Is this a control panel for backups or what? Do I have to have a dedicated server or can use a vps for it?

R1soft 'invented' there own Backup Technology called R1soft, and yes you should be able to use it on a dedicated server.

Do you just add this to your own server or is it a separate control panel? Can you sell backup solutions to your non-hosting clients?

Hello,

You cannot use their backup software on a VPS. It must be installed on the hardware node.

R1soft utilizes a kernel-level module that provides realtime block-level backups.

I personally have extensive experience with R1soft (having worked with them since the beginning) and would be happy to answer any questions you have about their software.

Is this a control panel for backups or what? Do I have to have a dedicated server or can use a vps for it?

You would install the buserver on a dedicated server.
You would install buagent on a dedicated server(where the VPS's are). BUagent can not be installed inside OpenVZ or Virtuozzo VPS's but can be done inside Xen VPS's.

R1Soft is pretty beast, you should get it.

I see what you mean now. I can install this on a dedicated server or a vps node. Its pretty much a good addition to your dedicated server.

It would probably like to get it. :)

Also keep in mind that if you purchase the MySQL option you can backup all VPSes MySQL instances on that hardware node at no extra cost. A great value added service for your clients!

I see what you mean now. I can install this on a dedicated server or a vps node. Its pretty much a good addition to your dedicated server.

It would probably like to get it. :)

Also keep in mind that if you purchase the MySQL option you can backup all VPSes MySQL instances on that hardware node at no extra cost. A great value added service for your clients!

The only thing the mysql addon does is capture any data stored only in ram. The only reason you should need it is primarily for innodb or ultra-super-crazy-busy non-innodb db's.

The R1Soft module uses MySQLHotcopy and backs up innodb and myisam alike. It does not only capture data stored in RAM. Remember the backups are being performed of the entire system at the block level as well. We've had no issues restoring MyISAM or InnoDB.

The only thing the mysql addon does is capture any data stored only in ram. The only reason you should need it is primarily for innodb or ultra-super-crazy-busy non-innodb db's.

The R1Soft module uses MySQLHotcopy and backs up innodb and myisam alike. It does not only capture data stored in RAM. Remember the backups are being performed of the entire system at the block level as well. We've had no issues restoring MyISAM or InnoDB.I've yet to use the MySQL addon, I am sure it's great for cPanel/WHM Servers.

Jacob,

We currently use it on all of our servers. It works very well and provides table-level restores. We are able to perform hourly backups including MySQL.

Restores are fast and easy.

Thanks!

I've yet to use the MySQL addon, I am sure it's great for cPanel/WHM Servers.

Jacob,

We currently use it on all of our servers. It works very well and provides table-level restores. We are able to perform hourly backups including MySQL.

Restores are fast and easy.

Thanks!
We only use it on VPS nodes, so it's quite worthless to use it in our situations. I've yet to use the mysql addon, I only commented from what I heard.

My question is this: If I have a Windows VPS, Hyper V based, is there somewhere I can get a 10 day trial of R1soft? Or will it even work at all on such a server? I am interested in the agent only so I can test it. Thanks, Dave

My question is this: If I have a Windows VPS, Hyper V based, is there somewhere I can get a 10 day trial of R1soft? Or will it even work at all on such a server? I am interested in the agent only so I can test it. Thanks, Dave

You have to have server to back up to.
So you can't just buy and agent and stick it on a dedicated server.

R1Soft is a 2 separate parts the server software installed where the backups are stored and then agents which are installed on the dedicated servers you want to back up.
Unless your provider offers a data center edition of the server and sells you a slice of it to back up too then buying and installing the agent is worthless to you. You will need another server and buy the server software too

I personally have extensive experience with R1soft (having worked with them since the beginning) and would be happy to answer any questions you have about their software.

Good to know :)

We are in process of adding r1soft to avoid resource extensive cPanel daily backups. Do you think it is a good and feature rich alternative.

Also, how much the performance of backup server (having buserver) will impact the backup process and Bare Metal restores(in case).

Hello,

Yes it is a very good alternative. It will cut your back times down from hours to minutes.

Your backup server (buserver) will need to be a decently good system with 6-8 disks in RAID-10 at least. CDP is currently very I/O hungry but that is all supposed to change with CDP 3.0 coming early next year (hopefully)

Thanks!

