Hello all.

Having browsed the forum in stealth mode for a good while I’ve decided to make the leap and register.

And here is my first (more than likely of many) ponderance.

I run a small company a based in the North of England UK, offering various IT services to local businesses. Having made the big decision to diversify in to hosting of clients sites, I have spent a good while planning and deciding the best method for us to do so.

We can collocate any number of servers, for very reasonable cost, at a reliable data centre due to past dealings and a good relationship with another ip related company.

My biggest area of uncertancy when moving in to the hosting community as yet has been which specific hardware and software setups to use.

I’m going to fire random thoughts to you as they come, i hope they are not to hard nor to stupid to answer!

I require an all in one system to manage servers, services, domain purchase and management, user accounts, support, invoicing, account tracking etc...

Number of sites i see being served in the short term is between 100 - 150, sub 500mb, low data transfer sites. However i would like the capacity to serve up to 500 without many large hardware/software upgrades or additions.

Which is the most common or recommended operation system for use on a web host server? I had in my mind Redhat Enterprise 4.

Now, we wish to offer domains from our site, should this be done direct with openSRS, or through an existing company on a resale basis?

With regard to mail servers - is it recommended to keep mail services on a different physical server to the sites, or is it okay to keep them on the same server?

Which control panel would you recommend to achieve what I listed up there somewhere?

I know this is very vague, but help with be really appreciated.


If you could detail an example setup for me, that would answer a lot of questions.

Thanks for your help.

Matt Park

Wow its amazing how many companies are emerging in the North :ukflag:

I require an all in one system to manage servers, services, domain purchase and management, user accounts, support, invoicing, account tracking etc...
Modernbill fits your needs perfectly
www.modernbill.com

Which is the most common or recommended operation system for use on a web host server? I had in my mind Redhat Enterprise 4.
CentOS is the OS thats compatible best with major control panels, Search the forums there has been alot of discussion about OS's.


Now, we wish to offer domains from our site, should this be done direct with openSRS, or through an existing company on a resale basis?
You need a enom reseller account (or atleast thats what we use)
www.enom.com

With regard to mail servers - is it recommended to keep mail services on a different physical server to the sites, or is it okay to keep them on the same server?
Depends on how much you will be charging for your plans, As a budget provider, Mail servers on the same server are fine.


Which control panel would you recommend to achieve what I listed up there somewhere?
cPanel
www.cpanel.net

If you have any more questions fire away!

With regard to mail servers - is it recommended to keep mail services on a different physical server to the sites, or is it okay to keep them on the same server?

I was recently reading that TextDrive offloaded webmail to a server cluster to take the load off of all their shared servers. With HSphere too, it's possible to use multiple servers each running only one service from what I understand. I've only used it once on a shared account several years ago.

I'd really like to know all the practices that some of these larger hosting organizations use to manage their clients as well as their server setups. But I doubt that many would be willing to share. It would be interesting to know how they all configure their servers, and if they use seperate physical servers for database, http, mail, etc.

For the most part you're fine with a single server that has a decent hardware configuration, but I'm not sure how well that would be in terms of scalability.

I've also read of a shared host using a big cluster of servers for everything, adding a server here and there as the need arises.

But like I said before, you'll be fine starting off with a single server. There are also other control panels you can check out apart from CPanel; take a look at Plesk, Direct Admin, etc.

Originally posted by The Napster

Modernbill fits your needs perfectly
www.modernbill.com



Modernbill dont manage servers and dont register domains.

Try www.directadmin.com as control panel :)

are you a windows or linux/unix shop? if you offer IT service based on windows, i will suggest go with windows because it will be easier to pickup . go with the tools that you know. don't let useless geek debate throw you off on picking which platform.

Originally posted by e-view
Modernbill dont manage servers and dont register domains.

Try www.directadmin.com as control panel :)

Err... where have you been lately?

ModernBill is capable of adding/suspending/unsuspnding/deleting accounts on servers, and registers domains form (I believe) over 8 different domain registrars.

Here's one tip though, don't come to WHT with such vague needs. :)

cPanel is good if what you want to offer your clients are features. In the research we have done, it is the most client-side feature rich control panel.

Plesk/H-Sphere is good where you want an all-in-one bundled solution. I believe they are generally compariable, though I don't remember much from my research.

DirectAdmin is, from what I have seen of it (we have a client who runs it) seems very minimal, though it does have a helpdesk built in, which is nice if you don't want a professionaly packaged helpdesk solution such as kayako or cerberus.

There's also many others. Each control panel has it's own strengths and weaknesses, so be sure to have your goals in mind.

Same goes for billing software. If you pick Plesk/H-Sphere I believe both contain a billing system inside of them, and generally it's a good idea to use integrated packages... well.. together. :) If your choice control panel does not come with a billing package, I would strongly recommend looking at ModernBill. It can be abit overwhelming to configure initially but you should get it down pretty quickly. ClientExec is a more minimal billing package with more limited features, but it also has a lower cost, so if your choice control panel, merchant systems, and domain registrars work with it, don't pass it up. If you go with cPanel, don't leave out WHM AutoPilot from your options to review, though be careful. With WHM AutoPilot, currently (and possibly forever) you will be stuck with only using cPanel as your control panel, so you lose your growth opertunities with it, but if cPanel suits your entire business model perfectly, more power to you. There are other billing programs, such as AWBS (I hear many people enjoy this one) and UberSmith (relitavely expensive, and only currently in a 'hosted' version, which I personally do not find agreeable).

For support software, the big players on WHT are (in order of my preference), Cerberus, Kayako, and Support Trio, though there are also many others. Cerberus is easily refered to as the ModernBill of support systems. Many configuration options, many ways to do things, but once you get it configured, it runs very well. It's also somewhat more expensive than the other options, initally, but if you have many brands, or other products to manage, $779 for an owned unlimited license doesn't look too bad. Kayako is another great package, though for some reason I am unable to get version 3 of their software to properly (or nicely, rather) handle incoming spam, which is why we are in the process of moving back to Cerberus. Support Trio's demo, when I tried it a few months ago, did not look very friendly on the admin side, which turned me off instantly. They may or may not have fixed this, and it may or may not have been a browser issue, that I cannot say. The one GREAT thing I will say in favor of Kayaky V3 is that it comes with a WAP/PDA gateway. Using Kayako on the treo was a breeze, and I will have to program my own interface to Cerberus for the same purpose, but I feel it's a small price to pay for the better email filtering Cerberus allows.

If you are bent on going the All-In-One route, I would have to suggest looking at Plesk or H-Sphere, as they should be able to meet your needs nicely.

Have a good morning. :)

WO-Jacob >> ups... sorry³ ...i'm really old fashioned... :erm:
Going to look for a demo... :peace:

mattpark:
About control panel; Cpanel is easy to use and lots of features.

mattpark:
About control panel; Cpanel is easy to use and lots of features.

Just make sure you don't use it as a substitute for a skilled system administrator. While cpanel does make the redundant tasks of web-hosting much easier it still can't do a lot of things with regards to security, and fixing rogue errors that come up during normal use.

ohhh - dont forget about ensim, whm, and helm for control panel software

oh and there is ubersmith for overall management

for domains, get a reseller account with one of the 20 or so major registrars out there that offer that.