Technology

From Startupping Wiki

Contents 1 Software 2 Software Development 3 Infrastructure 3.1 Hosting 3.2 Scaling 3.2.1 Additional Resources on Scaling 3.3 Web Site Analytics 3.3.1 Hosted 3.3.2 Software Based 3.4 Web Site Monitoring 3.5 Admin

[edit] Software

• Bookkeeping
  • GnuCash - open source accounting software

• Database
  • MySQL - open source database based on the structure query language (SQL). It is commonly used with Websites for adding, removing, and modifying information in a database.
  • Postgres - a free object-relational database management system.

• WWW
  • Apache – open source HTTP Web server software to handle web requests and serve up web resources.
  • Clearsilver- an open source, language-neutral HTML template system.
  • Movable Type– proprietary software for creating, publishing and maintaining blogs. It is written in Perl and backed by MySQL, and offers the widely used TrackBack feature.
  • WordPress - a free open source blog authoring system written in PHP and MySQL, and boasts ease-of-installation and ease-of-use.
  • phpBB - acronym for “php Bulletin Board.” A free, open source bulletin board package based on the PHP scripting language and supports MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers.
  • vBulletin – a community forum authoring tool used to run large boards or discussion groups. It uses PHP as the scripting language and MySQL as the back-end data base.

• Programing
  • PHP- An open source scripting language used to create database interactivity and dynamic content.
  • Ruby on Rails – also known as RoR. It is an open-source framework for Web development in Ruby, an object-oriented programming language.
  • Grails - A Java framework that is as agile as Ruby on Rails.
  • ASP.NET - Microsoft's web platform built on the .NET Framework. Newer technologies, including DLINQ and ASP.NET AJAX, provide features to help promote modern web development for developers on this platform.
  • iRise – iRise is a rapid prototyping and simulation solution used to quickly create interactive prototypes of software applications. iRise also has a special program for software entrepreneurs that provides free 90-day trials to help emerging companies get to their next funding event quicker.

• VoIP
  • [Asterisk] - An open source IPBX solution that works with most hardware.
  • [SER] - SIP Express Router (SERi) is a high-performance, configurable, free SIP server. - from the site...

[edit] Software Development

Once you've figured out what software to use, you'll need to begin the software development process. Most startups today use an agile process, where software is released frequently (as often as every two weeks).

SD Resources:

• JoelOnSoftware - very popular blog of a well known software developer.
• StartupCTO - templates and how-to articles
• Software Development Process Series - from wikipedia

[edit] Infrastructure

[edit] Hosting

Lists and Ranks of Hosting Sites:

• Webhosting Talk

• Best Host Ratings

• HostFind

Other Useful References on Hosting:

• MediaTemple: -http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/17/media-temple-crushes-shared-hosting/ (Be Sure to read the comments as they were not all that positive)
• Review of Hosting Sites- http://www.linkedin.com/searchAnswers?results=&sik=1187190882293 (Originally referred to here - http://blog.adaptiveblue.com/?p=528)
• http://americanahost.com/web_hosting/How_much_bandwidth_does_your_web_site_need.html
• Amazon EC2:
  • http://blogs.smugmug.com/onethumb/2006/11/10/amazon-s3-show-me-the-money/
  • http://atlantiscomputing.com/blog/2006/11/amazin_amazon_or_why_ec2_is_th.html

[edit] Scaling

The growth of an infrastructure affects all aspects of technology. Scalable infrastructures include well designed computer networks and breathing room for physical space. The idea of scalability is best understood by looking at a room of half full computer racks.

There was a very interesting discussion on Scaling MySql on Fred Wilson's blog. To summarize the advice it is :-

1. Get your product out the door.
2. If the load on your application becomes high then first try some simple optimization tricks.
3. First look at simple optimizations of the database. Not a redesign or denormalising the tables. Look at indexes, and storage. You can find a consultant here http://www.mysql.com/consulting/.
4. Use Squid as a HTTP accelerator to cache web pages. The payback can be far greater than database optimization. It is quite easy to get speed uplifts, and reductions on database loads, by many factors.
5. Then look at memcahe to cache database requests. Using something like memcache can massively reduce the load on the database in many applications.

[edit] Additional Resources on Scaling

• You Scaled Your What - Dan Pritchett, Nov 24 2006
• Its boring to scale with Ruby - David Heinemeier Hansson, July 12 2005
• Twitter: Service Vs Platform – April 13 2007
• Scaling to Multiple Databases with Twitter – April 15 2007
• The Early Amazon - Greg Lindon, May 3rd 2006
• The Ebay Architecture – Randy Shoup & Dan Pritchett, Nov 29 2006
• MySpace: Too Much of a good thing – David Carr, Jan 16 2007
• Flickr- Database War Stories – Tim O Reilly, April 27 2006
• Craigslist- Database War Stories – Tim O Reilly, April 28 2006
• Scaling SQL Server 2005- Plentyoffish – Markus Frind, Dec 7 2006
• ASP.net and 2m page views per hour – Markus Frind, Feb 9th 2007
• What are the world’s popular websites running on – Pingdom, Feb 26 2007
• How we built Flickr – Cal Henderson, June 20 2005
• Inside LiveJournal’s Backend 2005 – Brad Fitzpatrick, August 2005
• Inside LiveJournal’s Backend 2004 – Brad Fitzpatrick, April 2004
• Digg PHP’s Scalability and Performance – Brian Fioca, April 10 2006
• Scaling Twitter- April 23rd 2007
• Scaling Web Apps with PHP - Rasmus Lerdorf, July 2006
• The Problem with Conventional Databases – April 20 2007
• I want a New Platform- Albert Wenger- Sep 19 2007
• Scaling a Rails Application from the Bottom Up- Jason Hoffman- Sep 17 2007
• Scaling Audiogalaxy.com to 80 million daily page views, Tom Kleinpeter, March 2008

[edit] Web Site Analytics

These services and software packages are useful for measuring all aspects of web site traffic, from numbers of users, to most popular pages.

[edit] Hosted

• Google Analytics - "Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site." A free, hosted web analytics system, based on the Urchin on Demand service of Urchin Software, which was acquired by Google in 2005.

[edit] Software Based

• Urchin Software - "Urchin 5 analyzes traffic for one or more websites and provides accurate and easy-to-understand reports on your visitors - where they come from, how they use your site, what converts them into customers, and much more."

[edit] Web Site Monitoring

These services monitor the availability of your web site.

• Alterta - "Global monitoring and voice & SMS alerts"

• Witbe - "Software solutions editor for global IT performance management"

[edit] Admin