Ok, Thanks for all of the replies to our previous post looking for business partners to join with Alabanza. by going to this url http://www.alabanza.com/pages/pricing.html you can see the pricing. Between a few business partners, we should be able to divide the 1,600 dollars needed to start. Then we would divide us into, Customer Support, Server Administration, and Billing. or whatever, I am totally open to suggestions, and once we join, everyone runs the show, not me. So if we get 3, that's little more than $580 per person. Please let me know who is interested. If you have website design skills, that's a major plus!

Brett Hickman

Personally if I was you I'd look elsewhere.

Spending $600/month for a PIII 550, 512MB ram, and 50GB bandwidth is not worth the money. Not to mention the $1000 setup fee.

Just because they are big, doesn't mean they are a good choice.

Ask around for a good dedicated host.

You see they include many neccessary things such as automated billing. Someone suggest site5, but when adding all the features alabanza offers, they were much more expensive. Can anyone else suggest a host that has the capablilities of launching a new hosting company.

brett Hickman

just remember alabanza charges $1 per control panel, 400 users means a $1000 server :eek:

<problems with smilies>

Originally posted by hickster
You see they include many neccessary things such as automated billing. Someone suggest site5, but when adding all the features alabanza offers, they were much more expensive. Can anyone else suggest a host that has the capablilities of launching a new hosting company.

brett Hickman

Hickster,

You need to look at site5 again. That box at Alabanza will get real expensive when you are paying $1 per control panel for every panel in excess of the first 35, and then there is the bandwidth charges. Talk to some other Alabanza hosts and find out what their experience is. Note that Alabanza's largest client, Jumpline, has done just that "jumped the line" and is leaving Alabanza to build their own NOC. They plan to go into direct competition with Alabanza and offer dedicated boxes with Alabanza like goodies. But I would do all the math again. Consider a $600 box with 250 domains on it. That box is now costing you $815 per month. Now add int bandwidth overages. I would say that the average Alabanza server will run you $1000 per month or more when everything is taken into account.

Alabanza is too expenisve, I've heard their bandwidth overages are like almost 10$ per gig or something.

I was offered $500 a month, no $1000 setup fee. Still to expensive? Is anyone reading this willing to give me the url to the exact package they recommend I sign up for?


Thanks
Brett Hickman

Originally posted by hickster
I was offered $500 a month, no $1000 setup fee. Still to expensive? Is anyone reading this willing to give me the url to the exact package they recommend I sign up for?


Thanks
Brett Hickman

Are you saying an alabanza saleperson offered you $500/mth with Free Setup?

I think you are also missing something. You say alabanzaoffers auto billing, but which partner gets to use it for their business? The other people have to find their own solutions.

if you got it without the 1000$ setup then it is a good deal.

for 500$ per month, that means that you can start there and then eventually move into the NocSoft when it comes out which would be able to be installed on any server any where in any data center.

Somehow I doubt you'd be able to install any other control panel software onto an Alabanza system. Besides, why would you want to if you're paying for their automation in the first place?

Honestly-
The reason Alabanza can get away with charging the fees they charge is because as of now they offer the most stable automation package on the market (that I am aware of). If you're not going to be using their automation (e.g. installing NocSoft), get a server at another provider, elsewhere.

Brian

Well it sounds a little fishy, but an Alabanza salesperson didn't offer me that deal... i got a private message on this bulleting board from another user stating he already purchased it for a year, and wants to get rid of it... I can take it over for 500 per month.

Brett Hickman

What do you guys think?

Brett Hickman

Brett, can you tell me more about your business partnership ? PM me.

Originally posted by Annette
Somehow I doubt you'd be able to install any other control panel software onto an Alabanza system. Besides, why would you want to if you're paying for their automation in the first place?

I was not implying to install NocSoft on an Alabanza system. What I said was start off with an Alabanza system then move into NocSoft in another data center when it is released in August because that too will have billing intergration and trouble ticket support system.

it would be just plain dumb to buy an Alabanza system if you aren't going to use their software, hell , that is the only good reason to buy an Alabanza system, for that price anyways.

