Thread: FREE hosting platforms with PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat, ecc.?

Hello,

do you know any FREE hosting platforms where PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat (or other web servers) can be already found installed or where they can be installed from scratch? In possible, it would be better if the PostgreSQL be directly accessible by my servlet, without any web service/PHP script in the middle.

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind regards.

Fernando Pianegiani

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Fernando Pianegiani
<fernando.pianegiani@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> do you know any FREE hosting platforms where PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat
> (or other web servers) can be already found installed or where they can be
> installed from scratch? In possible, it would be better if the PostgreSQL be
> directly accessible by my servlet, without any web service/PHP script in the
> middle.
>
> Thank you very much in advance.
>
> Kind regards.
>
> Fernando Pianegiani
>

Extreme cross posting, you may need to elect one mailing list and post
only to it.

I think you may not get good offering for what you are looking for if
you are only interested in FREE hosting having all those features
you've mentioned. The hosting services do have to somehow get
compensation for their overheads, this would mean either offering a
FREE service for a limited period and/or requiring that they
explicitly add as many of their advertisements as possible to your
resulting web pages, not to mention they will try to place as many
clients as possible on modest hardware, your ability to manage Tomcat,
PostgreSQL will also be very limited in such environments, in general
your clients will not be happy.

Also the FREE services of this kind have by now been exploited by the
many individuals who provide websites that are aimed at ripping people
off.

Allan.

Hello,

thank you for your answer. Sorry for my cross posting.

Are you in any business about hosting platforms?? ;-)

Don't forget that the Internet is free, that youtube is free and that this mailing list is free and that also MySQL is free. But, not all the services that appear free are really for free. Behind them there is for sure a business.

Fernando


On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 10:36 AM, Allan Kamau <kamauallan@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Fernando Pianegiani
<fernando.pianegiani@gmail.com

Exuse me, PostgreSQL is completely free, not MySQL.. :-D

Well,

I am from the hosting business, and can assure you, what you are looking for does not exist.
This configuration requires specialists on the provider side, which are expensive. They
need to eat too.

And history teaches, that even if it would exist, you should not put anything meaningful on it,
because they surely will go out of business soon.

Antonio.


Op 06-08-11 10:02, Fernando Pianegiani schreef:
> Hello,
>
> do you know any FREE hosting platforms where PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat (or other web servers) can be already found
installedor where they can be installed from scratch? In possible, it would be better if the PostgreSQL be directly
accessibleby my 
> servlet, without any web service/PHP script in the middle.
>
> Thank you very much in advance.
>
> Kind regards.
>
> Fernando Pianegiani

Thak you Antonio.

After open source for the software, we will wait for open resource for the hardware (this is just a first example http://www.arduino.cc/, even if of different nature).

I need to eat too, for this reason I cannot pay for an hosting platform after that my funded research project ended.

Fernando

Thak you Antonio.

After open source for the software, we will wait for open resource for the hardware (this is just a first example http://www.arduino.cc/, even if of different nature).

I need to eat too, for this reason I cannot pay for an hosting platform after that my funded research project ended.

Fernando

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Antonio Goméz Soto <antonio.gomez.soto@gmail.com> wrote:

Well,

I am from the hosting business, and can assure you, what you are looking for does not exist.
This configuration requires specialists on the provider side, which are expensive. They
need to eat too.

And history teaches, that even if it would exist, you should not put anything meaningful on it,
because they surely will go out of business soon.

Antonio.


Op 06-08-11 10:02, Fernando Pianegiani schreef:

Hello,

do you know any FREE hosting platforms where PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat (or other web servers) can be already found installed or where they can be installed from scratch? In possible, it would be better if the PostgreSQL be directly accessible by my
servlet, without any web service/PHP script in the middle.

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind regards.

Fernando Pianegiani

Open Source is about sharing ideas and source code that has no cost in
copying as soon as it is once invented. The link you are providing is
the same thing. All information about the chip is open. But that doesn't
mean that anyone will send you a chip for free.

To host a project on the web needs resourses like electric power,
computor hardware, cooling hardware for the server room. Server rooms,
people willing to get out of bed in the middle of the night to fix a
problem to keep up the up time and so on. Those resourses is not
possible to just copy for free. Those resourses are bound to the service
you get and not just to the idea about the service.

There is something else to note. The open sourse software also cost a
lot to develop. The idea is just that if a lot of people share what they
develop for their costumers or for their own sake that will gain the
development for everybody. But it is still a cost someone have to take
in terms of time or paying a developer.

