HC Roadmap?

Things have been pretty quiet recently.   Are we expecting another update soon or has work begun on HC9?  
 
Also, are their any plans on supporting Application Request Routing in IIS in HC9?

We are in process to release last build (13) of HC8 and after this we will start working on new HC version which would be expected to launch in few months time after build13.
 
After receiving valuable feedback from our beta testers and other HC customers we are going to provide some major enhancement in HC modules. These changes will provide a smooth platform in future for including other integration request.
 
Here are the short list of changes which taken place in build13
 
User Manager Module Changes
 

• Add Website
  • Ftp User Details tab is added. Will asking for ftp user separately for every website. There will be no default ftp account of webadmin from of now.
  • User Accounts in plan has been changed to Ftp Accounts.
  • The default directory structure x:\webspace\reseller\webadmin\domain.com has been changed to x:\webspace\domain.com.
  • Existing website will still run under the old path, however the new websites will be created under x:\webspace
  • Every website will have its own ftp user account from now onward.
  • A single ftp user cannot have more than one websites under his root path.
    
    
• User Manager
  • Now User Manager will list only the panel users. None of the user like Host, Reseller and Webadmin is created on system level. All of them will be panel users only.
  • No more FTP user will be listed here under User Manager. Go to Domains section for all the FTP users. The FTP user resource is now dependent on Domains only.
  • Webadmin FTP user will no longer be made. Existing webadmin FTP users will be migrated as FTP users and displayed under “Domains à FTP Users”.

Domain Registration Module Changes
 

1. Add Domain
   1. If a user is already using Enom or any other registrar and have registered many domains then he can use this feature to add the already registered domain in HC. HC will confirm the domain by giving a call to the registrar and after confirmation will add it in HC database. Once a domain is successfully added in HC database; the user can then manage further operations on the domain through HC panel.
2. Transfer Domain (for Enom and Realtime Register only)
   1. Now user can initiate domain transfer.
   2. Also the EPP key retrieval feature is provided which is then used in domain transfer request.
   3. User can now lock/unlock domain status
3. All type of contacts can now be updated through HC panel.

Whois option provided; user just has to select a domain and click on Whois and all the domain information will be displayed
 
Enterprise Module Changes


the Exchange and SharePoint implementation and OU structure in backend Active Directory has been changed.
Organization has been introduced where user has to create the organization before the Exchange/SharePoint services are to be turned ON for the specific organization.
User has been given more flexibility to manage OU of his Exchange and SharePoint according to his business needs.
 

• There was only one link “Mail Manager” to manage all Exchange and non-Exchange mail domains.
• Now instead of only “Mail Manager” following three links are also provided:
  
  
  • Hosted Organizations (this link is to manage all the hosted organizations either any enterprise service is ON or OFF).
  • Exchange Manager (this link is to manage all the Exchange enabled hosted organizations, their mail domains, mailboxes etc.)
  • Mail Manager (this link is to manage all the non-Exchange mail domains).
    
    

Case A:      If you are managing only non-Exchange mail server in HC then there will be no change in your UI. You still see same “Mail Manager” link and you have to manage your mail domains from “Mail Manager” section.
 
Case B:      If you are managing only Exchange mail server in HC then there will be no more “Mail Manager” link. Instead you’ll see “Hosted Organizations” and “Exchange Manager” links.
 
Case C:      If you are managing both Exchange and non-Exchange mail servers in HC then you’ll see all the three links “Mail Manager”, “Hosted Organizations” and “Exchange Manager”.

Above links are for Mail Management and for SharePoint there will be one link as it was before.

 

 
 

This wonderful , but I can't see any changes in HyperV which was promised to us in build12 ?

watson

This wonderful , but I can't see any changes in HyperV which was promised to us in build12 ?

Its not the complete release note, for which you will need to wait till we officially release build13,
but here I will list few of virtualization module changes
 

1. Implementation changes
   1. Now the module is transaction based and multiple virtual machines can be setup simultaneously.
   2. Even all the VM operations like stop/start/snapshots; all are transactions based.
2. VM bandwidth feature
   1. Now VM bandwidth is completely managed by HC.
   2. In case of bandwidth over usage; HC will take appropriate action like to suspend VM.
   3. Also bandwidth reports are provided to view different type of VM bandwidth reports.
3. For both Hyper-V and Xen

Most of this sounds good.  Not sure about the changes to the FTP users as it is written here.  I have a lot of customers who manage more than one website and doing so through a single FTP user is more convenient.  Not sure I understand why you're going to force every domain to have a separate FTP user.  Our average is about two websites for every user - with some users having 30+ domain!  I foresee this leading to confusion about which username to use for what (control panel, site1, site2, site3, etc.).  Will this change be forced upon existing users?  Or only for new ones?  How about new domains under existing users?
 
Thanks!

