My original plan was to use google appengine for an application. For this I purchased a domain via GoogleApps at Godaddy. Since Google Appengine fails to impress me, I would love to move my website to another server. But who is the owner of the domain now? GoogleApp "purchased" the domain for me - how can I regain control over the domain I paid for?
You paid $10 for the domain didn't you? That makes the domain yours. Google Apps is merely the portal through which you manage it. If you login to GoDaddy, through Google Apps, you can configure the domain to point to another webserver by changing your A record and MX records.
Of course, why would you want to do that? What makes App Engine so unimpressive in your eyes? Do you like having to spend 20 hours managing your Tomcat upgrades like this guy Nightmare: Upgrading Tomcat 5.5 to 6.0 or would you prefer to let Google handle those mundane details so you can concentrate on what you do best, building software!
Platform as a Service is, after all, the future. By the time you figure out how to get your app to production, Google App Engine will most likely no longer be in BETA and could be the new standard.
I encourage you to build your application with the future in mind, as in the world of web development, what's considered mainstream today will be obsolete tomorrow, and what's in beta/unstable today will take it's place. Technology moves incredibly fast; don't be left behind.
Related
First I have to apologize if it seems like I am asking a question that has been asked before, but I looked at the Google App Engine documentation and the questions and answers here, and I am finding a lot of inconsistencies.
So my question is: I signed up for a new Google account in August 2013 specifically for developing an app for Google App Engine. I would like to use a custom domain with my app. In the documentation it says that I need to sign up for Google Apps in order to do this. It also says that I can sign up for a free account for 1 person. But it looks like this is not possible anymore since December 2012. I've seen several answers on this here, but they seem outdated as well.
So do I really have to pay $50/year for Google Apps, a service that I really don't need, just to use a custom domain with my Google App Engine App?
Actually there is one free solution, which is not that obvious.
Go to AppEngine -> Application Settings -> Add domain -> Sign up for Google Apps
Start a free 30 day trial - Do not add the billing options
Setup your domain
Add the domain to your app engine project
When the 30 day trial expire the domain will still work.
Have a look at this discussion : https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/google-appengine/jC_K-YlmXhM
Yes you have to pay now. Look in the official appengine issues page, this particular issue has been very active lately. See
https://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=8528#c24
Actually, there's a better free solution, if you only need one user:
Sign up for Google Apps for Business (through Google App Engine)
Go to Billing and cancel your whole account.
Log in again using the same credentials.
That's it! You now have a non-trial, fully functional, good ol' 1 user Google Apps domain.
Can you use Google App Engine with your own custom domain, without paying for the whole Google Apps business package?
The setup instructions suggests this is not possible. Has anyone found a work around?
You no longer need google apps for using custom domain with GAE. you can use custom domains without signing up for Google Apps for Business.
go to https://console.developers.google.com and click on your
project and select appengine then click on settings
there you can add and verify your domain using Google Webmaster central
Once you're done verifying you're all set to go !
IF one has had a free Google Apps account prior to the December 2012 deadline, there does seem to be an easy solution to mapping a new GAE app to a newly registered domain. I happen to still have such prior account for which I do not have to pay (yet?), I believe. I suspect other long-term GAE developers are in a similar situations. So, I am adding quick instructions I found and translated from here. (There are many related threads on the topic on stackoverflow. This question seems the most relevant for adding these notes.)
Login to your existing Google Apps account
Go to "Domains" and hit "add a domain or a domain alias"
Keep "Add a domain alias of ..." selected and enter the new domain name in the field
Go through the required domain verification process
Now back on the main admin screen, hit "Google Apps" and click "add Services" (a box icon on the top right)
Under "Other Services" enter your GAE app ID
On the "Settings for " page coming up, hit "Add new URL"
Select the domain name added in Step 1+, adding a prefix such as "www" in front
Confirm and be done with it
Just done and verified. Works for me and I suspect the same procedure would work for any further domains the same way.
