contract (?)

That's cool. A lot of devs is not very good at sys admin stuff. I've actually had my puppet config and other sysadmin set up by a contractor.

csouth• 16 years ago

Well a couple of interesting points here.

1. Either you have to host the server on your account, or I have to give you my username and password to my hosting account. This might put people off so just keep that in mind.

2. Also I don't see a reason to limit yourself to cloud platforms. Hosts like linode/dreamhost/etc are pretty popular these days and service like this would help a startup with limited/no knowledge in server platforms.

3. I also wouldn't limit yourself to just Linux. If your familiar with windows systems you might make a little more money on setting up MSSQL, Exchange, and IIS (And if I recall correctly Rackspace now offers Windows in the cloud).

4. Also think about upkeep of the servers as well. If someone is going to pay you to set it up, they will likely pay you to maintain it.

frederickcook2• 16 years ago

I believe Rackspace has affiliate/reseller programs that might take care of the user/pass issues. You could also just hand over the keys to the server, not the hosting account.

europa9• 16 years ago

I did signup for affiliate program with Racksapce. I had a brief chat with a customer support agent but he is not aware of anything to deliver my custom build machine image to other customers. May be I have to talk to someone else at Rackspace.

europa9• 16 years ago

1. Yes this something currently trying to figure out,the best way to deliver the final server to the customer. It is pretty straight forward on amazon but rackspce it not seems to be the case.

2. Definitely. The listed ones are the one I have experience on. 3.You are right about Windows setup. aws and rack space offers windows servers. I have to play with Windows setup though before I offer it. 4.I'll keep the server maintenance part of the service in mind. Thanks.

TimH• 16 years ago

I'm on the fence. If I hadn't of gone through the process of learning how to set up servers myself, I definitely would have used your services. Now I know how to do it, though perhaps not efficiently, and perhaps not in the most secure, optimized way, you'd have to do a good sales job to get me interested. I'd at least take a look at your website's home page though. :-)

europa9• 16 years ago

I promise I'll have my web site up this weekend. Hope I can push you over the fence with that.

frederickcook2• 16 years ago

I think that abstracting away as much as possible and providing "everything as a service" is definitely the direction the cloud companies are all going (Rackspace included) so you're on the right track there.

Not knowing anything about the market, there might be opportunity in building large custom clusters instead of just single servers, and use Open Stack as a base. Might make it look like a juicy acquisition for someone.

mmatey• 16 years ago

I think it's a great idea. As aitoehigie said, there's a lot of less technical developers out there that don't want to handle that stuff, but want something more custom and/or powerful than a base vps or managed hosting service.

Just find a way to whitelabel it yourself.

europa9• 16 years ago

Thanks.

Sorry for my ignorance, can you or someone tell me what you mean by 'whitelabel'

europa9• 16 years ago

Got it: Thanks to wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-label_product

slantyyz• 16 years ago

If the price was right, I'd very much consider it. Server setup, hardening, etc. is just something I don't want to think about or spend time on. I'd rather spend the money for 3 hours of someone else's time than spend 2 days trying to figure it out myself.

Caveat: you'd have to have ballpark figures on your site. I have this thing about consultants/firms not saying what their rate/price is up front.

almost• 16 years ago

Maybe. It would really depend. I'm definitely up for not having to bother with server configuration issues. But I can imagine this not helping that much or introducing extra hassle unless you managed to do it really really well.

tsycho2• 16 years ago

Yes, if the price is right, and the specification interface is easy.

The interface needs to be significantly less effort than writing/modifying a Stackscript (http://blog.linode.com/2010/02/09/introducing-stackscripts/)

europa9• 16 years ago

Thanks for sharing the link tsycho

patio11• 16 years ago

I still need to figure out how to deliver the custom machine image after building it on racksapcecloud/slicehost.

"Pick this option in your slicehost setup. SCP this file into your home directory. sudo go-get-a-coffee.sh and come back in twenty minutes."

