In the wake of the Bryght relaunch and Drupal Con Szeged, I am personally learning a lot about Ægir, the mass deployment system developed by Raincity/Bryght super-developer, Adrian and co-maintained by the Quebec-based non-profit Koumbit.

I will judiciously refrain from offering my commentary on this project and instead point you to some resources to help you learn where Ægir came from (Hostmaster is the short answer) and where it's going (awesome-land and beyond).

Here are the basics:

Ægir (pronounced "eager") is a new set of contributed modules for Drupal that aims to solve the problem of managing a large number of Drupal sites. It does this by providing you with a simple Drupal based hosting front end for your entire network of sites. To deploy a new site you simply have to create a new Site node. To backup or upgrade sites, you simply manage your site nodes as you would any other node.

To learn what's up, your first tour stops are the overview of the Ægir project on Drupal.org and Ægir group.

Next, watch this archive.org video of Adrian's presentation from Drupalcon 2008 Szeged: Deploying and maintaining Drupal sites using Aegir hosting system.

Check it out

To experience of the brilliant utility of Hostmaster and Ægir, visit Bryght.com and signup for a free trial of Bryght Light and/or try Bryght VPS for your next Drupal hosting project.

Finally, ... for all the mytho-entomology enthusiasts ... In Norse mythology, Ægir was the god of the oceans and if Drupal is a drop of water, Ægir is the deity of large bodies of water.

PS If I've missed any handy resources, please drop them in the comments to complete the tutorial.