Pros and cons, cloud vs self hosted

[Canis]

I realize this is a hot topic these days, is there any functionality comparison chart?
We have been self hosted for nearly 20 years and wonder what we might be missing out by going cloud based.

[Jim M]

If you like being in control of your hosting, doing the nitty gritty, being in complete charge of how your server is operating, running multiple types of software on your server, etc... that in reality, is the only con of going to our Cloud. You would be effectively paying for us to operate the technical nitty gritty of your community. You would just be in charge of running your community 🙂 . 

I always state this as some like to do this still, but the vast majority have come to just expect things to run and that is a major "pro" of our Cloud. Never having to worry about upgrading PHP, MySQL, various server points, configuring a firewall, etc... again.

The software itself is pretty much the same. Our Cloud plans have the ability to do more with some Cloud only, "Real time" and "Live" features as outlined here too: https://invisioncommunity.com/buy

If you have any specific questions, I am happy to move this over to our sales team to help explore further. Please let us know.

[Randy Calvert]

It's the same exact software...  except as Jim noted... there are a few "extra" things that only work in IPS' custom setup:

Available now...

• Real-time Who's Viewing/Who's Typing
• Trending module
• AI image tagging/moderation

Coming soon...

• Live Topics (live chat during a webinar allowing interaction with members during live events that later are turned into forum topic)
• Video encoding (transform videos into one format that can be played across all different platforms/devices)

I agree in that the biggest value comes from not having to deal with all of the underlying plumbing.  No worries about installing the software, or making sure you have compatible modules, or finger pointing between host and IPS, etc.  Instead of worrying about how to "stitch it all together" between your hosting company and IPS...  worrying about things like backup, security, etc... you're giving the full headache to IPS to worry about.  

This is great for some people to have a solution like Gmail where they just use the software.  For others, they prefer to get their hands dirty and control every step in the stack.  In those cases, the self-hosted version is a better solution for them.  

Edited November 20, 2022 by Randy Calvert

[Canis]

Many thanks!

So all ACP settings and functionality will still be available, inclusive Customization?

What about FTP access?

How do you keep backups? Can we download backups?

How is the migration process from selfhosted to cloud?

[Gary]

Hi @Canis,

Just to answer your questions.

Yes, all AdminCP settings and functionality will still be available to you. Customisation too, as quoted below from the page @Jim M has linked you to (which will have a lot of the answers to questions you are asking here).

Quote

Fully Customizable & Integratable

Our plans include all the same customization and integration tools as the self-hosted license, including themeing, Wordpress & oAuth single sign-on, the ability to install third-party addons, and much more.

You do not have access to FTP.

You are, however, entitled to a backup of your data which you can then use on a self-hosted plan. We don't hold your data hostage or deny access to it altogether. It is yours, and should you decide to leave us we promise we will provide it to you, at no cost whatsoever. You will be provided with a download link to obtain this data.

The migration process from self-hosted plans to cloud is currently free for a limited time (until 30 November 2022). You can click here to find out more information about the entire process.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer any other questions or concerns you have.

[Canis]

Thanks again!

5 hours ago, Gary said:

You do not have access to FTP.

We have lots of images from when we used a custom upload procedure. They are all in a dedicated folder. Could that be a problem?

One reason for us going cloudbased would be not having to deal with backups.

Regarding backup:

How many full  (database+files) do you keep and are they stored at different geographic places?
How often do you take full backups?
How many versions do you keep?

In case of a major problem, hardware-crash etc, will you be responsible for bringing our forum up and running again?

[Randy Calvert]

3 minutes ago, Canis said:

In case of a major problem, hardware-crash etc, will you be responsible for bringing our forum up and running again?

Yes...  but remember...  for IPS, there is not a concept of a "hardware crash".  IPS is deployed within AWS and uses autoscaling to grow its instances automatically.  They also use load balancers to send traffic to multiple servers concurrently.  

This helps prevent situations like you described where you would have to restore a backup because of a hardware failure.   Databases are deployed within AWS Aurora.  (You can read more about how Aurora works here.)  

8 minutes ago, Canis said:

How many full  (database+files) do you keep and are they stored at different geographic places?
How often do you take full backups?
How many versions do you keep?

This depends on what type of data you're talking about.  Media files are essentially written to different areas concurrently, one of which is a "permanent state" version.  This means that second copy can never be overwritten and is great for continuous backups of static files (things that you upload, themes, etc).  

Invision has multiple types of database backups...  ones designed for "disaster recovery" scenarios should there be a major issue in Aurora or the platform itself, and another designed around the concept of "oopsie...  I messed up".   Backups are stored within multiple AWS availability zones.  

[Canis]

Thanks again.

Can cloud customers decide when to implement upgrades? (If you need to update customization, add-ons etc before upgrading)

Self hosted can run an additional test forum, is that available also to cloud customers?

[Marc]

Cloud customers can upgrade using the upgrade button, in the same manner as a self hosted customer. Just click the button.

With regards test forums, that is not available, unless you purchase a second suite for you testing purposes. 

[Canis]

Thanks!

Today we rent a dedicated server, Intel Xeon E3-1240L v3 2.0GHz 4C with 8GB ram.

Can we expect the same performance when cloud based?

[Randy Calvert]

2 hours ago, Canis said:

Thanks!