So, I think the seeking for free in terms of no cost is quite provoking
on a list like this. Open Source is about sharing ideas not giving
things away for free. That is just a great side effect that what can be
copied without cost is shared without cost.

But so fare there is no technology to copy the hardware, server rooms,
internet bandwidth and so on for no cost.


Regards

Nicklas Avén



On Sat, 2011-08-06 at 15:49 +0200, Fernando Pianegiani wrote:
> Thak you Antonio.
>
> After open source for the software, we will wait for open resource for
> the hardware (this is just a first example http://www.arduino.cc/,
> even if of different nature).
>
> I need to eat too, for this reason I cannot pay for an hosting
> platform after that my funded research project ended.
>
> Fernando
>
> On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Antonio Goméz Soto
> <antonio.gomez.soto@gmail.com> wrote:
>         Well,
>
>         I am from the hosting business, and can assure you, what you
>         are looking for does not exist.
>         This configuration requires specialists on the provider side,
>         which are expensive. They
>         need to eat too.
>
>         And history teaches, that even if it would exist, you should
>         not put anything meaningful on it,
>         because they surely will go out of business soon.
>
>         Antonio.
>
>
>         Op 06-08-11 10:02, Fernando Pianegiani schreef:
>
>
>                 Hello,
>
>                 do you know any FREE hosting platforms where
>                 PostgreSQL, Java SDK, Tomcat (or other web servers)
>                 can be already found installed or where they can be
>                 installed from scratch? In possible, it would be
>                 better if the PostgreSQL be directly accessible by my
>                 servlet, without any web service/PHP script in the
>                 middle.
>
>                 Thank you very much in advance.
>
>                 Kind regards.
>
>                 Fernando Pianegiani
>
>

> After open source for the software, we will wait for open resource for the hardware (this is just a first example
http://www.arduino.cc/,even if of different nature). 

While the plans may be free, the actual hardware sure as hell won't be.

--
Scott Ribe
scott_ribe@elevated-dev.com
http://www.elevated-dev.com/
(303) 722-0567 voice

Dear David, Nicklas,

I think that this is not the right place where to discuss about this topic, but I have to try to give you an answer.

PostgreSQL is not only open source, like MySQL is, but also free. This means that people who don't develop neither a line of code of PostgreSQL (or just some few lines of it) can use it to do what they want, even money, without having the obligation to provide back 1 cent to the PostgreSQL community. That's incredible I know, but it is so. And why? I don't know exactly, but I know that there are several reasons that are not very "transparent". I can try to give my interpretation hopping that it is the real one or in any case thinking that it should be the correct one. If people who develop PostgreSQL make it free, people who don't develop PostgreSQL but who use it for their research projects or business can make available the results of their projects also to the developers of PostgreSQL, but overall to the worldwide community. And so, in case for example a developer of PostgreSQL or any other person should have a health problem, he can hope that his hospital uses the results of a research project got also with the help of PostgreSQL or of some other free technology.

I think the previous one is the philosophy that should be behind the words "open source" and "free". In all the other cases there are in my opinion interests that should be better clarified.

If we do something for free for other people, then they can do something for other people using for free our results, and so on...the alternatives are under our eyes, that is the jungle of the market and the worldwide crisis. So David, don't worry for my activity of research, instead you should be seriously preoccupied if you do business. Moreover, the fact that my project ended could be in case an additional problem for both of us and not only if we should have problems of health strictly inherent to the results of research coming from a possible development of my old project. Obviously, I hope no for all of us. :-)

David, Nicklas, if you make money by using PostgreSQL and you want to be really honest (as you claim honesty from me and from my work activity), please count that money and give the right percentage of it to the PostgreSQL community, but considering also who spent more time, resources like electric power, computer hardware, etc. than the others in developing it. In this way if you develop PostgreSQL, then you too can get your right percentage from you and from the other developers.

Dear Scott, Niklas, you are right, the components and the resources necessary to manufacture the solutions developed within the arduino project are not for free. Only the schematics, the gerbers, etc. are for free.

Finally, the world is full of companies that make available for free their hardware/software/human resources. Probably also you use them every day for free (e.g., the media in general) or you store your data for free in part of those resources (facebook, youtube, just to do general examples), but those resources are not really "for free", those companies find the way to gain a lot of money with the fact that you access to their resources.

In any case, excuse me if I have hurted your's feelings. My intention was not to ask for a free hosting platform (free stuff, etc.) to the PostgreSQL community, but I simply asked if the community knows anybody who provides a service of free hosting, supposing that in some way the provider of that hosting service would have earned his right income from me in some way (e.g. a banner installed on my PC or other similar business). Fortunately up to now I have never asked for charity dear David and I hope to have not to do it in the future.

