This site was originally deployed on the servers hosted by West Point in the mid 90s.
This is a link to the original site
as it was on the
West Point Alumni site.
The service performed by West Point was
great and is a solid site that provided years of reliable hosting for our site. However, I became frustrated that I could not do
database applications or use Java to make the site more interactive. The West Point service only allowed HTML and some CGI.
So in 2001 I launched on a quest to build a site on my own server.
First, I needed a server, so I purchased a computer loaded with Windows 2000.
The choice of an operating system was made based on the operating system I was used to at work.
The site went through several iterations and through several servers running from home.
Next I needed a domain name for that I am using Network Solutions to
register calandva.com.
Speaking of downtime -- to monitor the site I signed up
with
WebSitePulse.
This service has several levels, but at the most basic (and free) service, I receive
an email whenever the site is down and then again when the site is back up.
The polling happens every hour, and on their site you can see statistics on your site's availability.
And it is free!! They have more robust services for a small fee.
Now we were on the web - so I need to develop a site. I took the original HTML frame-based site and
wanted to rewrite it based on Java/JSP and non-Frame. The result is a site built on a number of
technologies most of which are open source from
the
Jakarta project.
I chose
Tomcat as the
application server initially running it in standalone mode - without a web server. Since then, I am
hosting several websites - so I needed a web server,
turning to
Jakarta again, I selected
the
Apache Web Server.
For the application infrastructure I based the selection on technologies I was trying on the job.
My development manager at the time, Steve Melzer, was a proponent of Struts. Since I was looking for
a JSP based application it fit my needs, plus I learned about the technology we were using on our
production sites.
Struts is a
framework for JSP applications that greatly speeds development because it provides a Model
View Controller framework you plug into your classes and JSPs. The Struts community already does all
the hard work in creating infrastructure.
For a database I turned to another open source product - MySQL. It was great as I could
copying databases from my development
workstation to the 'production' server.
In 2021 after over 20 years of hosting the websites at home I was forced to move into the cloud. Cox decided to
block port 80 which meant that all the websites stopped working. I decided to move all the sites to the Amazon
cloud - in 3 months I rewrote all the sites for the cloud. The most challenging part was being able to test on my laptop
what would be sent to the cloud. Now all the sites are on Amazon Web Services or AWS,
and my life (and Virginia Ann's) is much simpler.
In 2023 AWS limited support for MySQL and I moved the operating system to Ubuntu and the database to PostgreSQL.
Database management is a bit harder but on a solid technology.
In 2025 I began rewriting the site for the new versions of Java. I had to leave my old friend Struts. The current site
is rewritten in Spring, Hibernate, Struts2, and Freemarker. I am using bootstrap for the front end.