Hosting JSP & JAVA files

Lawdie

Hi,

I would be grateful for any help and expertise on this question. A friend (and programmer) is writing some web pages using Java and JSP files. Theres only three pages, login, main and admin. Theres also three or four small images loaded into each page. One feature is the admin person can setup users and store some text, so he will need the web page to store (read/write) information on a text type file.

From the programming end this guy is really top notch. However hes passed all the web hosting issue over to me and can't get involved in sourcing. I will also need to also register a .ie domain name for the pages. Theres no need for email services etc just hosting. The .ie page are for club members to access.

I've contacted two Irish companies. Both have stated they will only host this application on a dedicated server or they want to write the application. One company offered dedicate hosting for €150 + vat per month. This is way outside our budget. I've already to pay my friend for his time and although at a discount we can't afford this type of fee.

My problem is the exorbitant cost for something so small (in my opinion). This could be done in Excel for one months server rent, but not as useful for the club. I'm sure these ISPs have good reasons for the pricing and policy, but the files will total 300k and if I was setting a full website I could completely understand, but.

The hosting does not have to be in Ireland. As long as the service is steady, reasonable and they can host these files were willing to pay a going rate.

If you can suggest some internet service providers that could accommodate and anything else I might have missed out.

My thanks Lawdie

Lawdie

Slight update on my search. I came across Eapps

https://signup.eapps.com/store/index.php

These are offering

Standard Max VPS - Ruby/Java/LAMP
Supports Ruby on Rails, Java/JSP, EJB/J2EE and PHP/Python/Perl.

Provides everything in ourStandard Plus plan, including a private IP with web mail and IMAP/POP and Ruby on Rails and Apache Tomcat for Java/JSP, plus greater resource allowances, plus EJB/J2EE support using JBoss. LAMP support includes Linux, Apache, MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite, PHP/Python/Perl.

I've banged off a mail on my requirements. Anyone experience this company?

phil

The main issue is the technology you're using. Java/JSP is not something that is suitable for a shared hosting environment out of the box. It requires a great deal of customisation and a lot of the popular control panels do not support it at all, or don't support it well. Most hosting companies are very restricted by what they can use by their control panel of choice. Add to the fact that Java/JSP is not popular in the low end shared hosting market and you're left in the situation you currently have (i.e. it's not as easy to find someone who'll host it for budget prices).

I know of eApps, but don't have any direct experience with them. The reason eApps is able to offer this at a substantial discount is because you're basically purchasing a Virtual Private Server (VPS). They use SWSoft's Virtuozzo which is a nice piece of software. Just tread carefully because a VPS is essentially a full operating system and you can cause limitless amounts of damage if you don't know what you're doing

The only other thing I'd mention is that Java/JSP is not designed for small sites (such as yours). VPS's have made this technology easier to deploy for smaller situations, but it's more of an "Enterprise" technology where hardware can be chucked at it. As you've found, finding places to host this isn't easy and managing Tomcat or similar can be a pain. The learning curve and resources required are much higher than something like PHP/MySQL for example.

Obviously, it's too late now, but something to note for the future!

Phil.

Lawdie

Cheers Phil and thanks for the advice. The route of JAVA/JSP was not by choice.

I've asked them to confirm the ability to read/write the properties to a files. If we can get this in place we should have a runner.

The fact is I've being spoiled when it comes to the hosting issue too long.

josie joe

Have you tried http://www.hostingireland.ie/java-hosting.php - it seems ok at 150euro per year - sounds like it might do what you need?