A friend just pointed me to this site called sphera.com which is selling some server automation software they say can be installed on any server. Reading through the list of features, thing are tooking rather TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, but of course one never knows. Has anyone dealt with these people? How do they compare to the packaged hosting people who offer automation (Alabanza, etc.)?
And then the biggy: Does anyone know what they cost? They say to write to them to find out, which looks suspicious right there. And I don't really want to get bogged down in sales pitch until I know what I'm doing.
Thanks to anyone who has wisdom to share on this.

Originally posted by Pteradactyl:
And then the biggy: Does anyone know what they cost? They say to write to them to find out, which looks suspicious right there. While I have no first-hand knowledge of their pricing, you might want to read this thread (where someone states that Sphera's cost is $4 per user per month, and there's other discussion of similar products): http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000054.html

Thanks, Jay.
I've actually just read that thread with a great deal of interest. So I'm taking that as the working price. Seems like it would mount up a lot after a while. As I believe someone said, it would probably get to be more expensive than Alabanza once you build up enough clients.
I guess my thing is, I'm a beginner without a heaping lot of experience, and so I'd like something which has already been beta tested and is fairly turn-key. (Read that, doesn't require me to understand programming.)
Right now my thinking is, starting from no clients, if I want to do my own hosting I might be a lot better off financially with a cheap dedicated server and Sphera's software than shelling out $800 a month or whatever it is for an Alabanza server.
But then again, I have this longstanding habit of getting myself in trouble by trying to save short term money. So maybe I should just bite the bullet.

VDI.net has an excellent control panel with new options being added all of the time.

You might take a peek @ them since your a hosting company.



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Sincerely~
Daniel Pearson
UltraSpeed USA
http://www.ultraspeedusa.com
AIM: UltraSpeedUSA
ICQ: 7021831
Email: dpearson@ultraspeedusa.com
Phone: 1-205-785-1872

Oooh...

Thanks for the pointer, Daniel. VDI looks pretty good -- and fairly cheep. And somewhat less daunting than having to install an outside automation solution on my own server.

We'll see. I've got an email in with sales at Sphere asking them a number of questions. If I hear anything interesting, I'll post it for the general knowledge.

Thanks.

P.,

At $4 per customer, if you charge $20, a fairly common amount, you'll only make $16 before you start paying for your server and other costs. You don't decrease it by amortizing over a larger customer base, it is a constant $4 per. That makes it a costly solution anyway you look at it.

Which I suppose it must be if they are to make any money. But it's my money I'm concerned about here, so maybe we'll take nix on that.

In the continuing search for automation options I also uncovered a place called Professo.com, which has a set of automation solutions they provide in conjunction with Digex servers.

But since once again they're taking a cut for the software as well as, in this case, reselling servers, it looks like I'd be paying more for comparable hardware than I would be with Alabanza. Maybe not such a bad deal after all...

We shall see.

Professo actually supports a software model and a managed services model.
We have an "Service Provider in-a-box" appliance and an enterprise call solution.
We are not on digex.

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Patrice D. Guyot,CEO - guyot@professo.com | Phone : + (1) 212 514 6644 ext.230 | Fax : + (1) 212 514 8089 | Toll : + (1) 877 GO PROFESSO | Visit our Web site at: http://www.professo.com | One Wall Street Court, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10005
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[Edited by BC on 11-09-2000 at 08:42 PM]

I have gone through the sphera walk through and have spoke with their sales people indepth.

Cost: The price $2 per Account/Domain. However they limit you at 200 accounts/domains per server.

Function: Best control panel and server automation i have seen. Better than plesk (which I am currently using) and better than Ensim. Seprate panel for you the administrator, for your resellers and for your clients.
If you have more than one server the sphera system can do static load balancing. Moving sites between servers to reduce load.

The good thing with sphera is that all features like Miva, Urchin and other services can be added by your customer. Each feature is a plugin and you can create you own plugins.

Sphera can be intergrated with your billing system and your web site so real time account setups and additions can be automated.

If anyone has any other questions regarding sphera please email me.

We considered Sphera and had some discussions with them but it's far to expensive, this is what they offered us;

"the minimum is either a full server license at $4800 per year per server or $24,000 per year for a minimum purchase of 500 VDSs."

So in my humble opinion they can dream on...

Yes, the now do require $400 per cpu flat fee and claim that is for 200 VS's at $2 ea. but to me its still $400 on top a server lease

It's excellent! It has anything you might need, and much more.

Also, they just announced that they will be offering it publically... meaning... you can install it on a machine at another data center. I've heard that Verio has already signed up to purchase licenses. ;)

Matt
mlightner@site5.com

Hi,

Iam wondering if anyone could tell me the price of a good control panel for a web hosting company. I am opening one and I want to have a Contol Panel.

Does anyone know the price of: VDI, Ensim, alabanza

thanks in advance.

nama

mama (love that nick ;) )

VDI Pricing - http://www.cpanel3.com (click on order for the price)

Alabanza - No Pricing .. they don't sell their CP seperate from a machine


Ensim - humm, I try to access their page http://www.ensim.com/.. and it was down .. not sure if they are still around .. maybe other people in this board know more than I do about it.

Thanks for the info..
I was wondering if anyone knows of a control panel that I can just purchase. That way I don;t have to keep paying the monthly fees. Is there any out there whcih is like that?

Thanks in advance.

Nama

Well, http://webmin.com/webmin kinda

Actually I am looking for one that would also support Windows 2000. Does anyone know any.

Thanks a bunch people !!
I really appriciate all the inputs!!!

Nama

Ayyyeee Windows... there was some discussion about someone building (or wanting to build) a CP for Windows errrr... in the Software forum? Advertsing forum? Bahhh, I'm just guessing...