[HH#304167] Using HelioHost in academia

[HelioHost]

Username: N/A, Server: N/A, Main Domain: N/A

 

Hi,

 

I'm new to HelioHost and just wondering if it would be a good choice for my class of ~50 students to host one of their homework assignments in our Java class. The assignment is Java/JSP plus MySQL. Any advice? I tried signing up myself but got denied because of all servers being full.

 

Regards,

Konstantin Kuzmin, Ph.D.

 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI),

Lecturer, Computer Science Department

[Krydos]

Unfortunately, as you may know already, Tomcat uses massive amounts of memory, and the more accounts have access to it the more memory it requires. Our servers obviously have a finite amount of memory so we cannot allow every single account that signs up to have access to Tomcat.

 

The way it works then is there is a waiting list, and when someone else stops using java the next person in line gets access, and the total number of accounts with simultaneous access is kept at a reasonable level that the server can support. If you signed up right now with 1 account and requested java access the estimated install date for that 1 account would be 2020-08-20 (16 days). That's just an estimate though based on the historical rate of installs over the last month or two. The actual install date could vary plus or minus depending on whether anyone stopped using java. As long as you're still using it actively you can keep access forever, and some of our users have been hosting java/jsp websites for years without giving up their access. Since only 1 account at a time is granted access when the server can support another account it could takes weeks, or maybe even months for all 50 students to get access on each of their 50 accounts.

 

Also, as you already noticed, our free service is more popular than we can support with our limited number of servers, and limited budget, so we have to limit the number of new accounts that are created each day to keep the servers operating at a reasonable performance.

 

Only two server plans have java/jsp available: Johnny and Tommy. We allow the most number of new accounts each day on Johnny so he is the most overloaded, has the worst uptime, and is the slowest, but signups stay open longer each day. To give you some numbers, yesterday Johnny was available for 4 hours and 10 minutes. The day before 3 hours and 53 minutes. The day before 12 hours and 33 minutes. The day before 3 hours and 25 minutes.

 

Tommy also has java/jsp access available, but in order to keep him fast and have a good uptime we restrict the number of new free accounts each day to prevent him from becoming overloaded. Tommy is also the most sought after server because of the better quality. Yesterday free Tommy signups were open for 0.561 seconds. The day before 6.308 seconds. The day before 2.033 seconds. The day before 15.307 seconds. Tommy free signups rarely last longer than 10 minutes, and are usually less than 10 seconds. We also offer the option for donors to create an account on Tommy at any time of the day they want, even if the server is full for the day.

 

I don't know if it would be feasible for your students to all take turn using one account? Another option you might consider is getting a vps for a few months or however long you need and installing tomcat on that. We offer scaling vps that can go as high as 32 GB of memory, 300 GB hard drive, and 8 cpus. We've never done it before, but I'd be willing to give you a trial to make sure it will work for your class and then even a discount off our advertised price since you're using it for education. You can check out the vps options we offer at https://www.heliohost.org/vps/

 

Thank you for considering us for your class. We've been offering free web hosting since 2005 and we've always tried to help people learn. A few people have even come back and let us know that what they learned while using our free service kickstarted their entire career, like this guy https://www.helionet.org/index/topic/15738-heliohost/

 

Let us know if you have any other questions, suggestions, concerns, or need help with anything else.

[HelioHost]

Hi,

 

Thank you for your prompt and detailed response. VPS definitely sounds like=

a viable option but for this specific course I don't think I have time to =

set up everything, get the payment through all the layers of the university=

's bureaucracy, etc. Perhaps, next time I do this Java course, I can plan a=

round this opportunity in advance.

 

Once again, thank you for a detailed explanation and offering advice on how=

to proceed with my idea of letting students actually deploy their work and=

make it available to the public, even though it may be for a short period =

of time, rather than just sending me a bunch of files to grade.

 

Best,

Konstantin Kuzmin

 

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