[ubuntu-uk] Recommendations for a small, cheap, ubuntu staging computer/server?

[Avi Greenbury]

doug livesey wrote:

> Hi -- what box would people recommend for setting up a small, cheap
> staging Ubuntu web server?
> It would pretty much only be needed to test deploys before we push
> them live.

Are you looking for a physical machine to stick in a rack (or under a
desk or whatever) at your office, or to rent something?

Either way, the simplest method is probably to just find something with
spare capacity and install a virtual machine, or rent a virtual machine
from someone.

If you can't replicate the production environment exactly, there's not
a huge amount of point going any further than having the right versions
of Apache, Mysql and whatever you use for LAMP's 'P'; if you're not
concerned that the network card's different, you're probably similarly
unconcerned that the staging environment's got a xen kernel and
production hasn't, for example.

-- 
Avi