Well after reviewing it for a bit we have found it is not as feature filled as we had hopped.. and I'm wondering if there are any other options out there?

Thank you

Not sure if it would fit your needs (I have also never tried it but spent some time looking at it if needed in the future): http://nocmonkey.psoft.net/order.html

yes we're using nocmonkey already we need something that will give us downtime reports/bandwidth billing and monitoring etc....

I know that ubersmith has something on the horizon.. but not too sure what else is out there.

http://nocwizard.com it is a little buggy and the devloper has fallen off the face of the earth lately but it does do it all. We have been using it for a over a year and half or so. We do monitoring, bandwidth, IP tracking equipment tracking and bandwidth overage it also has built in support desk that is a little lacking in features and a complete billing module that I do not use.

Not sure what he is charging for it now now.

I compared nocmanger a while ago and by the time you bought all the external software you need for nocmanager to do the same functions I was left a little unsure exactly what it is nocmanger was doing for me.

yeah im in the same boat

I checked out nocwizard a while back and a friend of mine is running that system, so far he hates it...

anyone have any hidden apps :)?

anyone have any hidden apps ?

Hold out for a few weeks and check again ;) ;)

Oh !! Jim send me an email in a few weeks. :peace:

jim :) Any inside info would be appreciated ;)

You know it really is a shame Nocwizard had all the potential in the world to totally rule this segment of the market place.

The developer decided to start charging an enterprise price for it so sales I think pretty much dried up and he decided to go back to school and pretty much leave the product hanging.

Had he sold it or allowed somoene else to take it over lowered the cost of entry he could have ruled the hosting market.

Shame,, I hate to see things with so much promise go down the drain.

Will be interesting to see what Jim comes out with. The market is ripe for a decent product.

Steady on, I'm not coming out with anything :) I've just heard a few things ;)

Steady on, I'm not coming out with anything :) I've just heard a few things ;)
The only other one I've heard of is Ubersmith's DC edition, which I believe will go for $199/month....

Is this what you are referring to, or, is there yet another solution coming out shortly? :)

Has ubersmith released their DC edition? I have really been wanting to take a look at it as I am quite impressed with their hosting billing systems.

Has ubersmith released their DC edition? I have really been wanting to take a look at it as I am quite impressed with their hosting billing systems.
No, it's not in beta either yet, still in development based on the information from them on Monday.

well let's keep this thread alive for options :)

any updates ?

<< Looking for a good noc system , both nocmanager and nocwizard looks that it died off 100%

forums are spamed, adam not repling ....

etc ..

any good apps ?

Hang on a few more weeks something may be breathing again soon.

Yeah,

I got an SPAM email almost every 2 days, from their announcement forums...

i'm getting a lot of bull from adam

I'm holding on there , but a nice reply back about anything will be nice

I am also looking for something here...

I am looking essentially for a modernbill type application with the ability to use SNMP and get traffic stuff from switches and bill based on that :)... Oh and an inventory tracker and ip tracker would be nice too so I can see what I have available :)

news from Ubersmith DE: http://www.ubersmith.com/de_preview/

news from Ubersmith DE: http://www.ubersmith.com/de_preview/

Yeah it looks like end of year is the target date for release, but I am still wondering what the prcing is going to be like. Looking at the other prices and seeing that as low as $299.00 on the web site leads me to believe is it not going to be affordable for all but the biggest players. I am sure that is $299.00 a month just wonder the limits on it at that pricing.

Yeah it looks like end of year is the target date for release, but I am still wondering what the prcing is going to be like. Looking at the other prices and seeing that as low as $299.00 on the web site leads me to believe is it not going to be affordable for all but the biggest players. I am sure that is $299.00 a month just wonder the limits on it at that pricing.


299/mo looks to be over priced , i'll pay 500-700 one time but 299 per month no way

299/mo looks to be over priced , i'll pay 500-700 one time but 299 per month no way
Ubersmith in general is 'pricey' - their current Pro edition runs at $289.95 per month or $5000 one-time for unlimited customers. Like Techark, I too believe it will start at $299/mo - although on the DE roadmap it does say "Ubersmith Pro 5.3 Integration" and so one (very unlikely) alternative is that you buy Ubersmith Pro (at $24.99-289.99 or $499-5000) and then pay a one-time fee to get the 'DE' features. That to me would be ok, but, I doubt that'll be the case.

Ubersmith in general is 'pricey' - their current Pro edition runs at $289.95 per month or $5000 one-time for unlimited customers. Like Techark, I too believe it will start at $299/mo - although on the DE roadmap it does say "Ubersmith Pro 5.3 Integration" and so one (very unlikely) alternative is that you buy Ubersmith Pro (at $24.99-289.99 or $499-5000) and then pay a one-time fee to get the 'DE' features. That to me would be ok, but, I doubt that'll be the case.

i think would be easier to just pay a coder to create one to your needs, may be around that price anyway..

Ubersmith DE looks promising... But, the high monthly fee put me off. The fee is just make no sense to me. For small and medium providers, it is just too expensive. For large providers, they either have a billing system already or need a custom solution.

it really depends what you are comparing with....if this is an alternative to the mange small timer setups out there, then true...but if you are in the market for PEM or similar setups, then their price is very fair...question is if this is in the same legue, only time will tell i guess

299/mo looks to be over priced , i'll pay 500-700 one time but 299 per month no way


Yeah, for me it's completelly out of my budget.

I think ubbersmith it's doing an application for the Datacenter owners, they should be able to pay for it, but I don't think that is a big market...

We need a solution for dedicated servers resellers, I think there is a big market.

Regards.

Yeah, for me it's completelly out of my budget.

I think ubbersmith it's doing an application for the Datacenter owners, they should be able to pay for it, but I don't think that is a big market...

We need a solution for dedicated servers resellers, I think there is a big market.