Today we rent a dedicated server, Intel Xeon E3-1240L v3 2.0GHz 4C with 8GB ram.

Can we expect the same performance when cloud based?

It will be as good or better than any hosting available. Again with the CiC, you’re not running a site on ONE server but instead UNLIMITED servers. As traffic grows, it automatically scales to handle the traffic.  It manages everything for you so you don’t have to worry about the details of server specs or the similar. 

[Canis]

Many thanks Randy

 

Still need to know about this:

9 hours ago, Canis said:

We have lots of images from when we used a custom upload procedure. They are all in a dedicated folder. Could that be a problem?

It is a static image archive.

[Marc]

We dont provide an upload facility for external images, no. I would ask however, what is the purpose of these? You can use the pages application to store any images you needed like that

[Randy Calvert]

You can also leverage your own AWS S3 bucket and connect to it in any supported method as well. 

[Canis]

Yes, but, if possible we would like not to keep it all in one place, not having to pay for separate cloud storage.

6 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

I would ask however, what is the purpose of these?

They are all images used on the forum up to when we upgraded to 4.x. Before that we used a custom upload solution for images due to lack of functionality in IPB.
132000 images, 8gb total.
It's static so it will only be necessary to upload the folder once.

[Randy Calvert]

Are these files stored in an existing defined storage method?  

If they are, migrating them will be easy. You would just provide a ZIP of them when you provide your database. 

The bigger challenge I see if they’re not in a defined storage method is that attachments and uploads are stored in AWS as https://content.invisioncic.com/SOMEID/filenam.  If a different location is hardcoded into posts it’s harder to migrate. It’s not impossible but will take more planning with Olivia, Marc and the migration folks. They would have to run a query across various tables where your attachments are referenced to point to the new location once the migration is complete. 

If a storage method is designated for those files, it’s super simple to edit the path location of that content. 

If you do move forward with CiC make sure you call these files out at the start of the conversation so they’re accounted for in the migration plan. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Randy Calvert

[Marc]

I think this would probably be something you would discuss with our sales team if its something you are interested in. Im sure, given what you are saying, there will be some way we can accommodate you there 🙂 

[bpn]

The old images are refered by img tags in the posting.

Example: <img src="https://mydomain/images/5/5/myimage.jpg" ....

[Marc]

As mentioned above, this would be best discussed with our sales team, to see what we could do for you there

[Keith Clark]

Just a note for anyone that considers hosting with Invision Community.

A migration of content (for example, from Wordpress) into Invision Community costs extra and the request would be passed to the sales team. Expect $1500+

[Jim M]

16 minutes ago, Keith Clark said:

Just a note for anyone that considers hosting with Invision Community.

A migration of content (for example, from Wordpress) into Invision Community costs extra and the request would be passed to the sales team. Expect $1500+

Sorry to hear that we could not meet your needs. As explained in your ticket, unfortunately, there's a good deal of labor/technology involved in a conversion on the Cloud because the data/files are not there from the environment you're converting from and thus, we have to build that environment ourselves to convert your application. 

[John Horton]

I am considering moving my Invision community from self-hosted to cloud hosting.

From a functional perspective would this migration be any different than moving from one web host to another? After the migration, all URLs be the same?

Will the small tweaks I have on my templates likely stay in place? If there are any issues with the templates post migration will Support help fix it or do I have to go back to my developer?

Are the transition steps posted somewhere?

I would need to move my email hosting to another provider or back to my domain registrar ( GoDaddy )?

[Jim M]

12 minutes ago, John Horton said:

From a functional perspective would this migration be any different than moving from one web host to another? After the migration, all URLs be the same?

Long as your are not using your community in a sub-folder (e.g. example.com/community or something), all URLs will stay the same.

12 minutes ago, John Horton said:

Will the small tweaks I have on my templates likely stay in place? If there are any issues with the templates post migration will Support help fix it or do I have to go back to my developer?

Your community should stay exactly the same as the software will be the same. If you are on an outdated release, you will need to upgrade as part of the process before we migrate you. Of which, you would need to work with your developer to upgrade the theme templates, if necessary. 

If you have any issues which are a code issue with a customization, you will need to work with the author to resolve it. If it is an issue of the migration though, say you forgot to place a third party plugin's file in the backup we require, we can certainly resolve that for you.

15 minutes ago, John Horton said:

Are the transition steps posted somewhere?

It's a fairly straight forward process which our team will outline to you when you submit your request to our sales team but that process is usually, we agree on a date to do the migration, on that migration date you pass us your database and folders the community uses (e.g. the uploads, plugins, applications folders) and then our team handles the migration. Post-migration, you review the community and then we assign your domain/sub-domain.

17 minutes ago, John Horton said:

I would need to move my email hosting to another provider or back to my domain registrar ( GoDaddy )?

Correct. We do not offer email hosting. We only offer a system to send emails out of our software.

[John Horton]

Awesome thanks. 

I am sure it varies but how long does the process take? How long does a typical forum locked down for?

[Jim M]

Just now, John Horton said:

Awesome thanks. 

I am sure it varies but how long does the process take? How long does a typical forum locked down for?

It largely varies but most are done same day, usually over in a few hours at most. My only recommendation is to follow the instructions we provide at time of migration. Most often where it takes longer or we have to delay to a different day is when our instructions are not followed.