The R1Soft module uses MySQLHotcopy and backs up innodb and myisam alike. It does not only capture data stored in RAM. Remember the backups are being performed of the entire system at the block level as well. We've had no issues restoring MyISAM or InnoDB.

It does flush the changes in memory to disk before the changes are copied. When you do not use the mysql addon this is not done and you run the risk of corrupt, unrecoverable tables. While the repairs will generally repair *most* tables it will not provide consistent data in all circumstances. For example you have an even higher risk with busy compressed myISAM tables (If you run any shared system, I would suggest you look at how many of your database tables are compressed myisam tables, you'll be surprised how many popular CMS/Blog/Open Source software use these by default) and will be left with unrecoverable tables without the mysql addon.

The warning about inconsistent data should be made stronger in 3.0 and link to a wiki entry highlighting this.

The cost of the mysql addon is next to nothing so there is no reason not to be using it if the database data is important.

The great thing is the mysql addon has alot of potential for excellent features which are very easy to implement, one that I particularly am waiting for is replication data to be taken at the same time as the flush. Which from the chats I have had seems like there's lots more to come.

Don't know about anyone else but I can't wait for 3.0.

Hello,

Yes it is a very good alternative. It will cut your back times down from hours to minutes.

Your backup server (buserver) will need to be a decently good system with 6-8 disks in RAID-10 at least. CDP is currently very I/O hungry but that is all supposed to change with CDP 3.0 coming early next year (hopefully)

Thanks!

Thank you for your fast response. You guys are doing great with webhostbackups :)

We are looking for our own setup of r1soft backup solution, but their license seems a way too costly - http://www.r1soft.com/promotions/r1soft-mini-elite-hosting-license/ - am I looking at the right place for the license?

How some companies are able to provide free unlimited CDP agents with their r1soft backup server purchase.

Thanks

Thank you for your fast response. You guys are doing great with webhostbackups :)

We are looking for our own setup of r1soft backup solution, but their license seems a way too costly - http://www.r1soft.com/promotions/r1soft-mini-elite-hosting-license/ - am I looking at the right place for the license?

How some companies are able to provide free unlimited CDP agents with their r1soft backup server purchase.

Thanks

Contact them for the price but it's actually very cheap, you should get licenses while they are still cheap too before the product gets much better.

As for how some offer what they do, it may be their size, their license agreements and also when they got the licenses. Lots of factors to consider in specific agreements, some could be selling at a loss to introduce customers too - you simply don't know.

Has anyone tried r1 in comparison to storegrid?

Has anyone tried r1 in comparison to storegrid?

Are they even comparable? I checked their site, they seem to be on Windows side more than Linux.

Thanks for all of the interest in R1Soft and I would like to answer some of the questions on this thread.

“…The R1Soft module uses MySQLHotcopy and backs up innodb and myisam alike…”

Actually R1Soft CDP does not use mysqlhotcopy utility if that is what was meant. The myslhotcopy utility is a challenge for larger databases because it requires to hold table locks for the full duration of copying all tables… e.g. minutes to copy all the data… so during the hot copy queries will block or eventually timeout.

CDP locks MySQL only briefly to perform a point-in-time volume/partition snapshot using the CDP Linux kernel device driver. This is usually less than a second or may be several seconds on systems with many writes and large memory… its very quick.

More details on CDP for MySQL can be found here: http://wiki.r1soft.com/x/GhBE

“It does flush the changes in memory to disk before the changes are copied. When you do not use the mysql addon this is not done and you run the risk of corrupt, unrecoverable tables…"

Scott.Mc is 100% correct. And as Scott pointed out we even warn if you do not have MySQL instances configured and we detect MySQL. MySQL must be correctly locked and flushed in coordination with CDP replication. Very very important and based on experience we will be making the warning even louder in the next CDP version.

“…but their license seems a way too costly”

the link you posted is to the mini-elite hosting license promotion. The price quoted IMHO for 1,000 servers is an absolute steal… $3.20 / server / month for CDP software… if I did my math right?… and that is how companies are providing it as “free”… we call it value-ad. If I was growing my hosting biz to 1,000 servers I would get the elite license it will not stay that inexpensive for much longer.

Be aware you don’t have to purchase 1,000 licenses... You can purchase in almost any quantity you like. Contact R1Soft sales team for more information.

“Has anyone tried r1 in comparison to storegrid?”