Regards.

the current Ubersmith version should be fine for resellers, woudln't it?

Well,

I would like to allow my customers to:

See their MRTG data / Check their bandwith
Perform Reboot
monitor their servers (I think this can be done by ubber)
See all their hardware, with all the hardware information, IP information, and all.
Be able to see my inventory
Bill the bandwith overage
Define datacenters, to see where are my servers located
Allow them to keep their password updated since we do management
And of course integrate with our helpdesk or have something cool to be able to request, reverse dns, os reload, and other stuff.


At least that :)

Well,

I would like to allow my customers to:
See their MRTG data / Check their bandwith
Perform Reboot
monitor their servers (I think this can be done by ubber)
See all their hardware, with all the hardware information, IP information, and all.
Be able to see my inventory
Bill the bandwith overage
Define datacenters, to see where are my servers located
Allow them to keep their password updated since we do management
And of course integrate with our helpdesk or have something cool to be able to request, reverse dns, os reload, and other stuff.
At least that :)

Exactly what I would like as well :)

That's also exactly what I am looking for.

Well,

I would like to allow my customers to:

See their MRTG data / Check their bandwith
Perform Reboot
monitor their servers (I think this can be done by ubber)
See all their hardware, with all the hardware information, IP information, and all.
Be able to see my inventory
Bill the bandwith overage
Define datacenters, to see where are my servers located
Allow them to keep their password updated since we do management
And of course integrate with our helpdesk or have something cool to be able to request, reverse dns, os reload, and other stuff.


At least that :)

all great addons and ideas too, mind if i steal your post there and paste in my future features / todo list?

all great addons and ideas too, mind if i steal your post there and paste in my future features / todo list?

Pleaseeeeee! :D

I will add some more to your forum for sure.

Would be great if you place a demo on line, feature list, and changelog.

I am sure that many will be interested in your solution and to give you a hand on it.

I got fedup with NocManager / Adam in the spring and hired out to someone to recreate the basic functionality of nocmanager. Its just about done barring some bugs in the IP management tools.

If you're interested in it, PM me. I haven't totally decided what to do about distributing it. Clearly the main concern is that we have something in house with full source-code so we're never dependant upon third parties again. But I'd love to see something more happen with it... One idea we've had is to charge a nominal fee (eg, $50 - $100) for full source code and once we've recouped our development costs (or dev costs plus some small percentage for our own additional efforts) to turn it completely open source.

Anyhow, like I said, PM me if you are interested.

Well,

I would like to allow my customers to:

See their MRTG data / Check their bandwith
Perform Reboot
monitor their servers (I think this can be done by ubber)
See all their hardware, with all the hardware information, IP information, and all.
Be able to see my inventory
Bill the bandwith overage
Define datacenters, to see where are my servers located
Allow them to keep their password updated since we do management
And of course integrate with our helpdesk or have something cool to be able to request, reverse dns, os reload, and other stuff.


At least that :)


What would you guys consider a good price for a piece of software that does all that?

What would you guys consider a good price for a piece of software that does all that?

I think a fair price it's something close that modernbill used to charge, or clientexec, kayako, whm, or any others of the same pricerange.

So you want something that does everything that modern bill, clientexec etc. does but also does all the extra things in that list they don't include, but for the same money?

So you want something that does everything that modern bill, clientexec etc. does but also does all the extra things in that list they don't include, but for the same money?

Honestly this is not what if want, if it were like that I post a new thread on the advertising forum requesting this developed for the price that I want, and see what pops out.

On my features list wasn't nothing related to billing or support, and if you ask what I prefer, I prefer integration with a billing system like NocManager did (The origin of this post)

Personally I paid for nocmanager around €600 (I my mind don't play jokes at me) and at that time that was more expensive that Modernbill Owned Unlimited.

What I liked from NocManager was the idea that integrated into Modernbill, Kayako, Hybodus, witch where the 3 scripts that I was using.

I don't think it's a good idea for new coders to develop something that do billing, support, and all. I think will be easy to create something that runs on top of a popular and supported application, that already do a good job on billing, and maybe other that do a good job on support and monitoring, and no mention that will be easy to do the application marketing.

Remember that people like us, who do dedicated servers reselling, also sells shared, reseller, domains, and maybe others things.

I can't pay $299 at month, but around $600 one time fee, it's something that I can think about. Of course, lower your prices and you will get more sales.

Just my 2 cents.

So you want something that does everything that modern bill, clientexec etc. does but also does all the extra things in that list they don't include, but for the same money?

No, we dont want the control panel support (i dont think), and probably the domain registration capabilities?

Well, i dont know if this comes to the thread, but i find this tool zenoss.com
It is good for remote server monitoring i guess

Im just gonna keep ours free for a while at least, maybe forever. We'll see how the community picks it up. We have to keep it advancing anyway for our own sake so I dont really mind giving a little back to the community thats given us so much already.

Im just gonna keep ours free for a while at least, maybe forever. We'll see how the community picks it up. We have to keep it advancing anyway for our own sake so I dont really mind giving a little back to the community thats given us so much already.

May i ask which is yours ?

It must have been fate that I stumbled upon this thread! For the past few weeks, I have really been telling myself I wanted to develop some type of web-based software relating to the hosting industry, but was not too sure what I wanted to do exactaly.

I had the idea a few days ago to create an addon to ModernBill that managed dedicated servers. I have talked to the modernbill dev team, and my theories were correct. ModernBill is concentrating on the billing and hosting integration aspects while "holding off" for major additions. One example would be their accounting system, it is very basic but does the job while everything else works nearly flawlessly.

