B10WH

“After encounter an issue that the server can’t reboot into safe mode”, posted today forum member “Onemancrew” in Web Hosting Talk. He explained that the bug appears when the he tried to reboot his server into safe mode. After the login screen was shown , after a few seconds automatic reboot would be done, and “no matter what you will do , you will not be able to boot your server into safe mode”.

“Yes, if you wonder your self , after you install Plesk Control Panel over Windows Server 2003 you can forget your safe mode” adds “Onemancrew” and also says that the bug exist from version 7.6 until version 8.6.

The WTH member has posted in the forum thread that he hasn’t checked version 9.2 yet. But he added that he was “99.9% sure that this bug also exist in 9.2 version of Plesk Control Panel”. The bug in this version according to “Onemancrew” is that when installing Plesk Control Panel on Windows Server 2003 the control panel user can not reboot their server in Safe Mode. He also says that the OS will make automatic reboot after showing the login screen.

“Parallels doesn’t worth your money. They don’t care about customer, all they care is about releasing more and more products but the word “quality” is unknown for Parallels developers”, states “Onemancrew” and makes the suggestion “Don’t use Plesk Control Panel” and provides the argument that “If application make the platform to stop working correctly then such software need to be abandoned”.

He has also created a new post shortly after the original thread was being opened and said that the ridiculous matter here was that Parallels demanded to get money for opening support ticket despite the fact that this is 100% Plesk bug. According to him the software producer’s policy is “to get money even about bug fixes”.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous. This is not how a software company need to treat existing customers”, said ”Onemancrew”.

What did WHT members respond?

“This is the reason I switched to cPanel, I was having issues left and right with Plesk and their support team was never very helpful or I had to pay out the ass to get them to just look at it. cPanel support is superior for any software company that I’ve come across”, said Canadian member of Web Hosting Talk named “Certis”.

Here comes a WHT member with a nickname “Drew_Parallels” who responded thathe wanted to let the community know that he saw the thread and alerted Parallels development team. “They’re investigating the bug now. As a possible (though not amazing) workaround, would be to set the Plesk Management Service (plesksrv) to Manual or Disable mode. Then you should be able to start up in Safe Mode. Unfortunately, Plesk has to be started manually after that. I’ll let you know as soon as the developers get back to me”, says “Drew_Parallels” and ads “Sorry about the bug”!

A few members of WHT who joined the thread thanked to Drew and showed their understanding.

The thread continues with “Onemancrew” who posted “The BIG question is WHEN?”. He adds that he is asking the right question here because Drew wrote that the Parallels developing team was working about a bug fix.

“But again, the question is when the bug fix will be released for the public ?  It’s ridiculous that such BUG exist for 3 years! And until now the QA team didn’t find it. What does it mean that QA team didn’t find such a bug?  It’s means that SWsoft doesn’t have any QA team.”

“The word QA is unknown at SWsoft Company” (SWsoft is the old name of Parallels), wrote ”Onemancrew”.

Another WHT member “Dynamicnet” addressed Drew and said that he posted his questions. “Like the post above, it has to do with QA (not only in software development, but also in writing KB articles). For example, http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 could not have gone through quality assurance. Aside from easy to catch spelling errors, there are 21 hard coded patch files without any documentation”, writes ”Dynamicnet”.

“Say you want to upgrade from Clam Anti-virus 0.95.2 to 0.95.3 using http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 you have to contend with /src/hsphere-clamav.patch which is hard coded for 0.95.2 without any instructions on how to recreate the file for use with 0.95.3. Similarly there are 20 other hard coded patch files blocking the way of other upgrades making http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 worthless. Furthermore, http://kb.parallels.com/en/6656 makes Parallels look bad because it is yet another public proof Parallels does not take quality assurance seriously”, added the WHT member.

Follow the whole thread “The Bigest BUG inside Plesk Control Panel , The Bigest BUG that SWsoft/Parallels Want” in Web Hosting Talk.

Is your ISP ripping you off? Recently, my ISP decided to go the route of setting a download limit for all their data accounts. Unfortunately, this is a trend that seems to be on the rise. Many of the major ISP’s in the US are now limiting the download limit, and their justification for doing so is really quite odd. The most common points that are brought up about the download cap are:

1 - Few “normal” customers will have to worry about coming close to the limit.
2 - It helps ensure that the network is not overloaded.
3 - Reduces the likelihood of customers using file sharing services.
4 - Allows the ISP to easily manage the number of connections to a hub.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for companies making a profit from a service that they provide, but in my case, the cap is an extremely difficult thing to have to work with. I’m lucky enough to have a very good relationship with one of the leads for my ISP. He’s a great guy that is trying very hard to defend a policy that is really indefensible. You see, my ISP just bumped up the download speed available on my current tier to 25mbps. Now that’s a pretty fast connection, but they even offer a 60mbps connection! Of course the price for the 60mb connection is almost $100 per month. Add to that, the bandwidth cap was only raised 50gb per month and you begin to see the point. The odd part is that they did not increase the download cap limit after increasing the speed.