Storegrid is a great product and I have had the pleasure of talking to Sekar CEO of Storegrid about his product. Storegrid is made for ISPs/MSPs to provide managed backup services to small offices. Storegrid has a lot of great reselling and billing features and has plugins for Exchange, MySQL, and SQL Server. Under the hood it is VERY similar to rsync… it will NOT cut your backup windows down from hours to minutes like CDP replication as AdmoNet points out.

“Your backup server (buserver) will need to be a decently good system with 6-8 disks in RAID-10 at least. CDP is currently very I/O hungry but that is all supposed to change with CDP 3.0 coming early next year (hopefully)”

I think AdmoNet is primarily referring to the CDP Server or data repository and he is very correct. CDP works by offloading I/O form the Agent (the server you are replicating) to the repository. CDP 3 has a new Disk Safe storage engine and has greatly improves CDP Server disk I/O… even so... CDP 3.0 is still I/O hungry e.g. hourly replications for 5-100 servers has a price in I/O… it’s just primarily paid at the backup repository and not on your server (the one with applications you are protecting) which is an amazing advantage over any other backup method.

We frequently see R1Soft customers deploy ratios of 100 Agents to 1 CDP Server repository using relatively inexpensive hardware… directly attached RAID cards etc... This is frankly amazing compared to really any other replication solution out there… all of them very expensive… take CommVault or EMC for example where Agent / Server ratios are in the range of 5:1… 15:1… at most with massive hardware investments.

Just go with R1Soft, I've finally got a chance to use it and it's unbelievably easy to use. If I can finish some of my personal projects I will finally get it going for us as well. Aside from other projects I need more money as well. :P

You cannot use their backup software on a VPS. It must be installed on the hardware node.

It depends on what virtualization software you are using and O/S (Windows or Linux).

This is documented here:
Windows - http://www.r1soft.com/windows-cdp/cdp-server-20/vms/
Linux - http://www.r1soft.com/linux-cdp/cdp-server-20/vms/

Greetings:

Is this a control panel for backups or what? Do I have to have a dedicated server or can use a vps for it?

The software, which works extremely well, involves a CDP server (akin to a control panel) that should be on its own server (though it can be on a VPS node). A disk that the CDP server has access to is also required; and should be large enough to contain the amount of backups you desire to keep.

Then there are agents you install on the target servers to be backed up. Currently there are agents for Windows and Linux.

The agents tend to be very economical in terms of foot print -- memory, disk utilization, and CPU utilization when active.

Overall, r1soft has an excellent backup technology; the only negative (which to me is extreme) is they have an extremely anti-user ticket system which makes anyone putting in a ticket feel like they are trash.

Rather than picking up a user friendly ticket system (we favor HelpSpot, but they could have also picked Kayako or Cerberus), they picked a system which appears to be oriented towards bug tracking, software development.

They refuse the trash the ticket system; and so, in our case, we post support requests everywhere BUT the ticket system.

Also, they have a reseller program; but that has holes in it because they will bill the customer directly AND bill the reseller (double dipping); AND they will communicate directly with the customer of the reseller even though the contract supposedly states that will never happen.

Aside from those issues, the software itself works well and is reliable.

Thank you.

Greetings:

Also, they have a reseller program; but that has holes in it because they will bill the customer directly AND bill the reseller (double dipping); AND they will communicate directly with the customer of the reseller even though the contract supposedly states that will never happen.

Aside from those issues, the software itself works well and is reliable.

Thank you.

That's a pretty bold claim. Unless of course you mean R1Soft communicates with them for technical support issues, whereas I believe it's warranted.

Greetings Jacob:

That's a pretty bold claim. Unless of course you mean R1Soft communicates with them for technical support issues, whereas I believe it's warranted.

We just had a case where r1soft billed us (the reseller) and the client for the exact same thing; that's called double dipping. It is incorrect, and bad.

Furthermore, the reseller contract states they will not have direct contact with the clients of the reseller; yet, R1soft did so.

Right now we are trying to straighten out the mess they caused in that regard.

Hopefully it will work out in the end as the software is good.

Thank you.

Greetings Jacob:



We just had a case where r1soft billed us (the reseller) and the client for the exact same thing; that's called double dipping. It is incorrect, and bad.

Furthermore, the reseller contract states they will not have direct contact with the clients of the reseller; yet, R1soft did so.

