Install profiles and monitored support make Drupal good for everyone - not just experts

Some technical minded Drupal users are fine and happy installing Drupal themselves. They know how to choose the modules and themes needed to make their project happen. Indeed, these savvy users have little need for support, monitoring, patching and consulting.

However, as Drupal's user base gets bigger, and larger clients like enterprises and universities sign-on to the open source revolution, the need for a technical support "safety-net" (in the form of someone keeping a technical eye to make sure everything is up to date and humming along) becomes more apparent.

At Raincity Studios, we know this need well. This demand is why we market the Bryght hosting product which includes a pre-selected and supported set of modules configured ready-to-go, out-of-the-chute.

We also know variety is a good thing. 'Tis better to allow customers to choose the service which best fits their needs than tell them "one size fits all."

With this in mind, Raincity Studios recently announced a platinum partnership with Acquia. Founded by new Ph. D and Drupal ringleader Dreis Buytaert and business-veteran Jay Batson (and a crew of Drupalatti), Acquia provide a commercially-supported distribution of Drupal as well as a subscription-based support network.

This model means that companies and organizations can confidentially use Acquia Drupal install to run their dynamic web presence and enjoy support and network services like uptime monitoring, update notifications, patches and Mollom spam blocking.

Much like the Bryght Basic install, Acquia Drupal is licensed via GPL and includes Drupal core and a suite of popular modules.  With this new offering, Raincity Studios customers will be able to choose between hosting packages for Bryght Light, Bryght VPS and Bryght Acquia.

It was great to sit down with DaveO on the podcast and talk over a wide arc of experiences I've had in the past 4+ years. In case it wasn't clear from the audio (I do have some extended liner notes on my personal site), I'm finishing up my time at Raincity Studios.

After the sale of Bryght back in November / December and 6 months of transition work, I've moved on to work on my new startup, Bootup Labs, full time.

That's not to say that I'm leaving Raincity Studios behind completely. I'm still an advisor to the company, focusing especially on products and services related to hosting and the Bryght Light service. We've got some new services that I'm really excited about seeing launch, from server hosting in Canada to Aegir mass hosting for all VPS customers to some interesting computing integration.

Gnomedex approaches

The almost-legandary geekfest is a single-track extravaganza where you can screen drop on Dave Winer, party with Marc Cantor and schmooze the people making the Internet (and other revolutions) with their bare hands.

Chris and Ponzi cultivate an "everyone's a VIP vibe" with parties, conversations and great food. Krug shares photography tips on Friday and will be snapping throughout the event.

Bonus: It's Geeky Fun! (song by Derek K. Miller).
Tip: Get in front of KK's lens to get the best profile pics ever. 

You probably saw all of these articles already but ... in case you missed any ... get comfy, pour a beverage and do some reading about Open Source CMSs in the news:

Drupal and The Future of News

Tech writer Kurt Cagle from Open Source Pixels {cribbed article bio: managing editor of XML.com, lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and is beginning to wonder what happened to summer - Ed note: Ditto on the summer ;-)} offers a wide-ranging narrative about his experiences with Drupal, (including a name-check of Bryght/Raincity Studios) in his June 1, 2008 article. Well worth a read for his interesting historical and technical perspectives.

In continuing coverage (otherwise known as "staying up with the Raincity crews' activities"), here's a recap of Bridging Media at the Great Northern Way campus (AKA The Hangar). The event was wrangled up by Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave with able assistance by RCS's KK and Bmann and the speaker roster included many of our Van-groovy eco-system.