[Twisted-Python] Twisted Hosting and Twisted in the Cloud

[Duncan McGreggor]

Hey everyone,

Divmod's been talking to various hosting companies about potential
Twisted deals (and maybe even support). I wanted to get a gauge of
people's level of interest in the services we've been discussing.
We're currently looking at the following options:
 * Dedicated hosts, with Twisted libs pre-installed on them
 * Virtual hosts/"slices" with Twisted libs pre-installed on them
 * Clouds that support uploading and running Twisted apps
 * Potential support contracts where Divmod engineers provide
high-level assistance for paying customers
 * Becoming a reseller and offering these services directly through Divmod

I've been approached privately by a few developers who use Twisted in
their projects at home and at work with questions about Twisted
hosting. They've been interested to know if 1) Divmod does Twisted
hosting, 2) anyone provides "out of the box" support for Twisted, and
3) who we recommend.

I know that as the years pass, I have less and less time to manage my
own systems responsibly. After 6 years, I'm closing down my colocated
boxes. When Twisted makes it to the cloud, I'll close down my virtual
hosts, too. I just don't have the time any more. All I need is
reliable uptime for my apps (most of them are just sites with dynamic
content).

How many others on these lists feel that they would benefit from the
ease of pre-installed Twisted and/or support for Twisted apps in the
cloud?

If you do, what kinds of apps (that you are currently running) do you
want to be able to run in such environments? Simple web sites? DNS
servers? Game servers? Chat applications? Web/data services apps?

And lastly, what hosting companies are your favorites? Where would you
be happiest, if they supported Twisted? Would you consider switching
to a hosting provider that *did* support Twisted?

Looking forward to hearing the people speak,

d