Right now we are trying to straighten out the mess they caused in that regard.

Hopefully it will work out in the end as the software is good.

Thank you.
How did they get the resellers information though? I'm confused on how they would get that information.

Hello,

Yes it is a very good alternative. It will cut your back times down from hours to minutes.

Your backup server (buserver) will need to be a decently good system with 6-8 disks in RAID-10 at least. CDP is currently very I/O hungry but that is all supposed to change with CDP 3.0 coming early next year (hopefully)

Thanks!

It is indeed pretty intensive. We only do daily backups and we originally just had a 4 drive raid-5 and eventually it took 24 hours to actually backup all our servers! We now run a 12 drive setup and it finishes in record time. I found out later fragmentation was probably a big cause to. So we run XFS and we defrag our CDP server once in a while.

It is indeed pretty intensive. We only do daily backups and we originally just had a 4 drive raid-5 and eventually it took 24 hours to actually backup all our servers! We now run a 12 drive setup and it finishes in record time. I found out later fragmentation was probably a big cause to. So we run XFS and we defrag our CDP server once in a while.

Hello,

Compression seems to have quite a bit to do with it as well. Make sure to keep those disk safes defragged and run compression level 1-2 instead of 9. The results are definitely noticeable.

Thanks!

They refuse the trash the ticket system; and so, in our case, we post support requests everywhere BUT the ticket system.

Dynamicnet I am very aware you dislike our online support portal. Thanks for your feedback. It was noted some time ago. I looked at the ones you suggested. In my opinion all support ticketing systems suck... some just less than others. There are things I like about the one we use and things I don't. While you really dislike it... some of our customers very much like it. Again thank you for the feedback.

We just had a case where r1soft billed us (the reseller) and the client for the exact same thing; that's called double dipping. It is incorrect, and bad.

Dynamicnet, it's not clear to me what you are describing about your specific situation. It sounds like maybe you are already working with someone at R1Soft to get help. Please email me or PM me and provide me more details if you think you need more help.

Some general comments on reselling.

We routinely provide technical support for our re-sellers customers especially if its beyond basic install / setup / FAQ type questions (for the basic stuff we encourage them to go back to their reseller for).

Many of our customers are not resellers... they are health care service providers like eclinicalworks.com, education institutions like umich.edu and community colleges, the U.S. Congress, and even large companies like Cisco Systems all use R1Soft. We also sell our product online where anyone can purchase it on their own. There is no minimum purchase and we obviously do not exclusively sell to resellers. In fact our business is changing and I'm finding as we grow more and more of our sales our outside of hosting and to non-resellers.

We don't intentionally chase deals with customer's of our resellers... certainly it happens where customers of a reseller might purchase the software directly for any number of reasons. For example it's fact that a lot of our customers that are non-hosting discover our software by using it at their hosting provider then purchase directly for the servers they manage elsewhere like in their own office... meaning... they purchase CDP software for servers they manage that they don't host anywhere. This is very common and it's part of how we grow our business.

For example it's fact that a lot of our customers that are non-hosting discover our software by using it at their hosting provider then purchase directly for the servers they manage elsewhere like in their own office... meaning... they purchase CDP software for servers they manage that they don't host anywhere. This is very common and it's part of how we grow our business.

I'm guilty! Thanks WHT ;)

Until there is more support for operating systems other than Windows and linux it's a useless piece of software for us. Without mac and bsd support there are a lot of customers being ignored so we'll stick with our current solution that allows to backup just about anything we can think of and then some.

Until there is more support for operating systems other than Windows and linux it's a useless piece of software for us. Without mac and bsd support there are a lot of customers being ignored so we'll stick with our current solution that allows to backup just about anything we can think of and then some.

Linux and Windows are the most commonly used, I do agree about the inability to use it with mac but in all honesty how many people actually use Mac's to host their websites? A sliver amount compared to as many as linux or windows.

Until there is more support for operating systems other than Windows and linux it's a useless piece of software for us. Without mac and bsd support there are a lot of customers being ignored so we'll stick with our current solution that allows to backup just about anything we can think of and then some.

R1Soft was born of the hosting industry. Which happens to be predominantly Linux and Windows based. I'm sure they will have something in the long term planned out. As they always seem to be making advances beyond their initial market targets.