Have a good dinner!

Fernando

Please, behave nice and stick to the subject.

Mailing list is not the place for this kind of talk.

Sincerely,

Dusan

I hope I am not feeding a troll here.

The economic model behind PostgreSQL is a very good one.  Here is my
understanding of it.  Various people in the community cooperate but
they also sell products (EnterpriseDB, Green Plum) based on the
codebase along with their proprietary enhancements.  Others sell
services including hosting and consulting.  In general anyone who does
not share everything practical ends up paying for it later in terms of
internal maintenance overhead.  Everyone benefits.

The wonderful thing about open source software is that every one of us
owns the means of production not in a collective or a government but
individually.  I can take PostgreSQL and make a living off it.  You
can take my program that runs on it (LedgerSMB) and make a living off
it.  We can take these pieces of software and use them to provide
services to others. The barrier to getting into business for yourself
is very low.

In my view, if you don't want to pay for hosting and you need all
these features, you probably don't really need hosting.  The only way
you will get hosting is if you convince someone that taking you on
benefits them more than the costs (either by paying them or making the
case that it's a good business idea to take you on), or ---- the
wonderful thing about free and unfettered access to the means of
production --- you can set up your own system with all these
technologies.  That's the free hosting solution that might work best
for you.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

It is not my intention to continue this discussion within this mailing list, so please stop to reply or reply just to me. Otherwise I have to answer again to the community and I don't want to do it. :-)

Dear Chris, thank you. I will answer to you in the following.

Hello Fernando,

I was sorry to read the harsh responses your request got
here.  The thing that has always appealed to me about the
free software movement is the spirit of cooperation and
mutual help that many involved exhibit.

You quite rightly point out the hypocrisy of those who
call someone a "freeloader" when they themselves use free
software in profit making ventures without sharing their
profits with the software's developers and contributors.

Please be assured that not everyone here reacted negatively
to your post.  I wish you success in your search.

On Aug 6, 2011, at 18:03, Stuart McGraw <smcg2297@frii.com> wrote:

My point, while coming across a little harsh apparently, is that emphasis on requiring a free service projects a
certainpersonality.  Even just adding "or low cost" would have helped.  That said, it wasn't the original request the
gotme to respond but the part about needing to eat.  I know "we" started it with the comment about why there are no
freehosting providers and I am just as guilty for adding to it. 

In all, though, I didn't mean to say anyone IS a free-loader only that you can be perceived as one and such perceptions
cansuppress otherwise useful responses.  In the end everyone free-loads and is taken advantage of at the same time in
manydifferent areas; and any judgements should be made only when many facts are known (if ever). 

I apologize for my tone earlier but to be honest this is probably one of the calmest flame-wars I've ever seen :)

The bottom line is I would not expect to find any individual or company willing or able to offer such a service, to the
generalpublic, for free.  And it is a service you are requesting as opposed to a product like PostgreSQL.  A product is
morelikely to be improved by the people using it compared to a service, and those improvements are likely to make it
backinto the original.   

But, there are a number of companies that do what you need for a price.  If you feel what you are doing is important it
shouldat least be worth your time to talk to these companies and see what arrangements can be made instead of
dismissingthem outright because they charge for their services.  You may find someone inclined to take on pro-bono work
fora good cause; especially if your needs are modest.  In short, ask for everything and then perform the filtering
yourselfinstead of asking others to filter for you - only you know what your actual situation is which makes anyone
else'sfiltering only an uninformed guess. 

David J.


> Hello Fernando,
>
> I was sorry to read the harsh responses your request got
> here.  The thing that has always appealed to me about the
> free software movement is the spirit of cooperation and
> mutual help that many involved exhibit.
>
> You quite rightly point out the hypocrisy of those who
> call someone a "freeloader" when they themselves use free
> software in profit making ventures without sharing their
> profits with the software's developers and contributors.
>
> Please be assured that not everyone here reacted negatively
> to your post.  I wish you success in your search.
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general

On 08/06/11 4:40 PM, David Johnston wrote:
> The bottom line is I would not expect to find any individual or company willing or able to offer such a service, to
thegeneral public, for free.  And it is a service you are requesting as opposed to a product like PostgreSQL.  A
productis more likely to be improved by the people using it compared to a service, and those improvements are likely to
makeit back into the original. 

indeed, especially a service like hosting that has significant ongoing
hard costs involved...  a colocated server requires power, air
conditioning, network traffic and transit fees, management, physical
security, and the cost of the hardware itself, which has typically a 3-5
year lifespan (in 3 years, newer hardware can do so much more work its
often not cost effective to keep the old hardware online).