Many have asked MB for dedicated server management, but I personally feel this would be much better as an external application. My ideas for features are as follows:

- Monitor servers, switches, routers, etc for uptime, service status, as well as bandwidth (for billing).
- snmp graphs for servers, switches, routers, etc.
- Track inventory of servers, IP's, rackspace, bandwidth, etc.
- Integrate billing and invoice generation into ModernBill
- Possibly integrate with eSupport or create a ticket system from the ground up, I would like to see a less bulky system similar to RT.
- Network Boot to install images to new servers (possibility).

This is just a small list of ideas I have had in my head, my main goal is to reproduce features from NOCmanager and NOCwizard. But build upon the great foundation that modernbill has offered. As the project progresses, I am sure It will include a simple billing system for invoice generation for the users who opt not to use MB.

Now, the kicker. I have been thinking of making an open source edition as well as a paid edition, of course the paid edition will offer support and more features. That has not been decided yet. Regardless of an open source edition or not, I was thinking somthing along the lines of pricing similar to MB before their price increase (ie, $250 one time for X number of servers and $20 6 months of support).

Do not get your hopes up as, this is just an idea in my head now and I have not even started working on it yet, but when I do it will not be a one man show.

I'll keep this thread updated, as I have planned on starting this very soon. Beta test will be FREE. Please post here if there are any major features I have left out.

Chris - to successfully pull something like this off in a time frame that is reasonable - I think personally you will need additional support/developers helping you to handle different aspects of the project.

It is a great idea but Ubersmith is already approaching this with their Pro version and their soon to be released datacenter version.

Chris - to successfully pull something like this off in a time frame that is reasonable - I think personally you will need additional support/developers helping you to handle different aspects of the project.

It is a great idea but Ubersmith is already approaching this with their Pro version and their soon to be released datacenter version.

agreed but i dont think 90% of use will pay $299 per mo on Ubersmith system pro.


I'm willing to support any coder that can get this done asap! :) i'm sure i'm not the only one here

May i ask which is yours ?

Our internal system is called nixcore but its not for sale. The version of it that we are releasing free is called HostGUI and you can grabed it at http://devpond.com/forum/

Im going to get a nice site up with an automated download and licensing system in place for everyone to use. Im swamped with license file requests.

Our internal system is called nixcore but its not for sale. The version of it that we are releasing free is called HostGUI and you can grabed it at http://devpond.com/forum/

Im going to get a nice site up with an automated download and licensing system in place for everyone to use. Im swamped with license file requests.


ah ... can i ask if you have a demo ?

You can download the program. But no I dont have a demo up of it right now. I'll put one up soon.

Chris - to successfully pull something like this off in a time frame that is reasonable - I think personally you will need additional support/developers helping you to handle different aspects of the project.

It is a great idea but Ubersmith is already approaching this with their Pro version and their soon to be released datacenter version.

Read my post again, I'm pretty sure I said this will not be a one man project.

edit: just read ^^^ that line. Didn't mean to sound rude ;-)

Now as for Ubersmith.. look at it this way. Ubersmith and ModernBill are competitors, they both seem to still do fairly well. Each system has a different look and feel as well as feature set, in the end it is up to the client to determine which they like better. From what I have read, Ubersmith will be priced at $100+/mo. The pricing structure I am thinking of would be a fixed one-time license fee plus optional support.

I totally agree with you that this may not be somthing that will happen tomorrow, but while the community is on the subject why not get some input? I have many years of development experience and a team of developers that can easily tackle the project.

I think they key is not trying to rush the project, and also keeping it alive once a working product is in place. This is somthing I am willing to commit to.

Well I got the pricing on the Ubersmith DE edtion..

You have to buy a network appliance $2500.00 one time fee then that interacts and monitors your devices then it is $389.00 a month fee for 200 devices and $100.00 a month extra for every 100 additional devices you want to interface with.

A device being a server or switch etc..

Pricey for the little guys.

Cheers mate. Go for it. I will enjoy to read updates as you progress.

Well I got the pricing on the Ubersmith DE edtion..

You have to buy a network appliance $2500.00 one time fee then that interacts and monitors your devices then it is $389.00 a month fee for 200 devices and $100.00 a month extra for every 100 additional devices you want to interface with.

A device being a server or switch etc..

Pricey for the little guys.


WHAT !!!:eek:

absurd is more like it, its not like they are doing anything special just reinventing the wheel

WHAT !!!:eek:

absurd is more like it, its not like they are doing anything special just reinventing the wheel

I pretty much had the same reaction - suffice to say I didn't bother replying to Ubersmith after they sent me the details over yesterday (despite them not saying so, I did assume they wanted it confidential, and possibly not posted all over the web which is why I didn't ;)).

Even PEM & HSPComplete's perpetual licenses from the SWSoft boys are cheaper than Ubersmith, and it's a much more integrated and 'natural' system from my experience. I imagine we'll see a DE price cut, much the same way there was an Ubersmith Pro price cut when it first came out and people moaned.

When I heard the pricing I thought it was outrageous, but I spoke with one of them on the phone this morning, and I'm starting to come around. They're not charging you for the product or the license - it's hands on implementation from their team from the ground up. The way one of their guys pitched it to me was for $2500 you get a machine that you drop in your datacenter, and is completely set up by the Ubersmith guys to immediately boot up and just work with your whole infrastructure. The box and system is monitored, maintained, and supported by them for life - hardware maintenence and upgrades, offsite backups, security upgrades for the appliance, next day replacement of the appliance, etc - I don't have to worry about any of that junk.

If it actually works like they're claiming, I'm totally in... I'd be interested to hear some feedback from the 3 companies that are already involved with the launch program before I commit though... anyone from Steadfast, Colo4Dallas, or Voxel care to comment?

When I heard the pricing I thought it was outrageous, but I spoke with one of them on the phone this morning, and I'm starting to come around. They're not charging you for the product or the license - it's hands on implementation from their team from the ground up. The way one of their guys pitched it to me was for $2500 you get a machine that you drop in your datacenter, and is completely set up by the Ubersmith guys to immediately boot up and just work with your whole infrastructure. The box and system is monitored, maintained, and supported by them for life - hardware maintenence and upgrades, offsite backups, security upgrades for the appliance, next day replacement of the appliance, etc - I don't have to worry about any of that junk.

