Hosting Control Panel. Which one?

lukaszb · Post by **lukaszb** » Sun Jan 18, 2004 11:37 pm

Which hosting control panel would you suggest? I'm looking into HostingController and HELM at the moment. What do you guys suggest?

Thanks.
Luke

dean2004 · Post by **dean2004** » Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:35 pm

I use HC - it has the most bang for the buck. If Helm had an automated billing system I would probably use that. On the other hand HC is standalone and can control only one IIS server at a time - you will need to install on every web server. Helm is distributable. Both are very affordable compared to other windows solutions.

lukaszb · Post by **lukaszb** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 1:23 am

I'm particularly interested in something that has billing system integrated. It's not a necessity, but a great feature. I guess I could live without one, but in the long run, it's just better to have everything automated.

BTW, where do you guys advertise your business??

jcremin · Post by **jcremin** » Sat Jan 31, 2004 4:30 am

Helm works very nicely, and has somewhat of a billing system integrated. It needs some work, and is in the process of being completly re-written for the next major release.

AlertServ · Post by **AlertServ** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:26 am

Helm is very good and has billing and automated sign ups (and works with MailEnable too).

If you have any specific questions about Helm of would like a demo, send me an e-mail to Jim[at]AlertServ.com.

sunpost · Post by **sunpost** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:41 am

can HELM control ME installed on a remote server yet

jcremin · Post by **jcremin** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:44 am

Not yet, sadly. Helm will have that functionality at some point, though. Most likely will not be until the next major release. Your best bet would be to contact the support guys over at http://webhostautomation.com

Joe

AlertServ · Post by **AlertServ** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:51 am

sunpost wrote:can HELM control ME installed on a remote server yet

Helm can do that. Helm can do single/stand alone servers or can work is a distributed environment where websites are on one server and SQL is on another and ME is on its own server.

sunpost · Post by **sunpost** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:07 am

AlertServ wrote:...and ME is on its own server.

but does that server still need to be the control server or can it be a remote server

jcremin · Post by **jcremin** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:10 am

Please see this post:

http://forums.webhostautomation.com/vie ... php?t=1660

Unless I am mistaken, ME hasn't released their remote API yet.

As far as everything else, yes, helm lets you distribute any service to any server and will control it.

Joe

AlertServ · Post by **AlertServ** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:14 am

Well, I stand corrected. The only distributed configuration I did used another mail server product.

sunpost · Post by **sunpost** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:21 am

thanx. maybe with the ME Enterprise version that will change.

from what i am reading, HELM communicates from the control server to the remote application directly, rather than to a remote HELM service to the apllication:?:

jcremin · Post by **jcremin** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:36 am

That is correct, which works fairly well for the most part, however some other issues crop up as helm servers currently need to be able to communicate with each other via the \\unc path. Helm has said it plans to release a program that will run on each server so all of the processing will be done on each local server, therefore eliminating the need for a remote api.

So it is on its way, we just don't know how long exactly.

sunpost · Post by **sunpost** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:41 am

jcremin wrote:So it is on its way, we just don't know how long exactly.

if it is like most releases...i won't hold my breath waiting

HELM would rule if it had an SDK for 3rd parties to integrate application...but i am sure that is on the way too

jcremin · Post by **jcremin** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 3:09 am

Yeah, many users have asked for this. I hope they develop it as it would open up huge possibilites!