On this, the 15th day of May, 2012, I have seen the future of web hosting. I think (hope?) it looks something like OpenShift.
While browsing HackerNews this morning, I came across this link to OpenShift, a “cloud-centric” web/app host from Red Hat. I had a look. I liked what I saw.
WordPress on OpenShift
I’ll run through what I did this morning—install WordPress—in about 5 minutes.
1. Signup
2. Create a new application (PHP)
3. Select a name/url for your new site
4. Clone a copy of the empty application to your local computer with Git
5. Download WordPress into the php folder that comes after you’ve cloned the empty application (ie: /php is your public web folder).
6. git commit -am 'Added WordPress files, first commit!'
7. git push.
8. Add a mysql ‘cartridge’ to your application. Make note of the username/password/url info after you add the cartridge! You’ll need that info soon.
8. Visit your address, under the ‘Accessing your application’ area of the welcome screen to go through the normal WordPress install.
In short: Create a new application in OpenShift, download, commit and push WordPress up to your OpenShift account, install WordPress. How about that. There’s obviously more to the story than that—hooking up your own domain name, configuring a cache system, etc…but the basics are looking pretty impressive.
I thought this post was about the future?
And it is. This hosting setup is extremely futuristic for a number of reasons:
- Cloud = pay for what you use
- Git is baked right into the workflow—just as Heroku has gotten baked into the Ruby on Rails workflow (at least for beginners)
- NO MORE FTP
- Worry-free scalability. Let someone else worry about your site getting Fireballed
While I have no idea what OpenShift is “up to” — they haven’t yet published a pricing model — I really think that this is the future of web hosting. An easy, cloud-based, scalable solution, centered around a workflow with Git.
Welcome to the future. I hope.
ps: My WordPress install was blazing, blazing fast.