If it actually works like they're claiming, I'm totally in... I'd be interested to hear some feedback from the 3 companies that are already involved with the launch program before I commit though... anyone from Steadfast, Colo4Dallas, or Voxel care to comment?
I imagine that's mostly what you get for the $2500.

But for the $389 month you are certainly paying for the product and the license, 100%. And since you can't (as far as I know) have one without the other, it's still a really really expensive system :)

So, you need supply 1u of space for a blackbox, cover the bandwidth of the remote backups, and since they maintain and support it you would more than likely have limited access to the entire thing. Not worth it unless you are a very large DC. I think we will look at what some of the others are putting together. We like others have tried nocmanager and the like and all were lacking in one aspect or another, so some fresh software coming around would be nice to see.

I'd also much rather donate cash/resources to the open-source products than spend that cash on the Ubersmith solution.

agreed , i dont mine paying 2500 one then maybe 100/mo

but $2500, plus $299/mo ... hummmmm i dont think so

$299 x 12 = $3588 per year


first year your out of pocket
$6088 and every year after is $3588 thats alot for updates ?

plus extra's like apc pdu's ... at the end you looking over 10k - 15k for everything. Your better off paying a coder $3000 one time, to get everything working in one database ? i mean, i'm sure i'm not the only one here feels the same or am i ?

agreed,

anyone willling ?

from a pm i got from
http://devpond.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4

looks like there on the way of doing so, but still looking around

NocManager, nerver again as support wont reply to any of my many emails sent to them.

So, you need supply 1u of space for a blackbox, cover the bandwidth of the remote backups, and since they maintain and support it you would more than likely have limited access to the entire thing. Not worth it unless you are a very large DC. I think we will look at what some of the others are putting together. We like others have tried nocmanager and the like and all were lacking in one aspect or another, so some fresh software coming around would be nice to see.

I'd also much rather donate cash/resources to the open-source products than spend that cash on the Ubersmith solution.

agreed , i dont mine paying 2500 one then maybe 100/mo

but $2500, plus $299/mo ... hummmmm i dont think so

$299 x 12 = $3588 per year


first year your out of pocket
$6088 and every year after is $3588 thats alot for updates ?

plus extra's like apc pdu's ... at the end you looking over 10k - 15k for everything. Your better off paying a coder $3000 one time, to get everything working in one database ? i mean, i'm sure i'm not the only one here feels the same or am i ?
$389 per month for a 200 device license. A device is a server or a switch. Additional devices are $100/mo for 100 devices.

500 servers and you are already looking at $389/mo + 300 more devices at $300/mo = $689/mo. 1000 servers and you start getting crazy... $389/mo + 800 devices at $800/mo is a retail price of $1189/month (I'd assume there would be leeway for pricing breaks at these kinds of prices, but who knows).

I can't really see the market for this - small companies can't afford it, bigger companies would go for a custom solution at these prices.

It's crazy there still isn't a mainstream solution out there that really makes people happy. I've spoken with a lot of other major providers that have all had the same dilemma, and in the end, we did what a lot of them have done - and created our own proprietary application for all of this.

There's a realistic possibility we will make UbiquityNOC publicly available in the future, the dilemma is that we (and others who've done the same as us) are faciing is that every provider does things a bit differently - which makes wrapping up a very high quality DC management tool that's friendly to everyone's desires appears far easier said then done. If Ubersmith can do what others can't, however, they'd be justified in charging whatever they want - that's what we call a strongly inelastic product.

hire someone for $12 per hour to do hands on reboots or 30hr for there own coder inhouse and get everything custom .

still cheaper then Ubersmith!:o

Ubersmith =:sickface:

$389 per month for a 200 device license. A device is a server or a switch. Additional devices are $100/mo for 100 devices.

500 servers and you are already looking at $389/mo + 300 more devices at $300/mo = $689/mo. 1000 servers and you start getting crazy... $389/mo + 800 devices at $800/mo is a retail price of $1189/month (I'd assume there would be leeway for pricing breaks at these kinds of prices, but who knows).

I can't really see the market for this - small companies can't afford it, bigger companies would go for a custom solution at these prices.

which makes wrapping up a very high quality DC management tool that's friendly to everyone's desires appears far easier said then done. If Ubersmith can do what others can't, however, they'd be justified in charging whatever they want - that's what we call a strongly inelastic product.

Yep. But, the thing is, to me Ubersmith seems far too expensive - like I said before, the small companies can't afford it so won't use it, they'll use something else that 'does the job'. Larger companies, who could afford it, wouldn't want to pay that much - they'd much rather have something developed custom to meet their specific requirements as a business. I can't see a viable market for it.

NocManager, nerver again as support wont reply to any of my many emails sent to them.

This is exactly why we've adopted Ubersmith, as opposed to "rolling our own" or going the OSS route.

You're not just paying for the product, but for accountability and world class support. To anyone who's seriously looked at developing their own comparable system, the price will seem quite reasonable.

To the poster who hypothesized that $3000 in development would buy you anything close to Ubersmith has clearly never been involved in a large development operation. The $3,000 wouldn't even get you the GUI - nevermind the actual core and logic, as well as having to update, manage, fix, and support the system yourself.

Don't kid yourself about rolling your own - this is a mission critical application, it is the core of your business. It's running the whole ship - if you have an issue, is waiting hours or even days for it to be solved acceptable? It isn't for us, or any of the other Launch Partners.

Would you write your own software for a pacemaker, or would you use a tried and true solution with proven dependability?

At the end of the day, if this solution seems expensive to you, it is quite likely that you aren't large enough to take advantage of it, or you haven't looked at the alternatives ;).

