Firm Support Software, Inc. Hosts Alpha Five Web Applications
Q: John, it's been about 6 months since you started on your project to offer Alpha Five Web Application Server hosting. This is a brand new platform and I expect there was a bit of a learning curve.
There was a bit of a learning curve for us as we primarily host ASP and Cold Fusion applications. IIS (Microsoft's Web Server) natively supports multi-homing (hosting multiple domains on one server) The Web Application Server does not provide this service; it has no concept of an application or website. To the Web Application Server, there is just one big website with a bunch of sub-directories.
To be able to host multiple sites on one server, we needed to set-up an Apache web server that uses a special Apache module that Alpha wrote to handle requests from Apache Virtual Hosts
Q: How is the beta testing going?
So far, it is going along quite well. One thing we did find out is that we needed a more powerful server then we are accustomed to using with Cold Fusion or ASP. We are now looking at creating some performance metrics to determine how well Alpha handles large loads. We are also creating several in-house apps that allow us to test and explore the capabilities of the Alpha Web Application Server.
Once we upgraded our hardware, we are happy with the performance to date. Of course we will need some metrics to back up our assumptions, needing to know for instance, how many simultaneous connections there are in relation to the response times.
Q: You are coming at this from the perspective of hosting many sites. What were some of the issues you ran into?
We have been in the hosting business for several years and have a wide range of experience with various server platforms and architectures. From a hosting perspective, we find the Web Application Server on par with ASP and CF. The only thing we do not yet know is how it will perform under a heavy load. We have seen good stability with only occasional reboots. Once we understood how the Apache interacts with the Alpha Web Application Server, setting up websites has become an easy chore. There has been a rare bug in the Apache Alpha Web Application Server module, but Lenny has been quick to find the problem and fix it.
Q: Right now you are in a beta period. Can you tell us what this means to someone thinking about having their site hosted by Firm Software, Inc.?
As experienced ISPs it was important for us to have this Beta period to allow us to become familiar with the Web Application Server. We knew that issues would arise, there would be bugs in the software, there would also be a learning curve for developers and so-on. The beta period was our "Shake-Down" cruise, to make sure we were prepared for Production Hosting. The last thing we wanted to do is charge for hosting while we and Alpha were fixing and sorting out the last details.
In addition, we wanted to make it easier for developers to take the leap and start web programming. It has been great to work with developers, assisting them with their applications. In my opinion, there are countless opportunities with the Alpha Five Web Application Server and we want to encourage the Alpha Community to jump in. So, if your readers are thinking about doing some web programming, we encourage them to create an account online at www.alpha5host.com.
We of course hope that beta testers will become customers and host with Firm Support. We will be in no rush to shut down the test server once the period is over. So, if you are a beta tester and you are building an app, we will give you the time (without charge) you need to finish up your development work before having to move the application to its final hosting server. We will however be completing the beta program, and will not be accepting any new beta testers after April 15th, 2005.
Q: What about SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support with Firm Software, Inc.?
Yes, we can provide SSL through the Apache server. It is not difficult to implement. Developers, who are thinking about developing applications that need to be SSL compliance, need not worry about this.
Q: Can you give us any thoughts on pricing after the beta period expires?
We have been holding off on this until we compile our metrics. The reason being, we want to see how many sites the Alpha Five Web Application Server can handle without decreasing service levels. However it is important to note that on a shared Alpha Five server, the licensing costs for the Alpha Five Web Application Server are absorbed by Firm Support Software, Inc. So the end user or developer can create the web application using the standard version of Alpha Five v6, which has the web development tools built-in, and allow Firm Support to do the rest. There is no additional licensing cost to the user for the shared Alpha Web Application Server.
Q: From the perspective of the end user, what are the advantages of Alpha Five over a traditional web project built with PHP or ASP?
I have always found web development both fascinating and aggravating at the same time. Alpha's Web Application Server is taking away some the aggravating factors, making web programming much more interesting and fun. There is a certain learning curve to overcome, but after that, web app building is much more productive.
