Hi Sarah/Daz,

Be careful here, when we were hosted we ran a snapshot client hosted at our own site, which worked for the most part but did have some limitations. The main one comes when you are performing any sort of course copy activity which involves a 'Copy into' function for the uploaded files. So if you run any sort of regular module rollover this can be a total nightmare.

Because your snapshot client won't have any access to the hosted filer, this operation will fail when it tries to copy the uploaded files across. The only way we were able to get around this was to invoke a customisation at a cost with an on-going ICM maintenance contract. This  involved the setup of a hosted snapshot controller to give us this functionality. We were hosted just under a year ago, so I'm not saying that this position won't have changed, I'd just be surprised if it has.

Also, in order to secure the communications channel from the snapshot client to the hosted production system we used a VPN tunnel which again came at an extra cost. I'm not saying this is the only way to do this, it's just the option that we chose.

Apart from that, support was pretty good when we were hosted, but I also think that support is pretty good now we're self-hosted !!! We did dabble with complex hosting at one point, which I can thoroughly recommend, but again this comes at a cost ! :-)

Daz - sure you have this one in hand but how are you going to implement your authentication link? If you're going for LDAP then secure LDAP seems to be MH's recommended route, at least when we were hosted. We used standard LDAP over a VPN tunnel which I definitely would not recommend due to the single point of failure it introduces (unless you somehow implement this over multiple tunnels).

If you need any more information let me know.

Thanks,
Ceri Richards
Senior Systems Administrator
LCSS - IS
University of Glamorgan
U [log in to unmask]
c +44 0(1443) 654138


-----Original Message-----
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Hargreaves
Sent: 29 March 2011 14:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Bb to host or not to host

Hi again Daz

I've just had an email from our friendly Blackboard Account Exec who has pointed out that although it's true that root access to the hosted production server is not permitted, it is still possible to run snapshot scripts via a remote snapshot client installation that resides on our own servers in college.  The commands are then sent securely from our own in house snapshot server to the hosted production server at Blackboard. 

I'm reposting, as I'd hate to give Blackboard bad press, if it's unwarranted!

He's putting us in touch with Denise Howze in their Managed Hosting support team....so it's maybe worth doing the same?

cheers

sarah

Daz Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist <[log in to unmask]>
29/03/2011 11:52
Please respond to
Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist <[log in to unmask]>


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Subject
Bb to host or not to host







Hi all,

 

We have been given an option by Blackboard to be hosted, which we have had many years ago however brought this in house due to costs. They have now become very aggressive on the hosting pricing, which is giving me food for thought. My question is for those of you hosted are there any problems and does the support improve with a hosted solution.

 

Many thanks in advance for any responses.

 

 

regards 

 

Daz Smith

IT & Systems Development Manager

Brooklands College

 

Tel: 01932797890

 

[log in to unmask]

 

http://www.brooklands.ac.uk

 

 

Please consider the environment and don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

 

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