Hosting Overview, DigitalOcean Hosting Setup, Droplet Creation & Networking

Now we are going to find a place to house our website. In this video, we will explore the different types of hosting, and I'll explain why we 100% must go with cloud hosting. It's an awesome new technology that came out a few years ago that has revolutionized how web hosting works.

Types of Hosting

Shared

Most common, similar to living w/ friends in one apartment. Share everything. Easy, no control, no flexibility. Cheap

VPS

Like owning a Condo. Still sharing & playing nice, but you’re responsible for what happens and keeping everything patched up. Fairly Expensive

Dedicated

Like Owning your own house. All the resources belong to you. No sharing. Most Expensive.

Cloud

Totally different. Your hardware is virtual. Hard to categorize. Maybe like renting a house. Total control and flexibility, you can have your own Virtual CPU, RAM. Very cost effective.

Which to Choose? - Cloud Hosting 100%

• Why?
  • Much Cheaper
  • More Powerful
  • More Freedom
  • Better in Every way.
• What’s the Con?
  • Not as simple
  • Not a problem for US!

What to do if I already have Shared Hosting?

• Abandon it!
• You can still use it if you insist…
  • This program will still benefit you big time, but you will lose so much that you could do.

Which Cloud Hosting Provider?

• Options:
  • DigitalOcean
  • Amazon
• For any church , or for any normal small business –>> DigitalOcean
  • If you have a large business, maybe not the right choice, but for us, DigitalOcean is perfect.
• All of the automated installation that I have setup for this program is built to work on Digital Ocean. You can manually install everything on other hosts, but you will be missing out on the ease of setup that I've provided + the benefits of cloud hosting!
• We will actually open our account and set everything up at Digital Ocean in the next video. For now let's setup your DNS.

Setting up Your Digital Ocean Account

• Link: DigitalOcean << Get $10 in initial Credit!
  • If you sign up by first clicking the above link, you get $10 in initial credit.
  • WalkThrough

Droplet Creation & Networking Setup

• One-Click Apps
  • LAMP on 16.04
  • $10/Month
  • Add Block Storage if Desired
    • This is for installation of a software called "Owncloud" (https://owncloud.org), an open source Cloud File sharing software that we can install on our server. This is an upgrade and replacement over Dropbox or iCloud drive for your church.
  • Choose NewYork 1, San Francisco 2 or Frankfurt 1
    • Whichever is closest to your physical location (Only these 3 Data Centers can connect Block Storage)
      • Even if you don't get block storage at this point, choose one of these 3 data centers if you would like to add it later on.
  • Choose Backups (ALWAYS HAVE A WAY TO BACKUP
• Setup your Networking
  • I re-recorded this section of the video, because the interface had changed since the original recording
    • Do the following:
      • Type in your base domain name example.com
      • Once done, we are going to add the following:
        • Hostname: @  Will Direct To: choose your droplet
        • Hostname: crm Will Direct To: choose your droplet
        • Hostname: cloud  Will Direct To: choose your droplet
      • Now add a C-Name record with the following:
        • Hostname: www  Will Direct To: @
  • Your final DNS Records should look similar to the image below.

SSH Keys

• SSH Keys allow you to log into your server securely without a password. If you would like to do that, you can follow the instructions below.
  • Mac & Linux: DigitalOcean - How to use SSH Keys with Putty for Mac & Linux Users
  • Windows: DigitalOcean - How to use SSH Keys with Putty for Windows Users
• I’ll also do a walkthrough for you in the Resources Category