I called my contact immediately after receiving my first warning of coming close to the download cap. I explained to him about working from home, and some of the basics that I use my connection for. My next question to him was to ask if there was an unlimited service plan that I could subscribe to. He replied that there wasn’t, and probably never will be. We tossed around many different ideas including the possibility of using a business package, but even those are not unlimited. Finally settled on a potential solution of putting in a second modem and bridging the connections to form one. This would in theory double my download limit as well as double my available speed. Unfortunately, it also means doubling my current bill.

This type of solution is not by any stretch of the imagination ideal. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to even see if it’s possible because the line strength of the cable coming into my home is not strong enough to support 2 modems, and so I’m forced to wait until they can send out a tech to drop a second line into the house.

Now all that being said, the most irritating part of this entire situation is the fact that there is no other viable alternative for me to switch to. Sure there is a DSL provider, but the best speed they can offer is a 7mb connection and it is also capped.

All this got me to thinking about why an ISP would choose to implement such a policy, especially considering the fact that they maintain that less than 1% of their entire customer base comes close to their designated limit. Now in my particular case, they charge $1.50 per GB downloaded past the limit. Granted this might not be such a huge hardship if you only go over a few GB, but if you were to go over 35GB, that would add an additional $50 to the bill.

There are all sorts of services available to those that have broadband connections. Netflix has the option available for instant streaming of available videos. This option alone is quite interesting, especially if you choose the 1080p version.  Each 1080p movie will run anywhere between 27 - 40gb per movie! That’s almost half of my allotted quota per month for just one movie! Then you have streaming internet radio services, and streaming video.

As evidenced by past leaps forward, there are sure to be more things that will become an integral part of our online lives. Those things are almost certain to utilize a broadband connection like never before. What happens then? Will a class action lawsuit be required in order to force ISP’s to retool their packages? What ever happened to the United States being the most technologically advanced country in the world? In the Netherlands for example, virtually every household is wired directly with fiber! No download limits, no caps, and blazing speed. What about getting the government involved?  Some kind of overlord to bring the various ISP’s in line?

There are so many facets to this issue, none of which make much of a difference until the customer has some kind of leverage to make their ISP’s listen. I fervently hope that day is not far in the future.

I have made myself known with ISPsystem during the HostingCon 2009 conference in Washington DC where the company was among the Silver Sponsors. The first thing I that made a difference was their logo. I like it and It made me to pay some attention of this software producers. When I went to their website I’ve found that they have complete web hosting automation software line. Then I got in touch with the company asked Tatiana Shaidorova to present ISPsystem.

Hi Tatiana, good to meet you. Your company produces web hosting control panel, VPS management software, dedicated hosting system, DNS manager, IP manager and even a billing solution for web hosts. This is quite impressive, but shall ask you isn’t it too risky for any software developer to compete on any of these niches in the hosting industry? Why didn’t you focus on any of the above mentioned markets?

Our mission is to provide and design the web hosting automation software complex. The core of the company is a dedicated team of highly skilled programmers who work hard at fulfilling this mission. It is our advantage over competitors. Our products are integrated with each other. So it is very convenient for clients to use web hosting automation software line of one developer.

Which us your best selling software product?

ISPmanager is the best selling product. It is obvious. The hosting control panel is the most useful software for hosting automation.

I have found that one of the reputable UK hosting providers UK2group already offers “ISPmanager PRO”. So is ISPmanager the most popular one? How many customers do you have on the UK and European market?

As I mentioned before ISPmanager is the most popular one among our web hosting automation software line. We are novices on UK and European markets. But I am proud to say that we already have a lot of customers on this market. Our products are the most popular on the Eastern European market (Russia, CIS countries). We have been on this market for 5 years. ISPsystem software has been pushed on international markets only for a year. It is not a long period. But we have obtained the results. Our client base increases every day. ISPsystem software is gradually becoming worldwide products in hosting industry.