In R1Soft's defense, they are simply going for the largest market share first. I am not sure if they are planning on MAC/BSD clients but the majority of all servers in most data centers are Windows and Linux. BSD is also very popular but not too sure about MAC devices. Remember this is a datacenter backup product, not a workstation or home solution.

I always equate R1soft to Ghost or Acronis on steroids. Who can compete/disagree with true image level backups for all devices in a data center at their price point?

Thanks!

Until there is more support for operating systems other than Windows and linux it's a useless piece of software for us. Without mac and bsd support there are a lot of customers being ignored so we'll stick with our current solution that allows to backup just about anything we can think of and then some.

There's more to backup than just servers. We use our current system to backup servers, office pc's, mac's and customers home machines as well.

There's more to backup than just servers. We use our current system to backup servers, office pc's, mac's and customers home machines as well.

Solution: Keep doing what you are doing, reconsider R1Soft when they do offer it. ;)

CDP is formulated for server backup. That is correct.

We have no plans at this time to expand into desktop backup.

While CDP installs and works on Windows desktops... and some people use it for this... frankly it is not formulated for that environment. And there are a ton of other products out there that do the desktop/laptop backup very well.

It would please R1Soft very much to be able to offer support for more platforms and we will re-examine our Windows & Linux focus in the future.

We like BSD and especially MAC. In fact a number of our developers use MAC and even develop CDP on their MAC books!

Also I believe every customer should be considered an investor so its R1Soft's #1 job to improve the product to have the greatest impact on existing customers and their install base...

and right now that's improving CDP on Windows & Linux servers and expanding CDP to support MySQL on Windows (CDP 2 only support MySQL on Linux) and expanding our MS SQL Server database replication and restore.

We have focused over 1 year of development effort on CDP 3 for example and are just released our first CDP 3 Alpha test to select customers about 2 weeks ago. The pay-off for our customers is huge. CDP 3 is a completely new product and a huge step forward. It would not have been possible if we tossed other platforms into the mix.

You might ask why do most backup applications run on every platform under the sun? And why doesn't R1Soft?

The reason is that just about all the other backup apps... except some very high priced replication software... all they basically do is:

Foreach file:
Open()
Read()
// maybe do some checksum thing like rsync
Compress()
Write()

CDP is not so simple
* take a backup Window from hours/days to minutes (asynchronous replication aka CDP)
* do BMR
* virtual full backups,
* block-level backups + file restore

To do all these things you need to be involved with specific file systems and you need one or more device drivers.

While our CDP Agent program is written in C++ and very portable across Windows and Unix like Platforms (Linux, BSD, Mac etc)... the device driver(s) and file system bits are highly platform specific and also some of the most complex and expensive to develop components in the product. They also require almost constant maintenance (for example maintaining Linux drivers is a nightmare for every Linux driver vendor out there).

For MAC we would need two complex device drivers and a ton of work for HFS/HFS+

For FreeBSD we would need new device drivers and a tremendous UFS/UFS2 effort.

For MAC we would need two complex device drivers and a ton of work for HFS/HFS+

For FreeBSD we would need new device drivers and a tremendous UFS/UFS2 effort.

Start cracking that whip! Keep those dev's busy. ;)

Start cracking that whip! Keep those dev's busy. ;)

It's been a cracking... I hired one of those ex-Roman slave drivers... he's been beating the drum since CDP 3 work began... his name is Paul...

Here is a picture of the dev team in action....
http://www.craigerscinemacorner.com/Images/benhur.jpg

Ahh the classic movies :)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049833/

Charlton Heston


Damn that was in 1956, I actually really like that movie. An epic fairytale indeed. :)

(not the one you posted, you just reminded me)

If I had to pick a favorite actor it would be him, don't know why really.

David,

Can you have Brooke contact me? Have some licensing things to discuss. Also congrats on the recent marital status change.

It's been a cracking... I hired one of those ex-Roman slave drivers... he's been beating the drum since CDP 3 work began... his name is Paul...

Here is a picture of the dev team in action....
http://www.craigerscinemacorner.com/Images/benhur.jpg

David,

Can you have Brooke contact me? Have some licensing things to discuss. Also congrats on the recent marital status change.

Admo, are you a stalker? jk

Admo, are you a stalker? jk

Yase.

I've been working with R1 since almost the beginning. I've got a pretty close (business only!!) relationship with the company. I personally work with their datacenter and standalone products. The datacenter version backing up over 700 hosts.