--
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast

On 7/08/2011 1:08 AM, Scott Ribe wrote:
>> After open source for the software, we will wait for open resource for the hardware (this is just a first example
http://www.arduino.cc/,even if of different nature). 
> While the plans may be free, the actual hardware sure as hell won't be.
>
A bit OT, but....

Arduino is not so much a "will" as an "is". It's in wide-spread use and
has even been adopted for the base of the new Android peripheral
development system - the Android Open Accessory Development Kit.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/adk.html

I struggle to see any connection between Arduino and PostgreSQL, though.
They're very different  kinds of free/open source, as software "is" its
specification and can be distributed at no cost, but you can't just
download a hardware device and use it.

--
Craig Ringer

Hello Fernando,

I was sorry to read the harsh responses your request got
here.  The thing that has always appealed to me about the
free software movement is the spirit of cooperation and
mutual help that many involved exhibit.

You quite rightly point out the hypocrisy of those who
call someone a "freeloader" when they themselves use free
software in profit making ventures without sharing their
profits with the software's developers and contributors.

Please be assured that not everyone here reacted negatively
to your post.  I wish you success in your search.

indeed, especially a service like hosting that has significant ongoing hard costs involved...  a colocated server requires power, air conditioning, network traffic and transit fees, management, physical security, and the cost of the hardware itself, which has typically a 3-5 year lifespan (in 3 years, newer hardware can do so much more work its often not cost effective to keep the old hardware online).

On 08/07/11 1:46 AM, Fernando Pianegiani wrote:
> how do you explain the services of file hosting? By those services
> millions of persons free-load pictures, videos, text, GBs of data,
> etc.. I think that what I asked is quite similar, that is the use of a
> piece of remote hardware where to have free software installed. The
> difference in my opinion is in the fact that I implicitly asked also
> for the use of a free operating system, but not in the hardware or in
> its maintenance.

that stuff is usually advertising supported.   many of those 'free' file
hosting systems charge to let people download at reasonable speeds, and
make the download process painful for freeloaders.  or, like Google
Picasa's image service, they charge if you use more than a couple
gigabytes.    how do you attach advertising to a user programmed tomcat
server with a postgres database?



--
john r pierce                            N 37, W 122
santa cruz ca                         mid-left coast

On 6/08/2011 4:02 PM, Fernando Pianegiani wrote:
> Hello,
>
> do you know any FREE hosting platforms where PostgreSQL, Java SDK,
> Tomcat (or other web servers) can be already found installed or where
> they can be installed from scratch?

About the only hope I know of is hub.org .

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-announce/2010-01/msg00000.php

They're offering one-year free VPS services at certain times of year.


By the way, one of the reasons you're not finding much free hosting for
PostgreSQL is that it takes a fair bit of work to run Pg multi-tenanted.
Your additional requirement for Java and Tomcat means you're certain to
be stuck with a virtual private server (VPS) or a BSD Jail based host.
I'll be very surprised if you can find any offerings that are free (as
opposed to "free trial") in that vein, but I wish you luck in your search.

What you *might* be able to do is find sponsorship for hosting or find
someone who'll grant you free hosting for your project because they
think that particular project is worthwhile and important. That'll
depend a great deal on what you're trying to host and what the likely
load will be.

--
Craig Ringer

> this is very difficult, but it is exactly what I am doing in environments different from this one. Even if this risks
tobe considered (not so positively) as a request of charity... :-) 

At that point, unless you have confidentiality requirements, why not just tell everyone what it is you are working on
andsee if anyone responds favorably?  It woul normally be deemed off-topic but at this point one more non-Postgresql
postisn't going to make a big difference on this thread. 

Fundraising for a cause is quite a bit different than asking for a personal gift and it sound like your request falls
intothe former category. 

David J.

On Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:41:27 +0800
Craig Ringer <ringerc@ringerc.id.au> wrote:

> By the way, one of the reasons you're not finding much free
> hosting for PostgreSQL is that it takes a fair bit of work to run
> Pg multi-tenanted. Your additional requirement for Java and Tomcat

Why should pg be harder than anything else?


--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On 7/08/2011 11:43 PM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> On Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:41:27 +0800
> Craig Ringer<ringerc@ringerc.id.au>  wrote:
>
>> By the way, one of the reasons you're not finding much free
>> hosting for PostgreSQL is that it takes a fair bit of work to run
>> Pg multi-tenanted. Your additional requirement for Java and Tomcat
> Why should pg be harder than anything else?

