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  1. #1

    A WARNING to those who use Parallel's products and rely on them

    Hello everyone!

    I'd like to share an experience that is typical between our company and Parallels, makers of Virtuozzo Containers, Plesk, etc.

    Over the last year, we have pretty much given up recommending their products. We actually ourselves not even buy Virtuozzo licenses for VPS anymore and are switching to other products.

    The reason: Parallel's support.

    Every single time we have an urgent matter and we need their help, this is the typical conversation:

    ########### response to opening ticket, after a few hours:
    Hello,

    Thanks for your update.

    I have gone through the issue. We will investigate the issue further and update you in next 5 hours.

    Feel free to reply back for further clarification.

    Thanks

    ---

    Sonali
    Technical Support Engineer
    Parallels

    ########### At exactly five hours later:
    Hello,

    Our sincere thanks for your patience.
    I have logged in to your server. I have gone through your issue.
    I am currently investigation on your issue. I need some more time for deeper investigation.
    I will update you in next 4 hours.

    Regards,
    Debasish Padhi
    Parallels Technical Support

    ########### Five hours later:
    Hello,

    We have checked the issue and could see that the repair of the hardware node dealt with errors. The issue seems to be complicated and we are escalating this ticket to out 2ndLine support team. They will get back to you soon.

    Thanks,

    ########### 3 hours later:

    I would like to let you know that we have received your request ticket at 2nd line support and started working on it. I am currently checking the issue you reported. This ticket will be assigned to an appropriate engineer who will investigate the issue and report you the results within next 9 hours.

    Best regards,

    Vladimir Miloserdov
    Technical Support Engineer
    Parallels


    This is the third time in the last few months that we've had a critical issue with a Parallels product, and this is the typical tech support process.

    A Virtuozzo for Windows server, two nights ago, had major issues, and Windows would not start. Since we knew Parallels would be slow at helping us, we decided to restore from backup.

    Well, problems arised anyway, and we still have some VPS that will not start due to cryptic errors in Virtuozzo Containers.

    And well, here we are, two nights later, with several customers quite angry at the whole situation.

    We are a reseller of their products and we pay them $thousands$ a month in licensing fees.

    If you run a critical operation, Parallels is not the company to rely on.

    Have you had the same experiences?

    Peter

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Jakarta
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    1,098
    Here is another my experience with Parallels few years ago:
    When I worked at the hosting company, we had been using H-Sphere control panel (which originally made by PSoft.net), and the support we got from PSoft.net was fast and the problem, issue, and custom request could be solved/handled in timely manner.
    But then when PSoft sold their H-Sphere control panel to Parallels, the support for H-Sphere become very slower than PSoft.net had given and no significant improvements to their H-Sphere products.
    Maybe there are too many products offered by Parallels and they can't focus on specific product and to fully support it.
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  3. #3
    This is why I went with Hosting Controller because difference of the timely support. May be Parallels support is specific only to Plesk and not with the other acquired products like HELM,Ensim, HSphere. We are happy with our decision which saved lots of revenue and time for us.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    Hello everyone!

    And well, here we are, two nights later, with several customers quite angry at the whole situation.

    We are a reseller of their products and we pay them $thousands$ a month in licensing fees.

    If you run a critical operation, Parallels is not the company to rely on.

    Have you had the same experiences?

    Peter
    Switching to another panel is not an easy decision and I would recommend you to stay with Parallels as far as you can go but if it really ends like the support you are facing then it would be best to go with the better alternative in the market.See other threads for comparing panels. As there are others available too but most of them have already been acquired by Parallels. So, now you are under the fate of cruel master.


    Quote Originally Posted by agustan View Post
    Here is another my experience with Parallels few years ago:
    When I worked at the hosting company, we had been using H-Sphere control panel (which originally made by PSoft.net), and the support we got from PSoft.net was fast and the problem, issue, and custom request could be solved/handled in timely manner.
    But then when PSoft sold their H-Sphere control panel to Parallels, the support for H-Sphere become very slower than PSoft.net had given and no significant improvements to their H-Sphere products.
    Maybe there are too many products offered by Parallels and they can't focus on specific product and to fully support it.
    HSphere does not have much issues but yes the development on it has slowed down a lot after acquisition by Parallels so that is a big fear .