Make your innodb restores more reliable plz

Make your innodb restores more reliable plz

The beta version contains some fixes to the innodb restores in the mysql addon. Not sure how many ones it includes but I know it fixes the umask on the restore.

The beta version contains some fixes to the innodb restores in the mysql addon. Not sure how many ones it includes but I know it fixes the umask on the restore.

what about it completely bailing out :)

what about it completely bailing out :)

Well that narrows it down a bit:) What does the log say? The umask issue causes it to bail out but you can manually pickup the restore using the data left in the cache.

Well that narrows it down a bit:) What does the log say? The umask issue causes it to bail out but you can manually pickup the restore using the data left in the cache.

I'll grab one later tonight. The log is very unhelpful as to what the problem is.

I'll grab one later tonight. The log is very unhelpful as to what the problem is.

Would be interesting to see, that was the only bug I managed to get for the database restores so I suspect it's the same thing. I also found the log was very unhelpful and support is ridiculously slow. Much easier to investigate the problems yourself and atleast problems with the mysql addon are actually relatively easy to diagnose and mitigate on your own.

Maybe it is the same problem you are talking about.


FATAL 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) Internal error: Error agent returned error.
ERROR 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: Error while executing command
ERROR 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: ! Database restore failed.
ERROR 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: ! Failed to finalize table 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'.
ERROR 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: ! Failed to save original table to backup location (1025).
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: Saved databse: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx => /var/lib/mysql//r1soft_saved_database_sdlhxJ
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: - Restoring databases / tables.
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: - Checking InnoDB files.
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: - Checking connection to MySQL instance.
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:12 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: - Validating restore.
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:09 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: - R1Soft MySQL restore started.
INFO 10/24/2009 05:08:09 CEST (tid:4386) AGENT: Executing: (restoreDB).

Maybe it is the same problem you are talking about.

Their error codes could be helpful if they documented all of them. Not sure what 1025 is but I would check that there is enough space in /var (/var/cache/buagent) for the table to be restored and if not try the beta agent to see if it's fixed already, then strace. In that time can have figured out the problem and worked around it rather than wait for support who will take forever to reply.

Their error codes could be helpful if they documented all of them. Not sure what 1025 is but I would check that there is enough space in /var (/var/cache/buagent) for the table to be restored and if not try the beta agent to see if it's fixed already, then strace. In that time can have figured out the problem and worked around it rather than wait for support who will take forever to reply.

Definitely enough space. I'll give the beta a try.

Greetings:

And maybe one day r1soft will use a help desk system that is user friendly vs. hateful.

Thank you.

Greetings:

And maybe one day r1soft will use a help desk system that is user friendly vs. hateful.

Thank you.

Repost?
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6465848&postcount=25

Yes improvements for InnoDB restore are being tested along with other fixed issues for CDP Server 2.19 release and were worked out with a lot of help from Scott.Mc

And yes please keep in mind that in a pinch you can use file restore to copy the InnoDB table space back and then restore that way.

The cryptic error codes are actually from MySQL.. and yes they are very annoying... its all MySQL gives us.

http://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+error+1025

Can you have Brooke contact me? Have some licensing things to discuss. Also congrats on the recent marital status change.

Thank you.

I have pinged Brooke for you.

Greetings David:

What is being done to replace the anti-customer help desk?

Thank you.

Greetings David:

What is being done to replace the anti-customer help desk?

Thank you.

Honestly will you change the record. I am sure they know by now you don't like the helpdesk but they aren't going to just change it like that. I don't like it either but it's not a huge deal, it does the job.

I wish you should stop battering on about it over and over and over and over and over.

Greetings David:

What is being done to replace the anti-customer help desk?

Thank you.

You sir are annoyingly unprofessional at this point. Pick up a damn phone or email them directly with your complaints. We've heard the same thing over and over here and your concerns HAVE ALREADY BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED by David. Get back on topic!

Greetings Mike:

David has not addressed the complaint; nor has David addressed the issue of double billing or breaking the reseller contract.

Thank you.

Greetings Mike:

David has not addressed the complaint; nor has David addressed the issue of double billing or breaking the reseller contract.

Thank you.

Am I missing something here or was it already addressed in the post below.