Here are some my personal favorite features:
Grid components, that are easy to configure, look great and are very functional
No coding to do inserts, updates and deletes from a grid
No coding to create searches
URL parameter Filters and Sort Orders
Dialog Components, that allow you to provide your own custom event code
15 minutes to create a report, then add code to the web page to allow the user to run the report as a PDF file, this is really a great feature!
Easy Deployment to production server
Built in email functionality, both high and low level functions
Built in ftp functionality, high and low level functions
Full use of the Alpha Five's large xbasic Library
The key concept here with the Alpha Web Application Server is "Productivity in Programming". The same thinking that brought us the concepts of rapid application development in Alpha Five Desktop software have been applied to web application development. To my knowledge, there is no other product out there that provides this level of development capability and ease of use.
Q: John, I know that you are a long time Alpha, Visual Basic, and Cold Fusion Developer. I am wondering with the coming client/server version of Alpha Five, and the current Alpha Five Web App Server, if Alpha Software product will figure even more prominently in your company's custom application development?
We look forward to the new client server version and to seeing what its capabilities will be. As most of our customers fall into the middle to large corporate category, there may be an opportunity for us to use Alpha Five where we might otherwise be using .NET. In a sense for our purposes, I envision the client/server version to fill a niche, just like we believe that Web Application Server will also do. This niche is an area that is highly under-served today with most products. There is a service gap between the full-blown enterprise application and an affordable every day solution that most corporate department managers can only dream about.
Using Web Application Server for example…I was recently called in by a customer to talk about some more development work. We had recently completed a .NET/SQL application for this customer which had taken quite a bit of time to build. The customer now wanted to build another application that would act as their Corporate Intranet. It would have multiple uses and track all sorts of customer information. The customer expected that we would use the same technology to build this application and was preparing a budget to fund the project. However, now that we have experience with the Alpha Five Web Application Server, I could feel confident in saying to the customer…"I have a new technology that is going to cut down your development cost, provide a quicker development cycle and still provide you with the functionality you require." This is a perfect instance where we can introduce Alpha to a customer; we can show them how they can benefit from "Productivity in Programming" using Alpha Five.
We see the same opportunities with the Client/Server version filling the gaps and maybe doing even more. Some project that is only a dream, that will never be built because of cost…will now become a reality.
Q: What about the Alpha Five user out there that may have good Alpha Five desktop skills, but is not ready or does not have the time to develop their own web application. Would Firm Support Software Inc. work with this individual to extend their application to the web?
We are happy to assist users in extending their Alpha Five desktop skills to building Internet applications. However, our primary goal is to provide the best Alpha Five hosting services out there. To that end, we have built a very robust infrastructure, we are training our own in-house help-desk personnel to handle Alpha Five Web Application Server issues and have invested considerable thought and effort into creating automated systems to manage Alpha Five Web Application Server hosting. In addition we offer dedicated Web Application servers that are custom configured to match our customer's requirements. And of course, we also provide Web Application Server hosting on our Alpha Five shared servers. We also provide our customers with their own email accounts configured to their domains and provide in-house DNS services.
If a user has an issue, we will be there to help them figure out the answer. I think this is the uniqueness of our business model; we have the expertise in both the hosting area and very long relationship with Alpha Software.
We are also looking to grow the number of Web Application Server developers in the community, which will ultimately be beneficial to our hosting business in the future. As we identify competent Alpha Five Web Application Server developers, we will either refer work to them or use them as sub-contractors on our own projects. Anyone who wants to send us a resume, we would be happy to take a look and see if we have a match.
John Bowen, Jr. is CEO of Firm Support Software located in Kingston, NY. He has been an Alpha developer and author since Alpha 4 version 2. In 1996, John built his first Internet application using O'Reilly's Website Pro. That same year he founded Firm Support Hosting services, which has been providing custom hosting services to businesses continuously for nearly a decade.
John can be reached at john.bowen@firmsupport.com or by phone at 845-338-1490 x242.
You can visit Firm Support Software's web site at: www.firmsupport.com