    Quote Originally Posted by trustworthy View Post
    This is why I went with Hosting Controller because difference of the timely support. May be Parallels support is specific only to Plesk and not with the other acquired products like HELM,Ensim, HSphere. We are happy with our decision which saved lots of revenue and time for us.
    After Parallels support attitude I had 2 options. Hosting Controller/Website Panel. I also went with Hosting Controller instead of Website panel which has gone open source so I did not opted for it.

  5. #5
    Update: it is Tuesday, 10AM here in the west coast. The issues are still ongoing. The typical response from Parallels is "reboot the server. Let us know if that fixes the problem". Of course, the response time is 6-8 hours every time they say something like that.

    We've managed to bring online all virtualized containers on that server by now, mostly by figuring things out by ourselves.

    At this point in time, I can officially state that Parallels gets a vote of no confidence. You can't run a business on their products.

    We are currently working with another developer, using Xen open source tehcnology, and it is incredible how far they go to resolve a problem. Response time is normally ten minutes. And it is Xen, which we can hack around easily if we need to.

    I guess Parallels has not learned the lesson from one of their previous acquisitions: Ensim. Once you offer horrible tech support for your buggy products (and they are buggy. Most of our support tickets for control panels from dedicated/vps clients are Plesk related, not cPanel related), the big names will stop using your software. Their customers will get used to a competing software, and that is the software they will ask for in the future.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    538
    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    Update: it is Tuesday, 10AM here in the west coast. The issues are still ongoing. The typical response from Parallels is "reboot the server. Let us know if that fixes the problem". Of course, the response time is 6-8 hours every time they say something like that.

    We've managed to bring online all virtualized containers on that server by now, mostly by figuring things out by ourselves.

    At this point in time, I can officially state that Parallels gets a vote of no confidence. You can't run a business on their products.

    We are currently working with another developer, using Xen open source tehcnology, and it is incredible how far they go to resolve a problem. Response time is normally ten minutes. And it is Xen, which we can hack around easily if we need to.

    I guess Parallels has not learned the lesson from one of their previous acquisitions: Ensim. Once you offer horrible tech support for your buggy products (and they are buggy. Most of our support tickets for control panels from dedicated/vps clients are Plesk related, not cPanel related), the big names will stop using your software. Their customers will get used to a competing software, and that is the software they will ask for in the future.
    Hi,

    We have had a similar situation with Parallels.

    It is basically like the first 3 responses are useless and then they refer you to a knowledgebase article that is not relevant to the question you are asking.

    At the Parallels summit they made a big splash about how they were improving their customer service but that was Feb and it is May now and hasn't gotten any better.
    XLHost.com
    Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and more since 1995.
    drew @ xlhost.com

  7. #7
    I too was at the Parallels Summit in Orlando a few months ago. They did promise the same.

    The problem is, however, this has been happening for a long time now. For years. And so far they haven't improve it. Personally, I would be quite embarrassed if our tech support here was that inefficient.

    Over a year ago, we had an issue with another Parallels Container server. Same issue. After a lot of poking around, we figured it out. The ticket we opened at that time took six hours to be responded to, and it was a useless response.

    Sometime late last year, a large hosting client running Plesk on Windows 2008 ran into problems. We knew Parallels was going to take forever to resolve it, so we gave the client a new temporary server. We were right. It took five days for someone at Parallels to figure out the problem with the original Plesk installation.

    Late last year, we decided to upgrade some of our Virtuozzo 4.x servers to the latest 4.6. The upgrade does not work. It renders Virtuozzo unusable. It needed a lot of manual changes from Parallels' support to make it work. Do they actually test these things???

    We haven't purchase a single Containers license in half a year now. We are working on a new platform to get rid of them, completely. We will also stop offering Plesk products soon.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    303
    i think cpanel offer windows solutions now days if i am not wrong Enkompass thats the name ye
    Last edited by prateek; 05-17-2011 at 03:56 PM.

  9. #9
    The issues we are currently having are with Containers for VPS. cPanel unfortunately does not offer a virtualization product. I wonder why they haven't done so yet with so much open source technology out there to do just that.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    NL / US
    Posts
    58
    This is pretty much a shocking admission, and for so many reputable companies who have visited conventions etc are complaining of the same thing, you would certainly think a company with millions behind them and their money source (venture capitalists) who have teams of programmers on their books.

    Oh well, there is always alternatives!
    1Gbps Dedicated Servers - 1GigE (1000Mbit) Dedicated port.
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  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    538
    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    I too was at the Parallels Summit in Orlando a few months ago. They did promise the same.

