Hosting for BigBlueButton?

Alan Dayley adayley at gmail.com
Wed Mar 9 10:52:30 MST 2011


I could us some pointers to a hosting solution.  Many of you might
know the best way to get this going.

I'd like to find a host provider for an instance of BigBlueButton[1]
to use occasionally for family meetings.  Below is what I imagine the
need to be.

Server:
- A Ubuntu 10.04 virtual machine on a shared host
-- 2GB of RAM
-- 5GB disk space
-- I have root access of the VM via ssh
-- Access to the VM on port 80 from the Internet
-- On this VM I would install BigBlueButton according to the project's
easy instructions[2]

Use:
Once or twice a month 5-8 people would connect for an hour or two for
discussion and chatting.  Video (webcam) and audio (VoIP) capabilities
of BigBlueButton would be actively used during these sessions.

Bandwidth:
The FAQ page for the project lists general calucations for
bandwidth[3].  Based on that page and my suggested use model I think
we would use about 300-480 kbytes/sec incoming and 900-2400 kbytes/sec
outgoing bandwidth.

Payment:
Obviously no cost would be cool but not expected.  What I'd like to do
is pay-per-use.  Schedule the meeting in advance and pay some
reasonable fee for each time we use it.

Existing Options:
- Generic Conferencing[4] - Has a pay-per-month limited by number of
attendees.  Provides telephone dial-in too which probably adds to the
price.  No contract, so could work.
- HostBBB[5] - Has shared hosts combined with CMS for $25 per month
and $50 setup fee.  Too much money and capability for what I want.
- Self host at home - Would work fine once I have the box together.
Violates my terms of use with my Cox cable, the main reason for
finding hosting elsewhere.

Can any of you recommend a solution from your hosting provider
experiences?  Maybe a "standard" hosting service with enough bandwidth
would work?

Alan

[1] http://bigbluebutton.org
[2] http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/InstallationUbuntu
[3] http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Bandwidth_Requirements
[4] http://www.genericconf.com/en/articles/domestic-web-conferencing
[5] http://hostbbb.com/


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