DISCLAIMER: Again, this is for people with a prior Google Apps account. However, it should also be relevant for people that paid for a single such account. This single account should then be sufficient to map multiple GAE apps to multiple domains, if you don't need an independent copy of the other Google apps goodies every time.
Starting June 15 and for a limited time, Google will offer a USD $50.00 App Engine credit for Google App Engine developers who have recently purchased a new Google Apps for Business domain account for their App Engine application.
To review the terms and conditions for this site and request a credit for an eligible application, please visit this site.
Here is the google groups discussion : https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/google-appengine/jC_K-YlmXhM
Quoting from the link above:
We are working on a solution that will make this process simpler for
developers and not require a paid subscription for Google Apps for
Business.
In the meantime, starting from June 15, we will offer a $50 App Engine
credit for developers who need to purchase a new Google Apps for
Business domain in order to associate a domain with an App Engine
account.
Actually there is one free solution, for people that don't have Google Apps account yet.
Go to AppEngine -> Application Settings -> Add domain -> Sign up for Google Apps
Start a free 30 day trial - Do not add the billing options
Setup your domain
Add the domain to your app engine project
When the 30 day trial expire the domain will still work.
I have alot of small application back ends and websites running on app engine. I have reached the maximum of 12 apps. I was wondering if there is a way to add more to a single user? Why is the limit 12? Is there a future version of GAE which lets user create more applications? Can i pay to have more on a single user account?
While I'm not sure if you can pay to get more, you can have 10 more from your Google Apps account if you have one. You can then add your personal account in the admins of that app and continue normally.
While this smells like a workaround, it actually make sense, since eventually you are going to deploy your app on it's own domain and you will need to have a Google Apps account in order to achieve that. From there if you have more users for a particular domain, each of them can start up to 10 apps, which of course you (they) can share with more people, so in theory there is no limit :)
You can create a Google Apps account by starting a free trial and after 30 days you can downgrade to a free version if you have only one user. If you have more then you will have to start paying for it (unfortunatelly that was changed recently).
A few months ago I posted this question because I tried to follow all of the Google instructions, perfectly, for setting up a domain with your Google App Engine application.
I still couldn't get my new domain (purchased through Google) to work properly. After a bit of triple checking in my Google Apps account and DNS setting tweaks (with the ENOM registrar which Google uses), I gave up and figured I'd just wait a few days to see what happened.
Surprise, after a few days my domain started to work without any problems and I've begun to wonder if the problem was that it takes Google a bit of time to get everything setup on there end.
Today, I've once again published an App Engine application and went through the process of purchasing a domain through Google and setting it up in Google Apps. After following Googles instructions, going to my new domain points to a generic welcome page (seen here.)
I have a hunch that I've setup my web site correctly and I should probably just be patient. However, I've never seen Google documentation stating that the setup may take a while, so I'm still a wee bit skeptical.
How long should I have to wait for my domain, Apps site and App Engine application to be fully setup and functional against my new domain?
When you register your new Domain name, the new Domain will typically take between 24 to 96 hours to propagate.
Once the Domain is propagated, you can setup your Google App Engine application in few minutes.
Usually you will need to tweak the DNS of your Domain for a couple of operations that does not require more than 10 minutes of work:
TXT record creation to allow Google to verify you own that Domain
CNAME record creation to map your App engine application to the new registered Domain
If i want to rent space on my service which I in turn host on Google App Service, is there some Terms of Service i need to know about?
Also, if I want to provide a service that should be customized for a company, say a Wiki that the company can tailor like their own with skins and even domains. Can that be done? Will I have to provide the binaries to be installed at my customer's Google App accounts? E.g. my wiki application would run at wiki.company.com
I don't believe there is anything in the TOS that prevents you from selling your software as a service on GAE.
The domain issue is a bit trickier at the moment, however, as there are relatively limited tools for attaching large numbers of domain names to a single app instance. Your best bet at the moment would likely be to purchase Google for domains accounts for each customer and host them on these separate accounts.
(cf Issue 113)