Back in 2008, it was obvious that the fragmentation of CPAN Testers sites was a problem. The system was slow, usually getting updated just once a day, and the presentation was a little disjointed. At that point a dedicated server was suggested, as this would bring a number of the key sites together and potentially provide a base with which to improve the updates of the sites. In addition it was seen a first step towards CPAN Testers 2.0.

In late September 2008 a proposal was put forward to the members of Birmingham Perl Mongers, to donate funds to aquiring a dedicate server to host a range of sites and databases. Unanimously they approved the proposal and a server was paid for at Hetzner Online AG. Based in Germany on a high bandwidth line, the server has enabled CPAN Testers to grow and now supports a dynamic set of sites and databases that are a consistent benefit to authors and users.

The server was covered for 1 year, with the intention of looking for a corporate sponsor to continue the funding for further years. However, due to the recent economic climate, the opportunities for funding appear to be limited. As such, recently another proposal was put to the members of Birmingham Perl Mongers, and once again they unanimously approved it. The server and hosting is now paid up for another year, and plans are afoot to further increase the family of sites and provide more resources to authors, testers and users.

Many thanks to all of Birmingham Perl Mongers for their continued support of the CPAN Testers project.