

Dropbox should have used a Jumpbox - agentbleu
http://thenextweb.org/2008/09/17/ep3-companies-who-make-money-jumpbox/

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mattmaroon
During our YC demo, we just used VMWare, dumped our server into it, changed
the host file to point draftmix.com to the proper IP, and boom. So while
investors were seeing our actual code in action (not some prerecorded, ideal
situation version) it wasn't dependent on the internet.

Also amazing for us was the ability to snapshot. We started up a league,
snapshotted, then ran from there, so that when the demo started, we could show
a league in action.

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ryanmahoski
I can appreciate the advantage of having my server environment on a USB drive,
particularly if I don't want to lug my laptop to a demo, or my laptop is AWOL,
or the situation calls for using someone else's computer. That seems very
useful, and I can see the value of Jumpbox for those reasons alone. I know
that it's also a breeze to fire up for ad-hoc development environments.

But when the only technical challenge is internet connectivity, such as in
this case, what is the advantage of Jumpbox over VMWare or Parallels?

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jamesbritt
" .... what is the advantage of Jumpbox over VMWare or Parallels?"

Jumpbox runs _on_ VMWare and Parallels. (And Xen and some other VM
environments.)

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ryanmahoski
Oh ok. I see it now. And the advantage then is that you begin with a full
stack. Cool.

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jamesbritt
Yes. Plus, as someone else here pointed out, you can have a self-contained
virtual "internet" to demo apps without needing an external connection.

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jamiequint
They would then have had to clone s3 as well, is there a Jumpbox for that?

I think the best solution in this case would have been a hardwired connection
with a EVDO card as backup.

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DougBTX
You only need a mock, not a clone.

