APANA Membership

Our membership is open to individuals or non-profit, non-government organisations.

APANA provides "internet services" for whatever the members are interested in. Examples include websites, mailing lists, email services, vpn's, IPv6, cloud computing, blogging, content-management-systems, virtualisation etc.

Some members are interest in supporting their non-profit organisation, whereas other are interested in learning & experimentation. All members are most welcome.

WHY APANA?

APANA has always specialised in supporting smaller clubs and community groups who are not-for-profit. Such groups and clubs may not have access to computer experts or consultants to advise them on how to set up their web sites. APANA provides, at no extra cost, advice and guidance on how to set up their site and facilities. And because we don't charge extra for more advanced facilities, groups can develop and expand their systems as needed.

WHAT DOES IT COST?

Groups using APANA for web hosting are charged a flat fee (which is actually a membership fee). The same fee applies to small-to-medium groups (generally having up to a few hundred members, although this may vary depending on their level of site activity). There are no fixed limits on web-site size or storage (within reason).

Joining APANA simply involves filling out a simple application form and paying an annual membership fee.

General Membership

Generally, members suggest areas of activity and implement those areas themselves. The overall technical standards are managed by our "tech" group, but tend to be flexible enough to support most endeavours.

We do however, offer some "standard" services to our members.

All our members have the option of taking up any or all of the following services. Of course, all member activity must conform to the APANA Acceptable Use Policy.

Note all of the services below are at no extra cost for our members.

Web Hosting

APANA offers web hosting to individual or non-profit group members. Our web hosting is designed to be both economical and flexible, ranging from static web pages to open source systems such as Drupal and Wordpress or even membership management systems such as civicrm . We also provide mailing lists to enable groups to operate and manage mailouts to their members.

We currently have no limits on either activity or the size of the site (within reason of course). Unless your site receives a really huge number of "hits" each day, you'll not outgrow APANA or pay any extra.

VPN Server

Probably the most popular of the services is VPN membership. This gives you the ability to have your cake and eat it too!

VPN members use their own Internet connection to their own ISP but then use VPN technology to connect to the Apana SA hub. This gives them the ability to have any number (within reason :-) of "static" IP addresses for their own use.

This technology provides for some quite nice benefits. For instance:

Ability to maintain a web site or mail server on a stable, publicly accessible IP address no matter what your Internet Service is or who provides it.
Ability to host your own web services at home without having to worry about the vagaries of "dynamic DNS".

Web Hosting

APANA offers web hosting to individual or non-profit group members. Our web hosting is designed to be both economical and flexible, ranging from static web pages to open source systems such as Drupal and Wordpress or even membership management systems such as civicrm. We also provide mailing lists to enable groups to operate and manage mailouts to their members.

VPN Server

Probably the most popular of the services is VPN membership. This gives you the ability to have your cake and eat it too!

This technology provides for some quite nice benefits. For instance:

Ability to maintain a web site or mail server on a stable, publicly accessible IP address no matter what your Internet Service is or who provides it.
Ability to host your own web services at home without having to worry about the vagaries of "dynamic DNS".