Alternatively, the same thing delivered as a Chef script or what have you. Capistrano and Deprec used to be a fairly good option for getting a generic Rails stack ready on Ubuntu, for example.

As to whether I would pay for this: heck yes, but there is a fairly narrow window for it. When I'm doing green field development, like where I am for a very small window now for Appointment Reminder, I can make extensive changes to my infrastructure without paying ginormous switching costs. After that site goes live for the first time, though, I can't use your service until the next time I launch a product, because I can't trust that you understand my needs intimately enough to handle a migration.

Why would I pay for this? Fairly straightforward: I am not a professional sysadmin -- I am a developer who knows a few things about a few things because he has to. I know I'm going to burn two or three days tweaking my configuration prior to launching AR, even with productivity enhancers like Deprec to use. I will probably make at least a few consequential errors which will lurk until they bring the site down some weeks later, and create technical debt against later upgrades. I do not enjoy configuring servers. Blocking off three days to tweak an Ubuntu install prevents me from writing a two line email to a satisfied client and booking a consulting engagement worth several thousand dollars.

Incidentally: you're going to hear a lot of feedback from developers about how you're gouging them if you charge reasonable prices for this. They are not your customers.

subbu• 16 years ago

There are 2 things involved in this. 1. Setting up the initial server involves quite a bit of labor. 2. It involves skill. If your customer is trying to avoid the labor but has enough skill to maintain it later then this makes sense. If he doesn't have enough skill to maintain the server after the initial setup then this is useless. He can let you manage the server as well.

abrudtkuhl• 16 years ago

I like it ... Could have used this service a couple weeks ago.

ryanwaggoner• 16 years ago

YES. I'm a developer, not a sysadmin, and there's always that little voice in the back of my mind wondering if I've missed some obvious security hardening thing, etc. I know I should just get better at this, but the list of things I should get better at is about 10x as long as I have time for.

fragmede• 16 years ago

I'd argue that the idea has merit - because that's one of the problems heroku and google app engine solve. The fact that it's complete straight forwards on EC2, for both sales and imaging is another testament to the idea's merits. One thing/angle you might go for is the scaling aspect - I can run apt-get all day to setup a single machine, but as a developer, and not a sysadmin, some of the finer details to setting up a more complex, multi-machine setup with a coule mysql instances, an apache box or two, may be lost on me.

Hypothetically, I would pay for a way to easily grow my single VPS into a multi-machine config.

tsycho2• 16 years ago

Heroku (and others that I haven't tried) solve this well, but they are expensive if you run a large site.

If I know that I want an obvious setup such as a reverse proxy + load balancer + multiple rails (or other) servers + a master/slave db setup on linode/slicehost/MT to save server costs, but do not want to do the sysadmin work, and maybe do not know enough about security etc......then OP's tool seems quite useful for me.

Ideally, I would like an interface that takes in parameters like the above, and generates scripts (such as stackscripts, or some similar alternative), that would just run and configure the systems.

Or in other words, give me a Heroku like interface to configure Linode/MT/slicehost :)

I would be willing to pay a reasonable upfront fee for it, though the price should obviously depend on the complexity of the configuration. I would also be willing to pay for monthly support. From a developer's perspective, I think this is basically outsourcing the sysadmin work which most people don't seem to want to do/learn, even though they realize how important it is for their site.

bobf• 16 years ago

Sounds like dotCloud - or at least their "end goal", as I heard it pitched at SUS2010.

gurraman• 16 years ago

You're the human Fabric (http://docs.fabfile.org/0.9.2/)!

I'd use your service if it was reasonably priced (and I hadn't invested a lot of time into automating this myself).

The fact that I have taken the time to automate this workflow totally gives your idea merit though.

Make a nice interface where I can select the most common options and allow me to save it for future use. Also make me add a public key, and send me a confirmation email containing an entry for .ssh/config when it's all up and running.

thibaut_barrere• 16 years ago

I would not use that currently, because I know how to use chef either for me or my customers; so basically this is almost free to configure a new machine now.

