Licensing questions

[cstratton@csiu]

I love the product and think it might suit for us to connect with school districts to discuss topics of interest.

Here are some questions - your help would be greatly appreciated in answering them:

1) Is the $399 license (including mobile) per SITE or is there also a per user fee (which would be a deal breaker right off the bag)? Is there any per user component (I think not, but others need the official answer)
2) For 50 to 100 users (?more?) - do you have a list of hosting options which are adequate? SPECS would be helfpful, so we could go to 123ehost or InMotion or someone to order the correct hosting environment. Can we host it on Windows 2008 (not my own choice, but I need the RECOMMENDED answer).
2a) - what kind of nightmare is MIGRATING, if we start small and upgrade the server hardware later?
3) What are the annual/recurring costs?
4) What are the annual "support" costs, or the per issue costs?
5) What is the estimated time from "zero to go-live with a pilot"? Note - I've installed PHPBB and wordpress and other systems before.
6) Is our site secure? We can't have student information "out there", should any school administrator chose to publish it.

Much Thanks!!!

Chris

[BirdOPrey5]

1) Per site. There is no charge per user. 1 license means you can use the forum on 1 site (and 1 private test site as well if you wish)

2) We don't recommend Go Daddy shared hosting. Most other hosts that meet the minimum requirements are fine. Windows 2008 is fine as well so long as it has compatible versions of PHP and MySQL installed. We do not allow hosting discussion on this site, there is a dedicated hosting discussion forum on vbulletin.com.

2a) Changing servers is not difficult, there is a how-to section on our manual. Basically make 1 setting change, take a full backup of the database (and files if attachments are stored as files) and move them to the new server. Upload a fresh copy of the install package, edit a file to point to the new database, and you should be fine.

3) a VB5 connect license never needs to be renewed. You would only pay again if the day comes you want to upgrade to VB6.

4) Support is free in the vBulletin.com forums. For those who prefer it there is a ticket and phone support plan available for $49 / month or $199 / year. You don't need to purchase them until/unless you need them.

5) Last night I got a basic forum installed with a few forums and a custom logo in about 90 minutes. The longest part was waiting for the files to uopload. Of course a new customer should budget several hours and it depends entirely on how customized you need the forum before you go live. If you know what you are doing with a fast connection you could be running within an hour.

6) You can lock down the forum by requiring registrations to be approved manually, you can also disable guest viewing of any forum content. The vBulletin product itself is very secure, however some customers install 3rd party products. These products are not tested by us and occasionally introduce security risks, so you should certainly be aware of any add-ons you install should you decide to. Also be able to keep the version updated with the latest version and security patches if released.

[cstratton@csiu]

Thanks very much, Bird of Prey!! Very helpful.

Chris