I mean no disrespect by any of what I've said - I just felt that I needed to represent the other side of the coin for you guys from someone who is implementing this solution, and HAS researched the alternatives.

Warm Regards,
Sam

You're not just paying for the product, but for accountability and world class support.

If you are referring to Ubersmith here with 'world class support' and 'accountability', I only need to look back to last month - 2 weeks ago - in the Ubersmith forums on their 'world class support' with regards to PHP5:


http://forums.ubersmith.com/showthread.php?t=531&highlight=php5

Hello,

Unfortunately PHP5 is not remotely backwards compatible with PHP4, and breaks a number of things. Over 90% of PHP programs today still use PHP4, and with PHP6 coming soon, it is unlikely Ubersmith - and most apps - will ever support PHP5.

Sully


They are the only major billing system not to support PHP5. That so much isn't what bothers me, BUT, it's the *attitude* that comes through with decisions and statements like that.

What does PHP5 have to do with Ubersmith DE?? Sounds like you're just holding a grudge... and I think that statement is pretty accurate anyway. Plus their product isn't supported through the forum - have you ever used the ticket system? Their support has been great to me so far *knocks on wood*

:eek: well so much "world class support"

If you are referring to Ubersmith here with 'world class support' and 'accountability', I only need to look back to last month - 2 weeks ago - in the Ubersmith forums on their 'world class support' with regards to PHP5:



They are the only major billing system not to support PHP5. That so much isn't what bothers me, BUT, it's the *attitude* that comes through with decisions and statements like that.

Sam -
You are right, the smaller guys can't afford the product nor justify it, that's why alternatives need to be found. Whether that be coded specifically for their business (which $3000US in some countries can get you quite far in the development), or looking to support the open-source solutions and small development companies.

Either way there is a huge need for a good stable product targeted to the small/medium sized companies.

What does PHP5 have to do with Ubersmith DE?? Sounds like you're just holding a grudge... and I think that statement is pretty accurate anyway.

Like I said, that wasn't necessarily what bothered me (PHP5 support, although it is an annoyance) - it's the attitude shown my comments like that.

To catch your edits...

Plus their product isn't supported through the forum - have you ever used the ticket system? Their support has been great to me so far *knocks on wood*
I hold two licenses, and so yes I've made use of the ticket system (though not the phone support which is apparently included). I agree, it is good when you get the right person - although they don't always meet their 1 business day response guarantee.
Forum support is also actually provided (http://www.ubersmith.com/pop-up/support_premium.html) - "Premium Support Forums"

Ok wait, lets not get off track here

lets stay on topic please

The point is, is over priced for about 90% of us .... and this topic to help us small business owners give more to our clients

What does PHP5 have to do with Ubersmith DE?? Sounds like you're just holding a grudge... and I think that statement is pretty accurate anyway. Plus their product isn't supported through the forum - have you ever used the ticket system? Their support has been great to me so far *knocks on wood*

$389 per month for a 200 device license. A device is a server or a switch. Additional devices are $100/mo for 100 devices.

500 servers and you are already looking at $389/mo + 300 more devices at $300/mo = $689/mo. 1000 servers and you start getting crazy... $389/mo + 800 devices at $800/mo is a retail price of $1189/month (I'd assume there would be leeway for pricing breaks at these kinds of prices, but who knows).

I can't really see the market for this - small companies can't afford it, bigger companies would go for a custom solution at these prices.

This is where I dont understand things anymore...for the sake of the argument, lets say that Ubersmith DE is actually a good product (it might very well be, I have not tested it in details) - and it did a very good job at dealing with billing/monitoring/etc. of 1000 servers...seen from my side $1189/mo is a bargain. 1000 servers should do at least $100.000/mo for you gross, 1% of that is not unfair to me.

On top of that it can deal with all your cpanel share clients, as I understand that all the features of the PRO version is also incl.

For several years we looked for a good solution. As our customers know we currently use several different systems for billing, support, graphs and monitoring. It works, but it costs us money to have to set up in several systems.

This year I went to Hostingcon. While there I met with Ubersmith and a competitor. Rather than a "we are looking at it" or "coming soon" I was given demos. I immediately left that meeting and called the office. I told the guys, "We are moving to Ubersmith. These guys get it."

We hope to go live with Ubersmith DE later this month. They are able to import your data from other systems and work with you to make it a successful transition. This is the value. Having real people that you can pick up the phone and call and get real answers. Rather than a "sure we can do that in the future" they get guys on the phone and talk through the need, then come back with a solution and timeframe.

In my opinion if you cant see the value that Ubersmith provides you just havent grown enough yet. One day, if you grow, you will look back and wish you had a solid billing system in place earlier. Its not about buying a product, it is a solution that you purchase. That solution includes the software, support and the knowledge that they the software and support will be there in the long run. I can promise you that many of the companies looking for solutions will easily justify the cost by getting billing in line.

I will comment more when we get everything moved over.

I think if ubersmith is planning on > $1000/mo, they will only be targeting towards existing hosts. As such, this leaves room for others to come in cheaper and appeal to the newer dedicated server hosts. I dont know if ubersmith knows this, but they will probably do better off if they have a tiered system and you pay for a certain number of dedicated servers that you manage. The aforementioned method would allow new hosts to use ubersmith and ubersmith will grow at the company's rate.

For several years we looked for a good solution. As our customers know we currently use several different systems for billing, support, graphs and monitoring. It works, but it costs us money to have to set up in several systems.

This year I went to Hostingcon. While there I met with Ubersmith and a competitor. Rather than a "we are looking at it" or "coming soon" I was given demos. I immediately left that meeting and called the office. I told the guys, "We are moving to Ubersmith. These guys get it."