But this is not for everyone neither I think, so I definitely think there is room for your service somewhere in between!

Small point: I would definitely expect such as service to provide passwords in an encrypted manner (as you need to communicate them at the end I guess).

ericflo• 16 years ago

Sorry, no. This is what Puppet and Chef do, and they do it very very well. In addition, with companies like devstructure, it has become very easy to automatically generate a Puppet/Chef manifest.

cschneid• 16 years ago

Puppet and chef help with the doing, but not with the knowing what to do.

I'm a developer who only knows enough about sys-admin to mess around in /etc when needed. Knowing the sys-admin specific knowledge is beyond me, that's what you'd be paying for here.

Even to the point that what's delivered is a set of Chef recipes that are easy to run.

pierrefar• 16 years ago

If you're "just" installing server-side software, then maybe if the price is right.

If you are also offering to get a working uncustomized copy of popular software installed (e.g. Wordpress) then that's more interesting. Some bits of software need a few manual tweaks/config changes to get working. This is especially true for when you move away from Apache and to nginx. Nothing rocket sciency, but still time consuming and so could be outsourced.

europa9• 16 years ago

Of course the installation /setup of software/application like Wordpress,Joomla,Drupal etc. are in my list

sabat• 16 years ago

You're pretty close to something I've been hankering for -- a cloud service similar to EC2, except with a different set of strengths. Amazon's strong point is being able to scale up and down easily. A lot of businesses don't need that; they just want to be able to move some or all of their operation to a cloud. And they don't necessarily want to host their own private cloud. They want to rent one, like you do with EC2, but without the "you can scale fast" premium that Amazon charges.

There are other services (Grid-something, etc.) but last I looked, they were still expensive and had other drawbacks. This needs to be simple, and simpler than most of what I've seen. You need to be able to get onto the boxes if you need, but also manage them with a webapp.

Bonus points: implement security features like virtual networks in my private cloud, so that I can keep my DB servers off of the internet (even though they're technically on the internet). I want to do this easily and without hand-configuring the boxes. Amazon has something like this, but the last time I looked, they were the only ones.

A1kmm• 16 years ago

It would depend what the scalability of your service was - if your service set up one server, and 3 days later I need 40 more identical ones up in the next half-hour, without having to manually re-enter all the settings, would your service be able to handle that? I think that would probably need to be in the minimum viable feature set.

Even with that said, I think that I would normally prefer to vertically integrate that type of work into a startup (incremental adjustments to the deploy script during dev, technical founder uses the deploy script during early days, when the business grows, a dedicated sysadmin will be required anyway) - but that does depend on the price and exactly what is offered.

If you pitched it as: * Our core business is to license common deployment scripts (i.e. the scripts are commercial software, and you sell a license to use them). * For a small fee, you can use our web interface to help you generate a customised version of our script - or you can edit the script yourself. * For a small fee, we can also keep track of all your deployments and deployment scripts, and run your deployment scripts for you on demand via a web interface.

then the value proposition might make it worthwhile if the price was right.

kgrin• 16 years ago

I've literally just now been looking for a freelancer to do this for me... precisely because I'm a developer who knows some things about systems, rather than an actual sysadmin. So yeah, I muddle through, but it takes 3x as long and is probably only 75% as good as someone who does it all the time.

albahk• 16 years ago

Yes, I would pay an upfront cost but not a recurring monthly thing.

For example, I have a LAMP project I want to run on a VPS and will only access the server over SSH. You could go in and rip out all the crap like FTP servers, mail servers, close unneeded ports and tune it for Apache+PHP and MySQL and I will pay $20-$40 for that.

In 6 months, if my app has taken off I ask if you can update/patch/harden the machine again for $40-60.

Ask HN: Will you or anyone use this service?

Related Stories