News: eApps accepted into BlackBerry Alliance Program
In our October newsletter we announced the launch of our Enterprise Email service, featuring Zimbra. This new service has been so successful that we accelerated our plans to offer the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) add-on service for Zimbra. BES is required for BlackBerry users to get full over the air synchronization of mail, calendar, contacts and tasks to their mobile device.
Rim, the maker of BlackBerry devices, requires that service providers that offer BES services must be accepted into the BlackBerry Alliance program. We are pleased to report that we have been accepted into the program and are well on our way to launching this exciting add-on service for BlackBerry users.
At this time we are testing our BES service and will announce our launch soon. Once we complete the launch, eApps will have one of the most powerful, complete, and cost-effective Enterprise Email services you can find.
For more information about Zimbra, check out this short, informative video tour. You can also sign up for an informative 30 minute Enterprise Email Webinar on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 10AM Eastern or 3PM Eastern (GMT-5).
More News: eApps IPSec Compatible VPN Service in Beta testing
Exciting things are always happening at eApps. At this time we are in the Beta testing phase of our new Enterprise grade Virtual Private Network (VPN) service with several customers. This cost effective service uses Vyatta in a Xen VPS container to provide an IPSec compatible VPN. It provides the same functionality as a hardware based VPN at a fraction of the cost. The VPN service can be configured in two modes at this time, with additional features to come later.
- Peer to Peer – This mode establishes a VPN tunnel between your eApps Hosting service and a remote gateway. The configuration is generally used to invoke a server to server VPN for secure transfer of data from the eApps network to a remote network.
- Remote Client – The Remote Client mode creates a VPN tunnel between multiple remote users and the eApps network. Generally this configuration is used to secure a private application service for a group of users.
For more information on the cost effective eApps IPSec compatible VPN service, contact sales@eapps.com.
Promotion: How to take advantage of eApps offers
We reported in previous newsletters that all special offers and promotions will be announced using Twitter. But what if you don’t use Twitter? Good News! You don’t have to use Twitter to receive info about eApps offers. All you have to do is set up a Twitter alert and an Email will be sent to you whenever we tweet about a new offer. Here is how it is done using tweetbeep. Other alerts services are available as well.
Your TweetBeep account will allow you to create Email Alerts.
- Click on "New Keyword Alert"
- Type in the Name of your Alert and set the Frequency to: Every Day
- Enter in the box next to "This hashtag" the following text: #eappscust
- Click Save Alert button
Now you will receive an Email whenever there is a special offer for eApps Customers!
Best Post Winner:
Each month we select at least one outstanding post on our Community Forum
and award a $50 credit to the account of the selected
contributor(s)! The winner for the November newsletter is .
. .
ssh’ing outside a proxy-restricted network – tudaen
Please stop by the forum and check it out, ask a question,
offer a suggestion, or answer a question. You might just win a $50
credit in December!
Meet eApps: Marc Lucke
Marc is a new member of our technical support department. He was born in Rendsburg, Germany but his family moved to Australia when he was only 18 months old. He gravitated to technology and attended a technical college in Crows Nest, NSW. Marc also enhanced his technical knowledge through on-line training with Skillport. The truth is, most of Marc’s considerable technical knowledge was gained through hands-on activities. Marc was working for a small ISP in 1999 when he stumbled upon Redhat Linux. His Linux love affair grew from there, as he explored various flavors of Linux and expanded his attention to include web development and the Internet.
Marc has recently become a father. His second child, Madailéin, was named in honour of his wife’s Irish heritage. In addition to the joy that Maddie has brought into the lives of Marc and his wife, they are pleased to report that they have hit the "baby jackpot" because she is a great sleeper and leaves them both rested each day. When Marc isn’t working he enjoys science fiction. He doesn’t go as far as wearing a Klingon costume, but enjoys reading publications and watching videos. He is also a computer tinkerer, and enjoys exploring computer technology on his home network.
The best thing about working for eApps Hosting, according to Marc, is the opportunity to work with both people and technology. Marc enjoys interacting with people and addressing the technical challenges eApps customers face. Looking to the future, he enjoys being part of a team that delivers effective solutions in the ever changing technical arena. Please give Marc a big "G’day Mate" when you have a chance.
