JumpBox Official Blog

Here’s another useful situation where the Cloud Gear service comes in handy.

Today I was modifying a dropdown menu in our SugarCRM instance to add a new status type. For whatever reason the change I made killed the menu and made the system puke rendering it unusable for contacting people. I could have used the nuclear option and reverted it to last night’s backup but that would have meant blowing away all the conversations I had with folks this morning. Cloud Gear allowed me to solve this issue in a more surgical way:

I brought up a fresh JumpBox of the version of SugarCRM we’re running using Cloud Gear and then used the Restore from Amazon S3 feature to bring it current to last night’s backup (when the menu still worked). I was able to then operate on our live system by creating a new menu by the same name and copying over all the status types. Bam! – the menu worked again and none of today’s activity was lost! Total time expended on the fix = 15min. Total cost in hosting = $.20.

This type of quick “data transplant” would be a non-trivial ordeal with traditional methods as this type of surgery would have required provisioning a new environment from scratch and then restoring it from a backup. Cloud Gear makes it painless to bring up a parallel system in the cloud, update it to a working state, extract the “data tissue” necessary for the transplant and then terminate it. In a weird way it’s like having stem cells for your apps.

If you haven’t already given it a try, it’s free to signup for this service and costs only a few cents per hour to experiment. Give it a whirl.

StatusNet is an Open Source microblogging system that gives you Twitter-like functionality with the ability to run it behind a firewall on your network. The most noteworthy features of StatusNet include:

• Shallow learning curve: StatusNet uses many of the same concepts and syntax from Twitter so if you’re familiar with that microblogging system it should be very easy for you to transition to using this one.
• Run it securely on your network: You can run it entirely behind your corporate firewall and block access to the public Internet making it as secure as your internal network.
• Extensible: StatusNet has a plugin architecture that allows anyone to write add-ons that extend its functionality.
• Sync it with a Twitter account: It’s possible to link your StatusNet system with Twitter and have one drive the other.
• Access it via multiple methods: SMS, email, instant messenger and native desktop clients are all supported as alternative UI’s to the web interface.
• Hashtags, Search, Favorites and Groups: Various means exist for sorting, searching and tracking topics and individuals in the system giving you ultimate flexibility in how your choose to monitor information.

Twitter often is perceived with a negative stigma when talking about work productivity. But StatusNet gives you all the awareness and presence advantages of a microblogging mechanism only as a tool that you control on your terms.

In this video we’ll cover the fundamentals for getting started with the JumpBox for StatusNet. By the end of the video you’ll have what you need to be up and running with it. Enjoy!

Launch this JumpBox on Cloud Gear

Follow along with the tutorial using only your browser.

*Tip: To view video at full-resolution in hi-def, make sure the button is on and click the button to expand the screen.

Surveys can be a great way to mine valuable insight from your customers and potential customers. With surveys you can:

• Prioritize features on forthcoming revisions of your product.
• Discover unmet needs and match the language of your users for better conveying your value proposition.
• Connect with your users more deeply and solicit their feedback so they know you take their input seriously.
• Validate your hypotheses about your business before engaging expensive resources.

Every organization stands to benefit from having better insight from querying their stakeholders. There are many great SaaS-based options available but the trouble is that they bill monthly for a service which you may only need a few days per month.

Here is a technique you can use that gives you an easy and affordable way to conduct surveys in which you pay only for the days that you’re running them. It requires a small time investment up front to learn how to launch an instance on Cloud Gear but once you know the technique you can use it not just for surveys but any of the other tools in the JumpBox library. Here’s how it works:

1. Launch a LimeSurvey instance on Cloud Gear. If it’s your first time with that service you can signup here for free and watch a brief intro video to get an orientation.
2. Next you’ll want to watch the Ramp Up video for LimeSurvey to get the fundamentals of the application for conducting your first survey.
3. Now you’ll author the survey, publish it and invite your participants. At the conclusion of your survey analyze your results online and export them to excel so you have an archived copy.
4. As a last step it’s a good idea to use the JumpBox backup mechanism to download the state of your JumpBox. This way you can always spin up a new instance later and inject your data back into it or download the JumpBox and run further analyses offline.

The monthly services tend to have slightly more-polished user interfaces but this technique is great if you:

• have concerns about privacy of your data
• are in cost-cutting mode and looking for ways to trim IT expenditures
• need custom functionality or design in your survey tool

This is just another post in a series of ideas to help you save precious IT dollars during lean times.

If you’re pinching pennies like most people right now and you currently use one of the SaaS virtual meeting services, you can realize substantial savings on your monthly IT costs using this technique. Here’s how it works:

1. Launch an instance of Dimdim using Cloud Gear. If you’re not already signed up for that service, it’s free to join. You’ll find enrollment instructions and a “getting started” video here.
2. Once you have your instance running it’s just a matter of starting a meeting and inviting participants. There’s a brief Ramp Up video here that teaches you the basics for running your first meeting. If you’re running a pre-scheduled webinar and need to invite participants ahead of time as long as you have access to a URL that you can redirect, you can give them that address and then update it to your meeting URL once the meeting is launched.
3. When your meeting is concluded simply turn off your Cloud Gear instance.

