New to HC

Hi,

We are thinking of moving from helm 3 to HC. Is there anything we should be aware of ?
What experience have you had over the years ?

What features are missing or do not work ?
We will be using whmcs and i have seen posts regarding this.

Migration would be a tough job if you have large number of domains. When we migrated from Helm then have to create new user to import existing website. As Helm create account in database and only create website anonymous user in the computer management. Whereas HC require to have user existed in Computer management or active directory.
They told me that Very soon migration utility from Helm to HC will be available which import all data in 3 simple steps. Not sure if it is ready or not you can ask from them.

Regarding functionality, Architecture is pretty much same. Only difference is that admin can add and manage Linux server along with windows in HC cluster.

I have experienced issues in the beginning but I really appreciate HC support who helped alot to make thing smoother for me.
Overall I am pretty much satisfy with this product. Especially its the only choice for me to have windows and linux server in a single cluster.

humm :) I would have said the there are quit big differences to HELM. We are running HELM3 now and need to really rethink how we are providing small web hosting and what services we are offering since HC is not at all as flexible as HELM3.

There has been a lot of bugs but its getting a lot better and they have fixed the basic problems. AND they are adding features almost a bit to fast :)

You will maybe miss "domain aliases". HC does only very limited support this. You can "park" a domain, but it does not handle mail - it only adds the domain to the www server so it will work for both domains.

You will maybe miss DNS only hosing and a DNS editor. DNS only, Im told, will be part of build 9 in 2 months or so.

You will maybe miss the great flexibilty of defining services and options - that you can make resource pool of servers running mssql2005 vs. a pool running 2008 maybe and assigning a group of resellers to a specific server/resource or pool.
That you can specify in a plan if they have access to MySQL4 or MySQL5 (not so needed anymore I guess) or MSSQL05 vs. MSSQL08 and so on. For some this IS actually important to know. Not everything is running correct on different version. That was also the case for php4 vs 5 and even 5 vs. 5.3 in the beginning.
HC makes the resources available more "uniform". You setup all windows services equal and all windows servers that have the service enabled are then the samme basicly.

under windows the websites dont have different identitys but do have different app pools.

it has a "feature" where a users websites are all accesable from ONE ftp login. To me a big security risk, to others a nice feature. It also means as far as I understand HC that ALL a users websites are always forced to one server.

the billing part **** - but if you are not planing on using it...

the user interface has a lot of strange behaviors that are confusing our (test) customers so fare, but also a lot of improvments over HELM3 (that is also a bit old now). Better reports and stuff.

if you are looking for linux and windows hanlding in one - try HC. We are sure its the way to go.

if you are looking for windows only... to me HC would be a to fare from what Im used to and to much of a step back in flexiblity. DotNetPanel has been the solution for a lot of HELM3 people I know.

I would like to say, that when it comes to the flexibility part it might also be that I just dont get it - HC I mean :)

OHHH, and you will miss ofcause most of all the HELM repair tool for moving users, sites, and so on around and recreating stuff.
In HC I think you are left with "delete the site" and recreate if you want to recreate settings or move a service to an other server.

if you are looking for linux and windows handling in one - try HC. Im sure its the way to go.

ok, in general I think it will be a good choice in time.

Thanks ! great reply.

It gives me a lot more to think about here and i think you are correct it is a big difference.
The parking of domains and no DNS editor may big issue for me.
We have a large setup and putting customers websites all on web server will cause problems.
We will not go with websitepanel because it is now opensource. We cannot be stuck with it in a few years’ time because no updates etc released.
Plesk looks ok but i am not keen on the company. I also don’t think it fits well into our infrastructure.
We have been stuck with helm3 all these years and cannot find an easy way out. Maybe we will offer HC as a new product and provide the option for current customers to either migrate or stay on helm.
We also offer cpanel so offering linux with HC does not bother me.
Once again thank you for your reply !

 

give it a try. about DNS editor and DNS only it seams it will be ready in build 9 so...

even if we are not the most happy and good at pointing out what we our self are missing, we/I also do belive that HC will be a very good next step off HELM.

Since you are offering Linux, putting it all into one controlpanel would maybe be the most attractive feature? Even if cpanel is good for you, having just one setup is better!

just to clear somthing (and also check with HC - I might be mistaken anyway, but thats how they expained this when I had a problem with this): if you have different users, they will ofcause be spread on all your servers in your cluster. Just, if you have one customer with maybe 10 sites, then all 10 sites will end up on one server to keep the "one login" feature. So unless you have mainly a small number of customers all with a large number og sites, then the distribution should be ok in general.
Its something to look at, but Im guessing in only very few cases a problem.

parked domains vs. domain aliases - just start pushing for them to implement this ;) we miss it!!

Hi,

The problem is we have resellers with 1000 or more domains and we host many thousands of sites. We need to be sure we are going down the correct route and HC does look by far the best so far.  They tell me they are doing a helm migration tool :)

You have given me some more things to test and look into ! Thanks

Infact i think it wont be a problem becuase we will moving all website files to a central SAN.
Time for some more testing.

I have been using HC for the past few years and sure you would get some problems in the beginning as you are switching to totally new setup but their product is smooth and the best is the timely added support for it. Though I have not done the migration from Helm by myself but I guess this KB article would best help you:
http://portal.hostingcont...sites-in-hc-panel.aspx

to "rslyon" - about the reseller thing. Check with HC support. I think this "problem" about all sites ending up on the same server is limited to only "webadmin" users (the owners of sites, NOT to resellers. Resellers users are distributed on the available servers (im hoping and almost sure - have not tested this aspect but I dont see why not based on what HC support have told me).

I have sent HC an email.
The problem is we have resellers who just use one user account and put all their domains under the one user.
They managed all the domains themselves and cannot be bothered to create new user accounts for different domains.
I am sure we can great round this.

rslyon

I have sent HC an email.
The problem is we have resellers who just use one user account and put all their domains under the one user.
They managed all the domains themselves and cannot be bothered to create new user accounts for different domains.
I am sure we can great round this.

In this case reseller will face difficulties in managing the ftp user. Because currently HC don't allow to chose website directory while creating additional ftp user. By default HC land the ftp user on webadmin folder i.e /webspace/reseller/webadmin this way additional ftp user will see other domains. Although these users will not be able to access other domain folder but still it would be a good option to land ftp user inside their domain.com folder.
As per HC support confirmation they are enhancing ftp module in build9, we are expecting a good solution for this case.

HC still has a lot of issues and they are misleading about features they advertise.  I have been using HC for a while and I had to move all 30,000 plus users to a websitepanel controlled server becuase of WHMCS integration, UNC path storage, NLB and Microsoft Clustering. These are features that HC say I need to pay $10,000 to get. I now only use HC for Linux.