WrightWeb

Most of this sounds good.  Not sure about the changes to the FTP users as it is written here.  I have a lot of customers who manage more than one website and doing so through a single FTP user is more convenient.  Not sure I understand why you're going to force every domain to have a separate FTP user.  Our average is about two websites for every user - with some users having 30+ domain!  I foresee this leading to confusion about which username to use for what (control panel, site1, site2, site3, etc.).  Will this change be forced upon existing users?  Or only for new ones?  How about new domains under existing users?

Thanks!

 
Following feature requested by our customers very frequently
Reseller within Reseller
Rename control panel user
Instant website transfer between users
Transfer website with zero down time
Customer running mail only hosting or virtualization they no need to enable web IIS role in cluster
 
And few other complication for customers this convenience our management to change in the HC directory structure. Now HC will add new website in x:\webspace\domain.com. Using this directory structure it is not possible to allow single ftp user to manage multiple website. So for every website individual ftp user would require (HC will also give option to create new ftp user or not too).
 
Note: Existing ftp user/domain will not be effected by build13 installation. For new website/user this implementation will take action. 

Thank you for the fast response.  Okay, so there is a technical reason.  I understand that, but it will inconvenience customers, especially those with many domains in one account.  Why the change in the directory structure?  x:\webspace\webadmin\domain.com would have allowed one FTP user (but not forced it) and may have made administration easier by organizing things by customer.  Just thinking...
 
I do look forward to the other new features!  Thanks for all the hard work!

Thanks for the response.   Any news on supporting Application Request Routing?  I really feel this is the way IIS hosting is heading.
 
I'm also not sure about the changes to FTP users.  We have a ton of marketing and design firms who love that all of their sites are under one FTP account.  This is going to cause a lot of issues going forward.   Is there any way to have it optional?

I guess this change is made for better implementation of WHMCS. I had requested some times back for this since through WHMCS, when we created websites for different websites of a single customer, it used to create a single FTP user and it was not possible for the customer to provide separate FTP to each website which belonged to different users.

Hello,
         ****************************

HC will no longer add default FTP user for newly created webAdmin account. Existing webAdmin FTP users will be migrated as FTP users. All FTP users are now managed under “Domains :: FTP Users".

In Hosting Plan, User Accounts field name is now changed to FTP Accounts.

Default directory structure of domain has been changed. HC used to create subfolders of Reseller and Webadmin i-e x:\webspace\reseller\webadmin\domain.com. From now on all website folders will be placed on the root of webspace i-e x:\webspace\domain.com. Existing domains folder structure will not be changed and will continue to run under the old path. This change of implementation ensures smooth migration process of domains from one WebAdmin to another. ***********************************************
I'm really disagree with this change. This is really impractical for my clients..
 

Several of our customers are starting to get irritated by the change in FTP Users.  Unfortunately, our larger customers are most affected by this!  This took away a LOT of simplicity for those managing many domain names.  And now, we have some clients who are finding that they have several domain names that work under one FTP account and any new domains have to use a separate one, making it difficult sometimes to remember which is which.
 
Also, this has taken a revenue stream from us!  We have always sold plans for multiple domains.  And for those customers who wanted to give access to one of their domain names - either because they were informally reselling it or because they had some other reason to keep it separate - we would SELL them another FTP User account that could access only that domain.  Now, we can't very well sell a plan with 5 domains and not give them access to upload files to 4 of them, can we?  So now we on a plan with 5 domains we have to give them 5 user accounts or else they can't upload files!  And if we give them enough user accounts for all of their domains, then we've lost that revenue stream!  We're really upset about this change and our customers are not happy either.

One more to disagree with:
 
- FTP forcing us now to have 1 site per FTP. Very unpractical. Imagine 50 sites, you need 50 FTPs.
 
Lets hope HC listens to us.
 
Our customers are also unsatisfied with these changes.
 
The directory structure, which once was organized, also is now a mess :(
 
Pls, HC, avoid making these changes that affect us badly, or make it optional!
 
Thanks

Agreed on the directory structure!  It used to be simple to tell what domains belonged to each customer and were under each reseller.  Now everything is thrown together and it is more difficult and time consuming to troubleshoot certain problems.  Honestly, this change does not seem very well thought out!  Can someone from HC please tell us why this was all necessary?  And will we see some benefit from it in some future release?

WrightWeb

Agreed on the directory structure!  It used to be simple to tell what domains belonged to each customer and were under each reseller.  Now everything is thrown together and it is more difficult and time consuming to troubleshoot certain problems.  Honestly, this change does not seem very well thought out!  Can someone from HC please tell us why this was all necessary?  And will we see some benefit from it in some future release?

I am really disagree with this HC change!  Can HC team revert this change?  I dont know who is your beta tester (your competitor?), but you must think: on Marketing, if something is good for your clients then you should maintain it; you can not change anything.
When you planned change, you should make a survey to all your customer, it is basic before any dramatical change.

Thanks for listen your trusty customer!

P.D.: I still don't update to build 13.