Would you like to create a website as part of your professional activities at the EPFL?
Whether it is for your centre, your laboratory or a conference, EPFL offers you a address on the epfl.ch domain, as well as various free solutions to host your content.
Student associations recognized by EPFL can only benefit from an EPFL WordPress site. If they wish to use another type of CMS or manage their own template, they must contact a commercial hosting company.
The person responsible for a website must be part of EPFL staff (and not ‘host’ or ‘outside EPFL’).
Adresses
Site addresses are subject to validation, usually by the head of the institute or department concerned. Please read the good practices on the determination of a url at EPFL.
Hosting solutions at EPFL
Depending on your needs, you can choose from:
- Hosting supported by the IT department: WordPress EPFL or on the LAMP server;
- For IT managers, the possibility of managing a virtual server on the XAAS portal;
- If none of these offers are suitable, to contact your local IT support at your school (their services can vary);
- To delegate to an external company;
- To use a cloud (subject to legal constraints).
In all cases, comply with security and data protection regulations, as well as the Lex on domain names, is mandatory.
WordPress hosting
Whether for a site intended for the general public (managed) or with restricted access to the EPFL community (inside), this solution will allow you to focus on content. The site is delivered to you turnkey with the WordPress content manager and the EPFL web graphic charter installed. You will also benefit from technical & webmastering support.
LAMP hosting
If WordPress does not meet your needs and you have the technical knowledge, you can install your own hosting on a LAMP server. However, you will not benefit from the technical support of the EPFL.
Overview of hosting types
| WordPress managed | WordPress ‘inside’ | LAMP hosting | |
| Skills / responsible | Everyone, beginner | Everyone, beginner | IT Developer |
| Technical support | Yes ([email protected]) | Yes ([email protected]) | No, see conditions |
| Documentation | yes | yes | outside EPFL |
| Courses given by EPFL | yes | yes | no |
| EPFL graphic charter | yes | yes | to implement by the user |
| Systems security | yes | yes | to implement by the user |
| Secure access to content (intranet) | no | yes | to implement by the user |
| Administrators management | via the accreditation system | via the accreditation system | To implement (but the admin has to be accredited at EPFL) |
| Backup | yes | yes | 1 time per day (files + DB) |
| Adding local database | no | no | 1 per website |
| Search engine indexation (Google, EPFL..) | yes | no | yes |