We hope to go live with Ubersmith DE later this month. They are able to import your data from other systems and work with you to make it a successful transition. This is the value. Having real people that you can pick up the phone and call and get real answers. Rather than a "sure we can do that in the future" they get guys on the phone and talk through the need, then come back with a solution and timeframe.

In my opinion if you cant see the value that Ubersmith provides you just havent grown enough yet. One day, if you grow, you will look back and wish you had a solid billing system in place earlier. Its not about buying a product, it is a solution that you purchase. That solution includes the software, support and the knowledge that they the software and support will be there in the long run. I can promise you that many of the companies looking for solutions will easily justify the cost by getting billing in line.

I will comment more when we get everything moved over.


Our situation is almost exactly the same. We are using different systems for everything, the software cost us less than Ubersmith, but once it is fully operational it will be saving us at least 20 hours a week in management, support, etc. That 20 hours a week alone makes the product worth it. Not only will it be saving us time, it will allow us to offer a much better end-user experience as far as billing and account management goes. I honestly do not see anyway in wich this is not worth it.

As a note, I believe the unlimited version of Ubersmith DE will be available for $15,000 one-time and then an annual maintenance fee. If the $1,000+ a month scares you, then go the purchasing route, can save you a lot in the long run.

I think Ubersmith will do well with their target market for this product that is data centers and large colo out fits.

How ever if you have more than one data center you colo in then I see a need for 2 appliances and two sets of license and that could get quite expensive in the long run.

It is not aimed at the small guy nor resellers of dedicated servers.

We at Versaweb are officially on board as an Ubersmith DE Launch Partner as well. After countless hours of searching for a single product that would handle the needs of a fast-growing operation like ours, we concluded that there just wasn't anything out there, and were seriously considering developing our own solution from scratch. FYI, our estimated cost to develop a solution from scratch was in the $15,000-$20,000 range depending on the features we wanted to include, and that was based on using non-US (Indian) programmers, and didn't include the cost of ongoing updates or additional features that we might want to add down the line. I would guess our development costs would have been double or triple that amount if we hired programmers locally.

As part of my search for a solution, I spent about 2 hours talking with the MB devs at HostingCon this year to try and convince them that they needed to spend some time and develop at least a few tools for dedicated server hosting companies - modules to do remote reboots, generate bandwidth graphs, bill for bandwidth overage, and some other basic functions that would make my life easier. I told them flat out that they would lose me as a customer if they did not do something, because continuing to use MB was becoming completely unmanagable for us. Nobody at MB that I spoke with really seemed interested or committed to looking into the features I was requesting. I expected to see some useful tools when MB5 was released - instead they released what I saw as a crippled version of MB4 with a bad accounting system tacked on - it won't print checks, can't do payroll, and lacks a number of other basic features that my $150 version of QuickBooks breezes through with ease. I thought it would have made much more sense for them write an API to interface with a good exising accounting program (i.e. QuickBooks) and spend the rest of the time developing features that are actually useful.

We have still spent literally thousands of dollars over the past couple of years to try and patch together various systems to give us a complete system to manage our datacenter. What we ended up with is a sort of patchwork quilt with a bunch of holes in it. We have separate systems for billing, support, inventory managment, IP address management, remote reboot capability, and probably a few others that I can't bring to mind. Even with our smaller POP, It's a full time job just keeping up on all of the various systems to keep them up to date and running. If Ubersmith DE can even save us 10 hours a week it's well worth the cost, and I think it is going to save us significantly more time than that. Add in a better end-user experience from having a single system to interface with for billing, support, reboots, etc, and this is an instant winner in my book. I can't count how many times I've had to answer the question "what is my kayako login? what is my modernbill login? what is the url, username, and password for my remote reboot port?" No more of that - it's all going to be in one place.

There is no denying the Ubersmith solution may be a good one, and if we were a large enough shop it would probably be an option.

The main course of this thread though it seems is to find a suitable solution for the smaller guys. Ubersmith though is not geared to the smaller markets and they probably won't be. So..... a lot of us need a suitable solution other than the 4 figure a month option.

Until today we never had a thought of having this kind of system in place as others already said we also have different solution implemented for Billing, Support, MRTG Graphs, Server Monitoring.

But now I really feel there should be something like this in the market which can satisfy needs of customers ranging from Starters/Resellers to Data Center Owners. We have a team of 50+ Hard Core programmers, designers currently working on several projects we have finished many applications like Online Education System, Poker Websites, etc.

It will not be a bad idea to collect a list of features you all are looking at for a application that can be called as a Data Center Manager, I can put few days into it to talk to our developers to see and make a Feasibility Report and see how quick this can be made. Forget the financial return of it but it really makes me think that it will be a good product for all of us here. There is always a start of something.

I have no comments on what Ubersmith is coming out with and how good it will be and at what cost. I do believe that if we have multiple choices with the features that we are looking for at a certain cost choice people will be able to choose what they want and how much can they afford for their wants.

Who knows may be there are tons of applications like these that people may be currently using for managing their customers which is made In-House, but I do really see a requirement of such product at present by many in the open market.

Can all of you guys let me know the features one should be looking at for a product which can be called as a Datacenter Manager? Here are some of my views which I will need suggestions on. Also please post on the features that can be added and under what Management Level.

1.This product should be 3-Level Management?
Level 1: Administrator
Level 2: Reseller
Level 3: End User

2.Do you really think billing should be involved in a Application like this? It would be really unfair for a System Administrator to get confused with billing related issues in this kind of
system? But I guess integration with ModernBill and Other Ticket system will be a better option?

3.Main features that comes in my mind:

A->Create MRTG Graphs/Checking Bandwidth Usage
B->Monitoring
-Network Scan
-Perform multiple transaction tests
-Measure response time
-Application Availability
-Application Responsiveness
-Monitoring/Scan Windows Applications such as SQL, Exchange Server, Query Active Directory, Event Log.
-Resource Monitoring
-SNMP Monitoring
-Uptime Monitoring
-Alerts via Instant Messenger/ Pager / Cell Phone / E-Mail / Built-in Private Messaging System
C->IP Address Manager
D->Server Hardware Manager/Inventory
E->Remote Reboot Integration
F->KVM Over IP Integration
G-> Please go on adding more......