Raq host, Hello, so what do you think about the deal above?


Thanks!
Brett Hickman

I would recommend not starting off with an Alabanza system if you intend to move somewhere else anyway. The reasons:

1. Alabanza's tech support response time remains in the poor range.
2. Installing some things (various perl modules, for instance) is not possible, as it interferes with their specialized tools.
3. You'll get too used to the automation, and everything else out there pales in comparison currently. Although some companies are making inroads, there is still a long way to go on most things.

Now, if you intend to retain a server or servers you pick up with them, and then start offering services somewhere else, that would be ok in my book. It's what we're doing, after all, and it's working out rather well. Picking up a server at $500 with Alabanza would be a steal, based on the specs and if that was going to be the price period (i.e., no increases) and if you never exceeded the bandwidth allowance, as bandwidth at Alabanza is 2-3 times what other places charge.

So then what exact place do you suggest I sign up and get started at?

Brett Hickman

We have experience with only three providers for dedicated servers: Alabanza, Ventures Online, and Site5. If you absolutely need the automation, Alabanza is the way to go, as they are the best in the business at this, currently - and if you can lock in a price on a decent server, that makes it better. If you don't particularly care about that, are willing to do it yourself, and are pretty good technically, Site5 would be our recommendation, based on the technical knowledge of Matt and Vince, the speed at NAC, and the bonus of BillAdmin, should you decide to pay for it and try it out. Customizing cPanel is a bit of a pain, but that's just an investment of time if you decide to do it. I'm sure other people will chime in with their current favorites as well.

Originally posted by Annette
We have experience with only three providers for dedicated servers: Alabanza, Ventures Online, and Site5. If you absolutely need the automation, Alabanza is the way to go, as they are the best in the business at this, currently - and if you can lock in a price on a decent server, that makes it better. If you don't particularly care about that, are willing to do it yourself, and are pretty good technically, Site5 would be our recommendation, based on the technical knowledge of Matt and Vince, the speed at NAC, and the bonus of BillAdmin, should you decide to pay for it and try it out. Customizing cPanel is a bit of a pain, but that's just an investment of time if you decide to do it. I'm sure other people will chime in with their current favorites as well.

Well, actually the only automated part I am looking at is my client's and my control panel... The rest isn't that difficult. Im reasonably good at tech, and billing will be handled by someone else. So really, I am just looking for the control panels. Now what do you recommend since I have stated the above?

Brett Hickman... Thanks for your advice! I appreciate it!

I FORGOT! Another big thing I liked was automated setup! Does site5 offer that? Site 5 has some awfully great deals! I might go with them... Most likely.

Brett Hickman

Can I have resellers on site5's system?


Brett Hickman

If all you're looking for is control panels, then you could go just about anywhere. Since I only ever recommend providers I have actually used, based on what you indicate you need, I would have to recommend Site5. As I mentioned before, I don't think anyone has the kind of automated setup that Alabanza offers, although the BillAdmin piece that Site5 offers does a reasonable facsimile of it - even though you do have to go in and approve orders as they arrive in the queue. Without BillAdmin, you would collect the orders and then set them up manually via WHM (WebHost Manager). And yes, you can have resellers on any system that has WHM. I know some people have resellers of resellers on WHM systems, but we won't be doing that, as it's too much of a nightmare, and too many links in the chain where something could go wrong. You have to go through an additional step to set up those privileges, but it is possible. My only potential gripe with WHM is that as you add additional servers, it is not smart enough to set up resold accounts on the most available server - that is, there is no way to set up a priority of servers for all account setup purposes, as Alabanza offers.

hey hickster, I got a good quote from Pwebtech.com for a dual pii 1 ghz server with cpanel and I think that is what we should use.

let me know.

Brett,

First things first. If you cannot afford a ~$1200 server, you should build a reseller business with a reseller program until you have the cash to go it alone (with a dedicated server). Don't spend what you don't have, and nobody gets from A to Z in one step... just my two cents.