Updated/New
Applications:
Updated
versions of the following applications are now available, all for
CentOS 5 plans:
- git 1.6.5.2
- Java 5 Update 21
- Django 1.1.1
- httpd 2.2.14
- OpenLDAP 2.4.19
- WordPress 2.8.5
- MySQL 5.1.40
- Liferay w/ GlassFish 5.2.3
New application, for all CentOS 5 plans: Groovy & Grails 1.6/1.1.2
If
you are interested in moving
to the new CentOS 5 environment, please contact billing@eapps.com.
Article: Tinkering – Economic Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Justin Lahart, in his November 12, 2009 Wall Street Journal
article titled “Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis,” the author
reports on a very interesting and positive trend. In 2008 US
universities graduated nearly 40% more mechanical engineers than
computer engineers, continuing a trend since 2006. Lahart reports
that there is more to this trend than meets the eye. Many of the
students pursuing mechanical engineering are actively engaged in
hands on work that is very much like the lab work performed by the
great pioneers of invention a century ago.
Workshops, called “hackerspaces” are sprouting up all over the
US where budding inventors share resources, equipment, and ideas as
they strive to create new things, or even the “next new thing.”
Lahart believes that there are several factors behind this growing
trend, a principal one being the recession. Students are looking to
get an edge to start their career, and feel that producing something
is more meaningful than simply getting an A on a test. Another factor
is the decrease in cost of the equipment and technologies required to
engage in modern day tinkering. The cost of some equipment has fallen
by a factor of 10 in the past few years, making it easier for
students to become a player.
Professors stated to the author that there is a high level of
enthusiasm by the students. One professor noted that a group of
students decided to stay and work in the lab instead of going home on
break. The experience also goes beyond learning and career
development, as many of the inventors have created commercially
viable products including bike sprockets, robots, wheelchairs, a LED
system to create lighting effects for film, and more.
The movement even has a publication, called “Make” that has
seen subscriptions increase from 22,000 to over 100,000 in the last
four years, and an annual conference called “Maker Faire” in San
Mateo, California that had over 75,000 attendees in 2009.
In the midst of constant bad news, it is refreshing and inspiring
to see young people engaged in this creative process. Perhaps the
next Edison or Bell is tinkering away now.
Tech
Tip: Tuning Apache’s MaxClient setting
In our previous
newsletter we
offered a tip on Optimizing PostgreSQL Database Performance. This month we
offer the following tip.
Apache’s MaxClient setting: Tuning the web server on your VPS
The “Managing your websites with the Apache web server” user guide available on https://support.eapps.com/hsp/apache/ provides useful information on Apache and how to configure it. Before estimating and setting the best MaxClients setting for your VPS, reviewing this guide is recommended.
The whole idea is actually pretty simple. Determine how much free RAM your VPS has (1) and then the average RAM each httpd (Apache) process requires (2), and then divide (1) by (2) to determine a good idea of the optimal MaxClient setting.
Let’s consider an example.
- Test your most demanding web application for a while – Joomla or webmail perhaps (not including Tomcat, JBoss or Glassfish).
- Login to the VPS using SSH (https://support.eapps.com/hsp/ssh). Then use the command “top -b -c -n 1" to determine the average RAM requirements of each httpd process. For argument’s sake, let’s say each one uses 20MB. (Use the “RES” figure in top. Although theoretically this figure does not include RAM which may be shared, this does add a fudge factor for safety, particularly in low memory environments).
- Stop Apache (from the command line “service httpd stop”). Type “free –m”. Determine the free memory. In this example we will say that there is 310MB free and I want to leave about 20MB available even when Apache is running at maximum, so I will say that I can use 290MB for Apache. (you can start Apache again using “service httpd start”)
- In our example we thus have 290MB / 20MB = 14 (rounding down) which gives us a MaxClients setting of 14.
Finishing the configuration, ServerLimit should be set to equal MaxClients, MaxSpareServers < MaxClients etc. Generally these settings can be safely left alone and then tuned higher as desired.
By using “free -m” and “top -c” you can monitor how it goes and adjust these settings to maximize your web server’s performance whilst ensuring that the VPS does not run out of RAM.
It is better to over estimate how much the httpd process takes and to err on lower settings for MaxClients to leave some free RAM in your VPS for other tasks that may run, such as cron jobs. Note that it is undesirable that the VPS runs out of RAM as the process requesting more RAM than the VPS has left to give will be killed (which may include Apache!).
For further reading a great place to begin after our user guide is http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/misc/perf-tuning.html
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