    The problem is, however, this has been happening for a long time now. For years. And so far they haven't improve it. Personally, I would be quite embarrassed if our tech support here was that inefficient.
    The main problem you face is the same problem I face. To our customers they don't really care if we are waiting for Parallels to respond to a ticket or not, they are judging US by how fast WE fix the problem.

    I think that is the point that Parallels misses (or doesn't care about). They can apologize all day to us about how slow their support is and how they are working to fix the problem, but at the end of the day it hurts our relationship with our customers and doesn't hurt Parallels at all.

    If I only had to pay Parallels for a license if their support worked then it would be a different story, but we have to pay them no matter what.
    XLHost.com
    Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and more since 1995.
    drew @ xlhost.com

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    538
    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    Late last year, we decided to upgrade some of our Virtuozzo 4.x servers to the latest 4.6. The upgrade does not work. It renders Virtuozzo unusable. It needed a lot of manual changes from Parallels' support to make it work. Do they actually test these things???
    I just wanted to reply and said we had this exact same problem when we upgraded to 4.6 there were some files we had to manually edit to make it work.. complete lack of regression testing.
    XLHost.com
    Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and more since 1995.
    drew @ xlhost.com

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    India
    Posts
    1,453

    *

    I can understand the losses you may booked but these types of technical problems are obvious. Its a technical fault and sometimes it takes time to resolve. Only because of slight delay because of technical failure one should not avoid it.
    As per your below post they had been regularly updating you regarding their effort to resolve the issue. It means they are not simply sitting but they are working on the issue.

    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    Hello everyone!

    I'd like to share an experience that is typical between our company and Parallels, makers of Virtuozzo Containers, Plesk, etc.

    Over the last year, we have pretty much given up recommending their products. We actually ourselves not even buy Virtuozzo licenses for VPS anymore and are switching to other products.

    The reason: Parallel's support.

    Every single time we have an urgent matter and we need their help, this is the typical conversation:

    ########### response to opening ticket, after a few hours:
    Hello,

    Thanks for your update.

    I have gone through the issue. We will investigate the issue further and update you in next 5 hours.

    Feel free to reply back for further clarification.

    Thanks

    ---

    Sonali
    Technical Support Engineer
    Parallels

    ########### At exactly five hours later:
    Hello,

    Our sincere thanks for your patience.
    I have logged in to your server. I have gone through your issue.
    I am currently investigation on your issue. I need some more time for deeper investigation.
    I will update you in next 4 hours.

    Regards,
    Debasish Padhi
    Parallels Technical Support

    ########### Five hours later:
    Hello,

    We have checked the issue and could see that the repair of the hardware node dealt with errors. The issue seems to be complicated and we are escalating this ticket to out 2ndLine support team. They will get back to you soon.

    Thanks,

    ########### 3 hours later:

    I would like to let you know that we have received your request ticket at 2nd line support and started working on it. I am currently checking the issue you reported. This ticket will be assigned to an appropriate engineer who will investigate the issue and report you the results within next 9 hours.

    Best regards,

    Vladimir Miloserdov
    Technical Support Engineer
    Parallels


    This is the third time in the last few months that we've had a critical issue with a Parallels product, and this is the typical tech support process.

    A Virtuozzo for Windows server, two nights ago, had major issues, and Windows would not start. Since we knew Parallels would be slow at helping us, we decided to restore from backup.

    Well, problems arised anyway, and we still have some VPS that will not start due to cryptic errors in Virtuozzo Containers.

    And well, here we are, two nights later, with several customers quite angry at the whole situation.

    We are a reseller of their products and we pay them $thousands$ a month in licensing fees.

    If you run a critical operation, Parallels is not the company to rely on.

    Have you had the same experiences?

    Peter

  14. #14
    Join Date
    May 2011
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    N/A
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    Thanks for sharing your experience with them, however cpanel support is far better than parallels...

  15. #15
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    2,452
    Parallels support used to be good long back, but currently not reliable. One of our customers used to pay for parallels support, but eventually stopped using it due to the response/resolution issues.

    Currently we rely on the technical team to resolve the issues. If they are related to the bugs of parallels soft wares, an alternative solution is immediately followed. You just cant trust them on solving major issues.