I have no comments on what Ubersmith is coming out with and how good it will be and at what cost. I do believe that if we have multiple choices with the features that we are looking for at a certain cost choice people will be able to choose what they want and how much can they afford for their wants.

The prices discussed here are absurd really and not in line with the market. I wouldnt use ubersmith.


Who knows may be there are tons of applications like these that people may be currently using for managing their customers which is made In-House, but I do really see a requirement of such product at present by many in the open market.

Which is why we are giving away the one we developed over the years. giving back to the hosting community that has fueled our business for so long.


2.Do you really think billing should be involved in a Application like this? It would be really unfair for a System Administrator to get confused with billing related issues in this kind of
system? But I guess integration with ModernBill and Other Ticket system will be a better option?


Ours, hostGui , already includes both billing and support. We should probably make it optional to disable them and plugin your own. Converters are a must.


3.Main features that comes in my mind:

A->Create MRTG Graphs/Checking Bandwidth Usage
B->Monitoring
-Network Scan
-Perform multiple transaction tests
-Measure response time
-Application Availability
-Application Responsiveness
-Monitoring/Scan Windows Applications such as SQL, Exchange Server, Query Active Directory, Event Log.
-Resource Monitoring
-SNMP Monitoring
-Uptime Monitoring
-Alerts via Instant Messenger/ Pager / Cell Phone / E-Mail / Built-in Private Messaging System
C->IP Address Manager
D->Server Hardware Manager/Inventory
E->Remote Reboot Integration
F->KVM Over IP Integration
G-> Please go on adding more......

[/SIZE][/FONT]

We've already got most of that done and available free.

A > completed
B > completed
C > completed
D > completed
E > next release
F > next 90 days
G > lots lots more, kbase, project integration, reporting, switch and network management, datacenter info for different locations, etc

Greg I will have a look at it, anyone who have already tried HostGui please post your comments here, thanks.

Figured I'd chime in here.

We've used everything from NocManager to NOCWizards and currently use our own custom version which we developed over the course of the past few years. Each time we'd by a software product, use it, like certain things and then become limited by so many other features that it was easier for us to go back to our own internal program and make the additions that we needed.

For the longest time we used just an excel sheet to allocate who has what IP nubmer in a selection of dedicated servers. To an extent, we still do.

We're long time users of MB, Hybodus, Kayako, Cerberus and various other products which aid in our business, and while I wouldn't want an all in one product it's a nice thought. I'm very much content with having software that will manage just the dedicated section of our business (approx 140 servers) and leave the modernbill to handle our shared customers.

Currently we have Modernbill handle ALL billing for all customers - dedicated or shared. We wouldn't mind leaving it this way also - but a program which will do full inventory of a dedicated server and what a user has on that server (type of drives, operating system, cpu, memory etc) is what we're looking for.

I'll give HostGUI a download and see how that plays out too. I'm not in favor of spending thousands to have an all inclusive program when what we have in place currently already works. We'd like it to be cleaner or nicer, but if it means I spend $6k for software, I'd be much better spending that on another employee and continue with our existing solutions.

Those of you that used NocWizard ans NocManager what was it that made you stop, what did you not like about it?

I just noticed this rather interesting press release from Ubersmith...

http://www.hostingtech.com/?m=show&id=1469


Ubersmith Data Center Edition is designed for organizations that are responsible for managing 50 or more servers.


It seems they want to target the 'smaller guys' :S


In terms of why people stopped using NocWizard/NocManager, I imagine it was the total lack of updates and support from both. A simple look at the nocmanager forums shows how much the company cares about their product ;)

Those of you that used NocWizard ans NocManager what was it that made you stop, what did you not like about it?

Yes, lack of updates is a huge problem with both pieces of software.

Lack of updates, lack of capabilities, not well organized layout. etc......

Great to here , does this system include email piping for ticket system ?
and can it be skinable ?
oh and fyi, i can make a payment to for a faster coding done :)


The prices discussed here are absurd really and not in line with the market. I wouldnt use ubersmith.



Which is why we are giving away the one we developed over the years. giving back to the hosting community that has fueled our business for so long.



Ours, hostGui , already includes both billing and support. We should probably make it optional to disable them and plugin your own. Converters are a must.



We've already got most of that done and available free.

A > completed
B > completed
C > completed
D > completed
E > next release
F > next 90 days
G > lots lots more, kbase, project integration, reporting, switch and network management, datacenter info for different locations, etc

It seems they want to target the 'smaller guys' :S



With profit margins as slim as they are in this industry the cost is outrageous and does not reflect well the industry as a whole.

With profit margins as slim as they are in this industry the cost is outrageous and does not reflect well the industry as a whole.

If you define the "industry" as the few % of hosts that hang out on WHT then yes - but looking at the industry "as a whole", $1 pr server pr month is by no means outrageous. Its less than 1% of the avg. revenue pr server.

Try to call PEM and ask if they would implement their billing system for 1% of your revenue - you wouldn't even get past the reception :)

If you define the "industry" as the few % of hosts that hang out on WHT then yes - but looking at the industry "as a whole", $1 pr server pr month is by no means outrageous. Its less than 1% of the avg. revenue pr server.

Try to call PEM and ask if they would implement their billing system for 1% of your revenue - you wouldn't even get past the reception :)

Mind showing where are you seeing $1/srv/mth? And incase you are confused, that was in reference to Ubersmiths Datacenter Edition which is by far more than that.