There some differences between web hosting markets in Europe and North America. In U.S. Shared Hosts sell unlimited, the Americans prefer to use more cPanel then Parallels Plesk panel. However Parallels are stronger in Europe. What are your advantages and how do you compete each of these software producers? If I was prospective client what would you tell me to make me to sign with you?

ISPmanager is easy to use and fully featured control panel with the user friendly interface.  It has a set of advantages. One of the greatest advantages is high efficiency with low system resources consumption. ISPmanager is easily installed without changing operating system configuration. Also the control panel can satisfy the requirements of both novice users and advanced server administrators. It provides multi-level access to administrative features for increased management flexibility. ISPmanager is updated regularly. We have a reasonable price policy with progressive discount system. I think these are our main advantages.

Let me now ask you about another product of yours - the Reseller level of ISPmanager. How important is this software application for you. Does it allow you to get more web hosts as clients?

Our Partner Program is very attractive for our clients. Partner Program includes low prices and flexible progressive discount system. Surely, it allows us to get more web hosts as clients.

You have said that your company has already debuted a Windows version of ISPmanager. Do you think that it will become more successful that the Linux one?

It is very difficult to predict what will be more successful - ISPmanager for Linux or for Windows. The Windows-based hosting market is currently developing. According to our observations, Microsoft is doing its best to develop the Windows Platform. At present, there are not so many Windows-based products. So, we hope ISPmanager for Windows will be successful on its niche in the hosting industry. We have already launched only test version of the hostign automation software for Windows. Now we are waiting for client reviews and wishes in order to improve ISPmanager for Windows.

I have reviewed your Virtual Private Server manager called “VDSmanager”. Can you please explain how do you integrate this virtualization technology with OpenVZ and Xen?

VDSmanager runs on two different operating systems - FreeBSD and Linux. VDSmanager for Linux is a user friendly web based interface that enables to create and manage different virtual machines based on popular server virtualization technologies like OpenVZ and Xen.  Xen and OpenVZ don’t have GUI. So VDSmanager for Linux is the best solution for VPS management using OpenVZ and Xen. VDSmanager for FreeBSD is available in two versions: VDSmanager and VDSmanager-SMP. VDSmanager is installed on a mono core processor machine. VDSmanager-SMP on multi-core CPUs.

Which software product of yours is most interesting for the web hosting providers?

It depends on kinds of web hosting business that hosting providers are going to render. Solutions for Shared Hosting - BILLmanager, ISPmanager, DNSmanager, IPmanager (optional); Solutions for VPS Hosting- BILLmanager, VDSmanager, ISPmanager, IPmanager (optional); Solutions for Dedicated Server Hosting – BILLmanager, DSmanager, ISPmanager, IPmanager (optional).

I’m interested to learn more about DSmanager. You promote it as “absolutely unique solution”. I didn’t see many similar software solutions. Can you please tell me more about DSmanager?

Yes, DSmanager is the absolutely unique solution. There are no many similar software solutions. DSmanager is a Dedicated Server management system. It provides centralized management of dedicated servers, allows minimizing connectivity, hardware and operating system installation, support, maintenance expenses, and maximizing the uptime of the network. DSmanager makes the process just a few clicks away.

DSmanager advantages:
• All dedicated servers are stored in a single base. The search for servers can be performed by their type, operating system and location.
• Users can install operating systems, reboot the servers, connect and disconnect to the network via single control panel.
• DSmanager supports power and network switches, enabling to use them with dedicated servers, once they are registered in the system.
• The panel can be used to automatically assign IP addresses from a pool of available IP addresses, simplifying their operation.
• Multilevel permission system: Admin, Reseller, Dedicated Server Owner.
• Open Application Programming Interface (API) enabling to use all features of the control panel, to integrate with various billing systems, etc.

If you are focused on Dedicated Servers lease and Server Collocation, DSmanager can help you to automatize business processes and provide new services to your customers.

Some software producers sell support, others include a basic level of support in their service plans. Please tell me how do you provide support. It says 24/7 on your website, but do your customers shall pay additional fees to receive technical support?

Our support is 24/7. In all cases when a license is ordered by the User directly from ISPsystem without participation of the Partner, technical support of the Software Product is rendered in full scope free of charge (additional works and services are paid for separately).  In other words, in most cases support is free.

Your pricing is in Euro. Do you sell in euros on the U.S. market and how do you deal with the weak dollar if you need to sell the software licenses at the same price in USD?

Minor changes in the dollar exchange rate are not so important for us.

Do you have any plans to enter in the Cloud computing market and if “yes” what kind of Cloud software would you have?

We are planning to go forward in this direction. But now I can’t say anything about it.