Before I go on: I'm not running a hosting provider. Most of this is
gathered from time on the lists, plus my own observations from using Pg
in situations where I want to prevent different apps sharing a DB from
affecting each other. Given that qualification:

Things that contribute to making it harder to offer multi-tenanted
database hosting services with Pg include: The global catalogs, in
particular global user lists; relatively limited options for automatic
load limitation and prioritisation; difficulty of preventing certain
classes of effective denial of service by authorized users; shared WAL
making it harder to isolate load and limit one DB's effects on another;
difficulties completely hiding users from each other; the need to tune
autovacuum to make sure it keeps up with load; etc. In Pg, DBs in a
cluster affect each other in various ways, but because of the
pinned-in-RAM nature of shared_buffers its hard to run one cluster per
user as would be ideal.

This doesn't mean you can't use Pg for multi-tenanted DB hosting. It
just makes it harder, and means its more sysadmin work, therefore more
time and cost.

There are DBs - mostly $OMFGLOTS DBs - that offer much greater
facilities for controlling access and isolating load than Pg does and
are better suited to multi-tenanted use. Of course, their costs are such
that it's probably cheaper to hire an army of sysadmins to run a giant
cluster of Pg boxes instead...

--
Craig Ringer

On Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:38:02 +0800
Craig Ringer <ringerc@ringerc.id.au> wrote:

> On 7/08/2011 11:43 PM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> > On Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:41:27 +0800
> > Craig Ringer<ringerc@ringerc.id.au>  wrote:
> >
> >> By the way, one of the reasons you're not finding much free
> >> hosting for PostgreSQL is that it takes a fair bit of work to
> >> run Pg multi-tenanted. Your additional requirement for Java and
> >> Tomcat
> > Why should pg be harder than anything else?

> There are DBs - mostly $OMFGLOTS DBs - that offer much greater

OK. I forgot to specify "anything else in the same league" or
shortly open source.

Nice reading anyway, thanks.

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

Fernando,

You just posted your question to multiple innappropriate mailing lists.  Please do not do that again.

--Josh Berkus

Josh,

sorry for multiple posting.

This is the description of this mailing list:
"General discussion area for users. Apart from compile, acceptance test, and bug problems, most new users will probably only be interested in this mailing list (unless they want to contribute to development or documentation). All non-bug related questions regarding PostgreSQL's version of SQL, and all installation related questions that do not involve bugs or failed compiles, should be restricted to this area. Please note that many of the developers monitor this area."

So, in my opinion asking if somebody knows a hosting service where PostgreSQL can be used for free is not inappropriate. But if you consider it inappropriate and you are in a position to cancel my posts you have to cancel them without any hesitation asap.

Fernando   

Just a thought,
why don't you deploy your setup in your home computer,
and make it accesible from the inet via your home router?

Just make a software raid, get a nice UPS unit, try to harden your OS a little bit, and run your apps there.
It could prove a nice free alternative until anything that looks like a free HAAS/PAAS shows up.

I know it sounds old fashioned, now in the days of the cloud frenzy, but there must be some
value in doing all this by yourself, even if it goes against the trends.

Στις Sunday 07 August 2011 17:50:44 ο/η Fernando Pianegiani έγραψε:
> On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 4:22 PM, David Johnston <polobo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > > this is very difficult, but it is exactly what I am doing in environments
> > different from this one. Even if this risks to be considered (not so
> > positively) as a request of charity... :-)
> >
> > At that point, unless you have confidentiality requirements, why not just
> > tell everyone what it is you are working on and see if anyone responds
> > favorably?  It woul normally be deemed off-topic but at this point one more
> > non-Postgresql post isn't going to make a big difference on this thread.
> >
> > Fundraising for a cause is quite a bit different than asking for a personal
> > gift and it sound like your request falls into the former category.
> >
>
> Dear David, thank you for your post. I have not posted exactly a
> non-PostgreSQL post, in fact I asked for information about possible services
> of free hosting platforms with PostgreSQL installed. I repeat that I didn't
> ask for a hosting platform but for information about possible inherent free
> services.
>
> The item of research focuses on the remote detection of events of health
> hazard, like in particular the cardiac atrial fibrillation, by wireless
> sensors installed on the body of the patient and a phone that forwards the
> data towards the hosting. If somebody can be interested I pray him to ask me
> for more information writing just to my email address. Thanks a lot!
>
> >
> > David J.
>



--
Achilleas Mantzios