    Cpanel support has a reputation despite the fact that it is free of cost. At paralells you pay for something that is not up to the mark

  16. #16
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    on the ninkynonk!
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    Go with VMWare. Much more proven and stable.
    Something awesome
    coming soon....

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    538
    Quote Originally Posted by ninkynonk View Post
    Go with VMWare. Much more proven and stable.
    Lower density
    Higher cost
    Harder to provision
    No customer facing control panel

    I think I could keep going for days.
    XLHost.com
    Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and more since 1995.
    drew @ xlhost.com

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    538
    Quote Originally Posted by serverpoint View Post
    The issues we are currently having are with Containers for VPS. cPanel unfortunately does not offer a virtualization product. I wonder why they haven't done so yet with so much open source technology out there to do just that.
    Would be cool to see cPanel tie up with someone like OnApp.
    XLHost.com
    Dedicated Servers, Virtual Private Servers, and more since 1995.
    drew @ xlhost.com

  19. #19
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    Last edited by ninkynonk; 05-19-2011 at 09:10 AM.
    Something awesome
    coming soon....

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    London
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    2,409
    Quote Originally Posted by XLHost View Post
    Would be cool to see cPanel tie up with someone like OnApp.
    cPanel is fairly closely tied into OnApp. One click cpanel templates etc.
    Ditlev Bredahl. CEO,
    OnApp.com + Cloud.net & CDN.net

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by humawebdesign View Post
    I can understand the losses you may booked but these types of technical problems are obvious. Its a technical fault and sometimes it takes time to resolve. Only because of slight delay because of technical failure one should not avoid it.
    As per your below post they had been regularly updating you regarding their effort to resolve the issue. It means they are not simply sitting but they are working on the issue.
    I am sorry to disagree, but yes, they are sitting around. We can see when they log in to the server and I can say that they haven't spent much time in the server out of the seven days this issue has existed.

    When it comes to servers, nothing takes seven days to resolve.

    They just don't have enough experienced staff.

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by XLHost View Post
    Lower density
    Higher cost
    Harder to provision
    No customer facing control panel

    I think I could keep going for days.
    I agree. VMWare is an excellent product, but there aren't control panels out there to make life easier for the client.

    We are currently working with onapp to test their product. It still has its few bugs to work out, but is so far very promising. We are waiting for their next release to do a final evaluation.

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    767
    I've been to two Parallels Summits, between the grapvine Parallels are quite frank about knowing their support for hosters is appalling and at times a liability.

    It seems unless your an enterprise partner paying loads of money for Parallels products which demand decent support or a Parallels Desktop user whom will be prioritised as a retail customer for their flagship mac virtualisation platform - you're left with legacy support departments based in the Ukraine who seem to support all the bought control panels, unlike Parallels Desktop/PEM etc which seems to be based in the USA.

    My view on this area in general is that the small time hosting market doesn't generate enough revenue for Parallels to go "all out" on support. Sure they are working on improving it, they have to say that to keep people interested in using their products, and I'm sure they are committing to minimal increase in improvements to report at the next Parallels Summit (ie, increase of 10% more satisfied support customers), but in my opinion they certainly aren't rushing to fix the major support concerns hosters have, or designate the resources required to fix it as quickly as possible.

    They are making progress on their software though, modernising Plesk towards SOA (hopefully multi-server/multi-service) and Containers (stupid name) is also maturing as a virtualisation platform. My advice to them is to look at partnering with server support specialists and outsource legacy control panel support to them and demand SLA on support resolution to keep their customers happy...
    SOA/SaaS/Cloud & Hosting Technology Evangelist
    Note: Any opinions expressed are my own and not of anyone else or my companies.

  24. #24
    An update... this problem is not yet fully resolved and we gave up on trying to get help from Parallels. Due to a problem on their part, another issue has surfaced, and we have now just decided on setting up two brand new servers, and doing a live migration of clients to these new servers.

  25. #25
    they support is indeed terrible . Big Companies didn't understood that when they outsource support for IT then you don't cut costs you loose customers . When you pay outrageous sums for software then you'd expect at least to talk to a English speaker . Instead i get a person that barely speaks English and has almost zero know-how .

    Microsoft Azure support got me cursing my favorite software company . The sales staff from Paralless managed to get me NOT to buy Virtozzo . They lost my money and probably the money from many other professionals .

    With this kind of horrid support you need to hire someone to talk with them . I don't want to rant but this is the impression I'm getting .

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