If you run a 2-hour meeting using this method it costs you roughly $.50. If you normally conduct only four meetings a month you’re paying $2 vs. the $40-$200 you’d pay for having a mainstream SaaS conferencing service. You’re also avoiding any obligation in terms of committing to a contract with a SaaS provider.

This is just one more way you can put the power of JumpBox and the cloud to work for your organization. Stay tuned for more techniques like this one to help you reclaim time and money during these lean times.

Omeka is a content management system specially designed for people who need to host a collection of digital objects. Museums, libraries and schools will find this JumpBox particularly useful as it yields a comprehensive, standards-compliant set of metadata for each item. The notable features of this system include:

• Easily skinnable: Change the look of your site with ease by installing themes.
• Extensible via plugins: Add new functionality like an exhibit wizard or a bulk uploader via the plugin system. Or write your own and contribute it to the Omeka community.
• Tiered access permissions: Assign varying levels of access to people based on what they need to see and do. Designate someone as a curator of a certain collection.
• Output formats: Make your collections discoverable and re-mixable by exposing items in JSON, RSS, XML and ATOM formats.

In this video we’ll cover the bare essentials of getting started with Omeka to make your first collection. Enjoy!

Launch this JumpBox on Cloud Gear

Follow along with the tutorial using only your browser.

*Tip: To view video at full-resolution in hi-def, make sure the button is on and click the button to expand the screen.

Do you need to create a dynamic web site that can be maintained by multiple people in your organization? Joomla is an extremely popular Open Source content management system and is known for its intuitiveness and simplicity. It’s noteworthy features include:

• Thousands of themes and extensions: Joomla has a vibrant ecosystem of theme and plugin developers who extend the functionality of the software to do just about anything imaginable.
• Intuitive editing of content: The “edit in place” style of content management is intuitive and means that even the most non-technical folks in your organization can maintain their own web pages. This translates to less burden on IT, more real-time and accurate content with fewer errors.
• Tiered access permissions: Users can be granted varying levels of permissions to give them only the access they need. They can be merely registered to receive email, able to submit new content, able to edit existing content and able to publish content to the live site.
• Highly configurable: The system is highly customizable via the web based administration console. Page caching, search engine friendly URLs and page metadata can all be easily adjusted without having to wade through readme’s and .ini files.

In this video we’ll cover the fundamentals of working with Joomla to build a web site. Enjoy!

*Tip: To view video at full-resolution in hi-def, make sure the button is on and click the button to expand the screen.

We <3 developers. And we love it when developers do creative and innovative things with JumpBoxes. To encourage more of this we've decided to make all deployment JumpBoxes completely free. This is our treat for you this Halloween.

If you’re a developer you can use these in numerous ways to speed up your development and testing processes. Here are some tricks:

• Isolated dev environments for multiple projects Rather than running a single set of resources on your desktop that are shared amongst many different projects, you can use a JumpBox for each and have pristine project isolation. This means less entanglement and changes you make to the app server, web server or database won’t introduce issues for other apps.
• No surprises when it comes time to deploy in production If you build your application on a JumpBox you can deploy it to production very easily using our built-in migration mechanism. Unlike moving code between a desktop dev environment to a server in your data center, there are no surprises when moving a JumpBox into production. You know it will work identically wherever it lives.
• Rapid proofing and staging capabilities when used in conjunction with Cloud Gear How often do you have to show your boss or your client a proof of your application while it’s still in development? If you develop on a JumpBox you can make use of Cloud Gear to quickly bring up an instance of your deployment JumpBox in the cloud and demo your app publicly. Tear it down when you’re done and pay only pennies for the time you use.
• A convenient way to distribute apps Maybe you have an app that requires a lot of custom configuration and .ini file tap-dancing to get it working? Rather than burdening the end user with a massive readme file with a bunch of ways they can mess it up, why not package your app using the JumpBox backup system and distribute this file? This is a great way to distribute a complex app. The end user simply gets the corresponding JumpBox, injects the backup and immediately has a working version of the app with all the customizations and sample data you set up.
• Tech support implications How do you currently support users that have trouble with your application? Whether it’s via phone, email or support forums it probably consists of a series of back and forth interaction (ie. “what do you see now” – “here’s a screenshot” – “now try this and tell me what you see”…). What if instead you could have your user just send you a copy of their exact setup and you could fix it yourself and send it back? If you’re app is built on a deployment JumpBox you can do this very thing using the backup system. It creates a delta of the changes that have been made since the original so it’s a very small file but can be merged back with a blank JumpBox to re-create what the user has.
• An easy way to test compatibility across versions of the app server Maybe you’re planning to distribute your app traditionally and have users run it natively but you need an easy way to see how it works earlier versions of the app server or the database? You can use Cloud Gear to speed up regression testing across past versions of the deployment environment by launching historical versions of the JumpBox simultaneously and deploying your app into them.

There are probably many other ways deployment JumpBoxes can be used. What other creative uses can you envision?

