Feedback Needed. VMmanager: SolusVM Alternative Holding 70% of the East European Market

[Pavel]

Hi there guys,


I work in a hosting software developing company ISPsystem, headquartered in Russia, and VMmanager is one of our main solutions. It has been launched in 2004 and has been in active development and support since. The solution has great popularity on our local markets (like Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc). But we want to extend its popularity worldwide and are now collecting feedback.


VMmanager is offered in a number of different languages. KVM and OVZ are both supported, along with local and network storages, different OS templates, etc. Runs on CentOS 6, 7 and Debian 7. A detailed description and manuals are on wiki here and there is also a online demo of VMmanager in case you want to take a look.


Compared to SolusVM VMmanager’s most interesting features are:

1. Supported formats for disk image files are lvm, qcow and raw. While SolusVM has only LVM, and that requires specific disk mapping.
   
2. Migration between nodes, as well as between clusters.
   
3. VMmanager lets you use KVM virtualization having only one license, while when using SolusVM you need to buy an additional license for each new node.
   
4. Most operations (like installation of new nodes) are available directly from VMmanager, while SolusVM requires a more extensive use of the console.
   
5. A lot of hints and tips designed to help new users who are not yet familiar with VMmanager
   
6. A more affordable price, in comparison, could be important for some users.
   

Recently we launched a free version of the VMmanager, to enable more people worldwide to try it and to collect more feedback on it, regarding functionality, usability, etc. So pretty much want to make sure that it does all it needs to, and is responsive to your needs. The edition allows managing 2 VMs and 16 GB RAM.
Would be happy to answer any questions on here, and would really appreciate any feedback!



Pavel Kaprovskii,
Team ISPsystem


[SIZE=9pt]P.S. [/SIZE][SIZE=9pt]I can say that it was a real pleasure to find vpsBoard with such a strong and live community. And since I’m a new guy here, and don’t want to be considered as a spammer I have asked MannDude if it's appropriate or not. He gave his agreement.[/SIZE]


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[MannDude]

Looks great, thanks for sharing!


Is anyone here using VMmanager? How are you liking it?

 

[Licensecart]

ISPSystem is good it has a old style UI however the only downside in my opinion is the support you get a certain number of tickets free and then you have to pay for them. Apparently on WHT one guy said you get the tickets back after you use them, but in an agreement it said otherwise.

 

[DomainBop]

 ISPsystem, headquartered in Russia, and VMmanager is one of our main solutions.

Listing the other pieces of the puzzle:


VMmanager (VPS), BILLmanager (billing, payments, ordering), DNSManager (dns), IPmanager (IPs, networks), DCImanager (dedicated servers), ISPmanager (shared hosting)


descriptions: http://doc.ispsystem.com/index.php/ISPsystem's_software_solutions_for_hosting_automation

ISPSystem is good it has a old style UI however the only downside in my opinion 

In my opinion, the  "old style UI" could be one of the reasons it hasn't been widely adopted in the west because people here tend to be impressed by cosmetics and may be scared away by the old style UI and never investigate further because they mistakenly think the features are probably equally antiquated.

Is anyone here using VMmanager? How are you liking it?

I use it as a customer with ITLDC.  They're using the complete suite of ISPsystem products.  The integration of everything in one panel (billing, managing, etc) is a positive.  The user interface is easy to navigate but could be overwhelming to some people, especially those who are only familiar with SolusVM/WHMCS, because there are a lot of menu options to choose from. 

 

[Pavel]

In my opinion, the  "old style UI" could be one of the reasons it hasn't been widely adopted in the west because people here tend to be impressed by cosmetics and may be scared away by the old style UI and never investigate further because they mistakenly think the features are probably equally antiquated.

Hi DomainBop and thank you for your detailed feedback!


Our team members have just returned from WHD.global and I can say that a big number of potential partners point out the same raw spot. I can only say that thankfully we aren't blind and are able to see that our GUI looks more like '90s or early '00 and not 2016. So we're already working hard at this to made our GUI awesome by the end of this year.

 

[HN-Matt]

In my opinion, the  "old style UI" could be one of the reasons it hasn't been widely adopted in the west because people here tend to be impressed by cosmetics and may be scared away by the old style UI and never investigate further because they mistakenly think the features are probably equally antiquated.

[...]

I use it as a customer with ITLDC.  They're using the complete suite of ISPsystem products.  The integration of everything in one panel (billing, managing, etc) is a positive.  The user interface is easy to navigate but could be overwhelming to some people, especially those who are only familiar with SolusVM/WHMCS, because there are a lot of menu options to choose from.

I thought the same thing when I had an account with ITLDC. I only had a few VM, but the menu nevertheless listed options for every possible service as if they were all active in the account. More superfluous than overwhelming, maybe.

& yeah re: cosmetics. Fond memories after introducing ...'s non-design last year.

Beep boop, is not isomorphic to coding substrata of passing cosmetic trends,

 

[Pavel]

I thought the same thing when I had an account with ITLDC. I only had a few VM, but the menu nevertheless listed options for every possible service as if they were all active in the account. More superfluous than overwhelming, maybe.

& yeah re: cosmetics. Fond memories after introducing ...'s non-design last year.



Beep boop, is not isomorphic to coding substrata of passing cosmetic trends,

Thank you for your feedback!


I totally understand your point, UIX is pretty loaded. Actually, this is why we have targeted a pretty long-term deadline for this problem. We believe it won't be efficient to implement only minor changes so we decided to apply a more complex approach: we work on both UIX and GUI, so that the interface was both friendly and up-to-date

 

[Byron]

Hi There,


I use vmmanger now over a year and i am very happy with this product.
I have try a lot of products like vmware, proxmox and more small solutions.


But i miss something by all of the panels so i try vmmanger from ISPSystem and that was what i want.
I want to sell VPS systems that the customer can buy a order and everything goes automatic.


vmmanger can do that i use ipmanager, dnsmanager and vmmanger together and when i say i want a vps with CentOS7.
Then i start a new vps it get automatically the ip address en the template with password root settings everything works directly.


It is a great solution and every week i see a new update that have fixed bugs or added new features.


So give it a try if you want everything automatically

 

[Pavel]

Hi Byron, thank you for your feedback!


It's nice to see you here. And thanks to DDwebhosting for supporting us here

 

[Nikki]

I agree with the whole "old style UI" statement, it feels like the type of UI that SolusVM used 4 or so years ago, not very visually appealing. It is quite fast though, and seems to work well.


I also feel that it could use LXC support, since it's somewhat common and a very promising replacement for OpenVZ, if it's done correctly and can be integrated properly. Do this ahead of SolusVM and you could have a new market before others.

 

[Pavel]

Hello, Nikki. Thank you for great advice! As product manager said to me today: "we already thinking about it and now we should analyze every aspect of adding "LXC dition of VMmanager" to our product line. So I will keep VPSboard community updated on this topic.

 

[Shoaib_A]

Does VMmanager support routed networking which is the recommended way with some ISPs e,g OVH, Online etc?

 

[Pavel]

Shoaib_A,


VMmanager does not support in its "box" vesrion but we have an atrticle which explaining how to set it up correctly
OVH: http://doc.ispsystem.com/index.php/How_to_manage_IP_addresses_on_OVH_servers
Hetzner: http://doc.ispsystem.com/index.php/Network_configuration_in_Hetzner