I think the main item this thread is pointing out is that ubersmith is a polished, reliable and most of all COMPLETED project. Nocmanager, nocwizard and HostGUI are not even close to reliable or complete. (I remember years ago when hostgui was all the rage even though it was never released)

The fact is that we're not talking about managing simple billing, control panel integration and domain registration here. We're talking about interfacing with third party hardware and software on a level that is generally far above the average hosters knowledge. Tracking bandwidth via RTG and communicating those results to a billing system in one of many different fashions. Have any of you tried to manage a /19 or larger of IP blocks with proper allocation for subnetting and vlans? It's a bear and a half to do let alone link al those subnets to customers, hardware, etc.

In all honesty, thinking you're going to find a solution to manage a data center for $600 is just crazy talk. I wish it wasn't, but it is. It would be great to have an open source solution that could really be modified by the hosting world but in reality would it ever take off? There are tens of thousands of open source projects that go no where compared to the few that actually gain a following.

Unfortunately if you can't afford a solution like ubersmith DE then you're forced to use smaller closed or open source solutions to manage your business. The other option is to get all your servers from a company that uses a system like ubersmith DE and figures a way to let their customers use it on the reseller level. Its not an ideal situation but its all that's available right now and seemingly in the future.

Mind showing where are you seeing $1/srv/mth? And incase you are confused, that was in reference to Ubersmiths Datacenter Edition which is by far more than that.

here:
1000 servers and you start getting crazy... $389/mo + 800 devices at $800/mo is a retail price of $1189/month (I'd assume there would be leeway for pricing breaks at these kinds of prices, but who knows).

So ok, usd 1.18/server then (plus initial fee)...still not an unfair price to me.

Speaking from my personal standpoint, I would love to see automatic OS reloads added on to this. Being able to add that in, would make ubersmith DC edition an amazing thing moving forward. Any thoughts on that? We have a way to do remote OS reloads but the process is somewhat annoying / not integrated with the rest of the system.

more difficult to do on x86 hardware though - sun/sparc or similar - now thats a different story altogether...

doable, but more of a pita..

Speaking from my personal standpoint, I would love to see automatic OS reloads added on to this. Being able to add that in, would make ubersmith DC edition an amazing thing moving forward. Any thoughts on that? We have a way to do remote OS reloads but the process is somewhat annoying / not integrated with the rest of the system.

they are working on it - but perhaps noc monkey can be integrated somehow?

Our experience with noc monkey was just not good. It's a nice idea for a system but it lacks so many features and also doesn't really do windows installations. Support is below par for something from psoft as well. It appears that noc monkey is developed there by one or two people which is probably why its features are under developed.

Our experience with noc monkey was just not good. It's a nice idea for a system but it lacks so many features and also doesn't really do windows installations. Support is below par for something from psoft as well. It appears that noc monkey is developed there by one or two people which is probably why its features are under developed.

ok, thanks for the info... havent really worked with it...what alternatives are out there?

The only real alternatives are to code something up yourself or use an extremely expensive closed source solution.

The prices discussed here are absurd really and not in line with the market. I wouldnt use ubersmith.



Which is why we are giving away the one we developed over the years. giving back to the hosting community that has fueled our business for so long.



Ours, hostGui , already includes both billing and support. We should probably make it optional to disable them and plugin your own. Converters are a must.



We've already got most of that done and available free.

A > completed
B > completed
C > completed
D > completed
E > next release
F > next 90 days
G > lots lots more, kbase, project integration, reporting, switch and network management, datacenter info for different locations, etc

When is the next release?

Great to here , does this system include email piping for ticket system ?
and can it be skinable ?
oh and fyi, i can make a payment to for a faster coding done :)

Yes it pipes email and yes its skinable.

I think the main item this thread is pointing out is that ubersmith is a polished, reliable and most of all COMPLETED project. Nocmanager, nocwizard and HostGUI are not even close to reliable or complete. (I remember years ago when hostgui was all the rage even though it was never released)
.

That was a different codename project much like cpanel, back when cpanel was in v2.0 and had no competition. Hostgui is derived from our own in house coding, and program we've dubbed nixcore. Its been in live production on jaguarpc.com since Feb of this year and I got it installed on dehe.com as well in August. Theres nothing unreliable about it or jag wouldnt be the success it is. Want to see a portion of what it looks like from a client side, just ask any of our clients. ;)

When is the next release?

Heres how it happened, and is happening. Hostgui is being developed by us, a webhost, for webhosts. We try and build new features right into our own system, nixcore, on jaguarpc and have several other anonymous test beds for non-live builds. (clients help with this part too) . We take the parts that apply to mainstream hosting, minus a few things we prefer to keep just jag, and pushed that code into Hostgui. Thats the release on the site everyone was downloading.

We already have another release built that is going to be up for download with the new automated licensing from phpaudit on the site so everyone can grab the newest stuff with ease and waiting for me to dish out liceneses.

That should all be in place by Oct 25. The next release that will include the other features listed as coming in the next release are realistically probably between thanksgiving and xmas, somewhere in the middle there. With the new site I'll get a more accurate list of features, changelog, release schedule, etc. What started as a backwater project to let our users share our own internal system for their businesses clearly is in need here and requires more effort on my part to take it from a private project to a commercial product. Im working on that very thing right this moment. .

thanks for all the support so far. be sure to give us your feedback at the official forums.

That was a different codename project much like cpanel, back when cpanel was in v2.0 and had no competition. Hostgui is derived from our own in house coding, and program we've dubbed nixcore.

It definitely looks different than hostgui did but it has no features pertaining to data center management other than the very basic server manager. IP management doesn't account for vlan calculation and most of the other features are very basic "control panel" type items.

Not impuning your work here at all. It seems very nice for its application but it's hardly close to what ubersmith is developing or PEM, etc. It would be great to have an open source control panel on the market, if you choose to open source this we would definitely get involved with development.