Help Desk


"Dynamicnet I am very aware you dislike our online support portal. Thanks for your feedback. It was noted some time ago. I looked at the ones you suggested. In my opinion all support ticketing systems suck... some just less than others. There are things I like about the one we use and things I don't. While you really dislike it... some of our customers very much like it. Again thank you for the feedback."


Double Billing / Reseller Contract


Dynamicnet, it's not clear to me what you are describing about your specific situation. It sounds like maybe you are already working with someone at R1Soft to get help. Please email me or PM me and provide me more details if you think you need more help.

Some general comments on reselling.

We routinely provide technical support for our re-sellers customers especially if its beyond basic install / setup / FAQ type questions (for the basic stuff we encourage them to go back to their reseller for).

Many of our customers are not resellers... they are health care service providers like eclinicalworks.com, education institutions like umich.edu and community colleges, the U.S. Congress, and even large companies like Cisco Systems all use R1Soft. We also sell our product online where anyone can purchase it on their own. There is no minimum purchase and we obviously do not exclusively sell to resellers. In fact our business is changing and I'm finding as we grow more and more of our sales our outside of hosting and to non-resellers.

We don't intentionally chase deals with customer's of our resellers... certainly it happens where customers of a reseller might purchase the software directly for any number of reasons. For example it's fact that a lot of our customers that are non-hosting discover our software by using it at their hosting provider then purchase directly for the servers they manage elsewhere like in their own office... meaning... they purchase CDP software for servers they manage that they don't host anywhere. This is very common and it's part of how we grow our business.

Greetings Mike:

David has not addressed the complaint; nor has David addressed the issue of double billing or breaking the reseller contract.

Thank you.

As you can see from Tony's post above, it has been acknowledged by David @ R1. They are not going to go out overnight and install a ticketing system of your choosing just because you don't like it. Stop attacking David and R1, it's completely unnecessary, you've made your point. Call or email them to discuss it further, simple as that. I don't get what you are trying to accomplish by acting like a child. Very un-jesus like IMHO. ;)

Greetings TonyB:

Thank you for pointing out those posts. I had missed them as I don't live in WHT, and often just go to the last page of a long thread.

The sad part about David's response on the ticket system is that none of our customers we brought to r1soft like it; and there's been zero positive feedback in the r1soft forum concerning the ticket system (only negative).

When a company only has negative posts about a portion of how they do business, and don't address it (stating something verbally and doing nothing to change it, is not address it) just means customers don't matter (my opinion only).

The only reason we caught the double billing (highly unethical if not illegal) is that we were checking with the customer during the same week we received a bill for the same thing the customer received the bill. As being our client, only we should have received the bill.

I do like r1soft's software; but don't like their "going to use a hateful ticket system no matter what customer's have to say" attitude. Then throw on unethical double billing, and it makes it harder to stomach.

Thank you.

I don't agree with double billing either. But at the same time I prefer that all R&D go to the product instead of a ticket system. :)

Greetings TonyB:

Thank you for pointing out those posts. I had missed them as I don't live in WHT, and often just go to the last page of a long thread.

The sad part about David's response on the ticket system is that none of our customers we brought to r1soft like it; and there's been zero positive feedback in the r1soft forum concerning the ticket system (only negative).

When a company only has negative posts about a portion of how they do business, and don't address it (stating something verbally and doing nothing to change it, is not address it) just means customers don't matter (my opinion only).

The only reason we caught the double billing (highly unethical if not illegal) is that we were checking with the customer during the same week we received a bill for the same thing the customer received the bill. As being our client, only we should have received the bill.

I do like r1soft's software; but don't like their "going to use a hateful ticket system no matter what customer's have to say" attitude. Then throw on unethical double billing, and it makes it harder to stomach.

Thank you.

I am not sure what you expect them to do regarding the ticket system, do you somehow expect them to switch all the development processes that are tied to the current ticket system for a system that won't work as good?

The ticket system is not very user friendly but it works internally for them and I am sure they can address the UI at some point but it's very unimportant, the development of CDP 3 and bug fixes is far more important than some silly ticket system.

You have went on and on about the ticket system continually on their forums and it was acknowledge on their forums too, but yet you still continue to rant on about it.

It's very infuriating to read the same old rants about something which isn't that important and is no where near important as critical bugs.

I think the OP's question has been answered. In an effort to keep this thread useful to others in the future, I'm closing it. If anybody has anything to add, please open a helpdesk ticket.

Thanks!
Alex