Well, it’s that time of year again.  The leaves are turning, pumpkins everywhere and everyone but me is working on a costume.  Not only does late October mean Halloween but it means a new Ubuntu release.  As we all know, a new Ubuntu release means that the mirrors will be swamped and often unresponsive for at least a few days.  Sure, I have a local mirror in one location or another but working in just one place is so last century.  Well, this year, I thought I might do something about it.  I created a Ubuntu 8.04 LTS mirror in an EBS volume in Amazon’s EC2 using a JumpBox for LAMPd.

I know that a mirror in EC2 isn’t unique, RightScale is nice enough to provide one.  The interesting thing about this is that Amazon has recently made it possible to share EBS snapshots between users.  That means you can make a copy of my mirror and have your own mirror up and running in no time at very little cost.  Just follow these few simple steps:

1. Sign up for JumpBox Cloud Gear. (Optional, see Note2)
2. Log into the Amazon EC2 Console
3. Launch the latest LAMPd Cloud Gear JumpBox AMI by searching for jumpbox-cloud-gear/lampd and selecting the latest one, this tutorial was made with jumpbox-cloud-gear/lampd-1.1.12. A small instance is fine, and make sure you launch it in a security group that has ports 22, 80, and 3000 open.
4. Make note of the AMI instance ID and the Availability Zone.
5. Go to Volumes and click Create Volume. Make the volume 60GB and put it in the same Availability zone as the AMI, use snapshot snap-3c58d855.
6. Select this volume and Attach it as /dev/sdf to the Instance ID you recorded above.
7. Get the Public DNS address of that AMI Instance and then visit your LAMPd JumpBox and go through JumpBox Configuration.
8. After configuration is complete SSH to the JumpBox as the user admin and login with the password you chose during setup. Run the following commands:

   wget http://static.jumpbox.com/godber/misc/jumpbox-ebs-ubuntu-mirror/jumpbox-hardy-mirror-setup.sh
   sudo bash ./jumpbox-hardy-mirror-setup.sh

9. Visit your AMI public address with your browser for details on using the mirror.

If anyone finds this useful, comment here and I will maintain the mirror and provide regularly updated snapshots.  Check the JumpBox Ubuntu Mirror page for updates.

NOTE: You will have to pay the standard Amazon Charges for the EBS volume, bandwidth and standard JumpBox Cloud Gear charges for access to the AMI.

NOTE2: Technically the EBS snapshot can be used by any AMI so signing up for JumpBox Cloud Gear is not required.  However, these instructions and the downloaded script are written for a LAMPd JumpBox.  So the process will need to be changed if you are not using a LAMPd JumpBox.  If you write instructions or a script for a different AMI and want to share, let me know and I will share them.

Thanks to m.prinke on flickr for the pumpkin picture.

Sakai is an Open Source collaborative learning environment that contains everything necessary to deliver an effective eLeaning program. The JumpBox packages the rSmart distribution of Sakai which is a refined version of the Open source Sakai project with enhancements like additional modules and an improved user interface. Sakai can be used to deliver an entirely online learning experience or used as a supplement to traditional in-person coursework. Some of the more notable features include:

• Personal Workspace: Each user in the system has a personal dashboard that aggregates information from across all courses he or she is taking. This gives the user, whether student or teacher, a centralized view of all relevant info from calendars, assignments, digital media and other resources from their respective classes.
• Extensive built-in modules: Sakai bundles numerous modules that can be activated on a case-by-case basis for each course depending on its requirements. Chatrooms, grade book functionality, realtime virtual meetings, attendance measuring, discussion forums, wiki and dropbox features are among the many modules available.
• Portfolio Sites: Teachers and students alike can display their achievements and share their research using the Portfolio Sites feature.
• Intuitive navigation: The latest version offers an improved user experience with intuitive, context-sensitive navigation.
• Highly customizable: Sakai ships in a sensible default state but has over 400 different customizable options enabling the system admin to accommodate just about any request via the web-based configuration manager.

Work along with the video using the orange button on the Rapid Trial widget below or sign up for a free Cloud Gear account and use it beyond the hour time limit of the free trial and pay only pennies per hour. Enjoy!

*Tip: To view video at full-resolution in hi-def, make sure the button is on and click the button to expand the screen.

We had the CloudCamp event in Phoenix this past weekend and we were fortunate to be both a sponsor as well as an organizer. Bob LaLoggia was the local force that lead the charge pulling it all together and Dave Nielsen (from the original CloudCamp) flew out to guide the format.

CloudCamp is a day-long “unconference” modeled after BarCamp. It brings together people of all skill levels who share a common interest in the subject of cloud computing. The event on Saturday drew about 80 people and the day was divided into an orientation and five tracks chosen ad hoc and split amongst two time slots with a wrap-up at the end. Thanks to all the sponsors that made it possible:

University of Phoenix
Right Scale
IBM
Microsoft
Appointments Plus
Amazon Web Services
JumpBox

Below is a quick “highlight reel” of mashed-up footage from the day.

And here’s Kimbro’s record-breakingly-concise 4min 5sec lightning talk on what we do at JumpBox.

Check out the CloudCamp site for a list of upcoming events to see when it’s in your neighborhood next!