Telling Apache web servers apart / notes for the non-technical
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2010-01-26 12:12:40 - Graham EllisAn answer for me to usefully share ... written in answer to someone who's main role is to consolidate training requirements and provide a complete package under one banner, so isn't (and can't be expected to be) particularly techincal
Our public "Deploying Apache and Tomcat" course covers the Apache Tomcat server, which is used as a container for Java applications. Apache Tomcat usually sits behind the Apache httpd web server, which we also cover on the course to the extent of installing it and setting it up for this role. The course is fully described at http://www.wellho.net/course/atfull.html and you are welcome to copy this URL and / or the course description on to the potential delegates so they can check if it's what they need.
The fact that there are two web servers, both with the "Apache" brand on them, and often used together, can cause confusion. The Apache httpd server is the original, far more common, and is sometimes just known as "Apache". Apache Tomcat provides majorly different capabilities, but large web sites usually require both feature sets and use the two servers working together.
The price we charge for this course is 600 pounds for the first delegate, and 500 for the second and subsequent delegate booked on to the same course on the same order. Overnight accommodation is available at 60 pounds per room per night, and all prices exclude VAT. The venue is our training centre and hotel in Melksham, Wiltshire - Well House Manor - 48, Spa Road, Melksham, SN12 6QL. The courses are specialised - public presentations don't vary between different locations, and we have hotel rooms available for delegates, the majority of whom stay over (and would have to stay over no matter where the course was run)
As I'm sure you'll appreciate, 600 pounds is a very reasonable price for a 2 day course in our business, especially for a niche course such as this. All of our customers are "special" in some way - they're educational, they're a large company, they're a charity, they're a reseller, they're paying for themselves and so we like to offer a very good deal for everyone - we always quote the same low price. You [as a reseller / consolidator] are providing a service to your customers, though, which is in addition to what we're doing - you are adding course from several suppliers into a package, for example and you might be arranging visas, extended credit and so forth and of course you are perfectly free to charge you client a higher amount than we will invoice you for to cover your services - very much as a ticket booking agency does.
Our pricing policy, because of low and uniform charges, allows the final price the client pays to actually be less that a more conventionally priced course of the same duration would cost, and makes it very practical for you to put your client in direct touch with us to sort out the details of the technical requirement, secure in the knowledge that it's pointless for us to try and make ourselves more money by taking the order direct, as we wouldn't do so.
You also mentioned MySQL. We also run MySQL courses. As a further server behind the Apache web servers, we could add an extra day onto the end of the course I mention above, which would add an extra 250 pounds per delegate (minimum 2) to cover installation, configuration, backup, restore, and an introduction to SQL. That extra day has to be subject to tutor availability; we can look at whether we can run the extension for specific dates once you let us know when you're interested in booking and in would normally be possible.
SQL / MySQL / Java Applications under Linux are a huge subject, especially if the people you're training are going to be specifying, designing and implementing the systems down to a programming level. If that's the case, we can offer courses that go to a far greater depth (and of necessity) run for much longer, but from what you told me over the phone you're just looking for a deployment course, where an extended 5 days on MySQL - for example - would be very much more than the delegates would need or be able to make use of.
This is very much a draft answer as to what your delegates need - I would be very hapy to talk to them to ensure that the package that we're offering is the right one for them, for everyone's benefit.
That's one of those answers that's worth quoting / blogging in full as it answers so many questions for so many people - I have altered / anonymised it of course, but one of the beauties of our "level playing field" pricing policy is that I can also publish it and know that our customer base will be totally happy.
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