Tag Archives: Softaculous

Addon Services Available

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One of the great things at VPS.NET (At least I think so) is the number of addon services that are available to you. Whether it be control panels, software, hardware, and so on, we've tried to bring you a number of different options so you're able to configure a setup that works for your needs and caters to your business. And as we grow, we're continuously adding new services to keep up with the demands of our clients. Because of this, there may be a lot of people out there who may be unaware of some new cool services we've added.

Control Panels

cPanel - cPanel is likely the most recognizable control panel available on the market today. cPanel provides a front end interface to manage your websites files, email address, mysql databases, and many other tasks. Along with the client side management, cPanel also comes with the WHM (Web Hosting Manager) interface, which provides an interface to for server administrators and resellers to perform many different tasks, such as setting up new websites, updating Apache,  and other server-side software. Each cPanel license is $10 per month.

ISPManager - ISPManager is a low resource consuming control panel software with a multi-level user system. It provides a graphical interface for server administrators, resellers and individual clients. Like cPanel, you have the ability to administrate certain functions of the web server, and each individual website. ISPManager licenses are available free at VPS.NET.

DirectAdmin - DirectAdmin provides a GUI for managing both your server and your website, while consuming minimal resources. DirectAdmin provides access for administrators, resellers, and individual users. DirectAdmin is $10 a month.

Server Administration

Pro-active, Fully Managed Administration - We realize not everyone wants to worry about their server - they want to worry about their website. We offer a fully managed hosting solution where we'll handle the migration of your website to VPS.NET, the initial VPS server setup, and then monthly security overhauls to make sure everything is running properly. With this, we also offer a 100% SLA. This solution is available for $99 a month with a $45 setup fee.

On Demand Server Administration - In addition to the fully managed solution, we have on demand administration that you're able to use when you run into a problem. On demand administration is good for kernel upgrades, PHP/Perl Installation and Configuration, Control Panel Installation and Configuration, Backup/Migration Assistance, Software Installation or Web Server Assistance. On Demand tickets are $10 each and last for 24 hours.

Server Monitoring

Server Density - Server Density is an addon tool that allows you to easily monitor your server for abnormalities through your email and/or your iPhone. Inside of Server Density you're able to track CPU Load, Memory Utilization, processes, disk usage, network traffic, and apache & nginx status. Server Density is available for $7.50 a month.

DotDefender - DotDefender is a software that monitors and logs your servers traffic, detecting any suspicious traffic activity. DotDefender is capable of running a website specific rule set, limiting the number of false intrusion detection attempts. DotDefender licenses are available for $15 a month.

Backups

Snapshot Backups - Snapshot backups are easy and effective. Using snapshot backups, VPS.NET will take a"snapshot" of your VPS node once a day, every day, and at the end of the month will retain one daily,  one weekly, one monthly and then a day of your choice for backup. When restoring, individual files cannot be restored. We can only restore an entire backup. Snapshot backups are available for $5 a month.

Rsync Backups - With Rsync backups, we give you offsite backup space capable of backing up your entire VPS Node. You're then able to use Rsync, Duplicity, or any other backup script available to automatically backup your VPS. With Rsync you're able to restore individual files. Rsync backups are $5 a month.

R1Soft Backups - R1Soft backups are the "enterprise" version of our backup solutions, with continuos data protection through a graphical interface. Multiple copies of individual files are kept on hand and can be restored as necessary. R1Soft has a license charge of $15 per month.

Control Panel Addons

Softaculous - Softaculous is a script auto-installer that has a repository of over 130 commonly installed website scripts. It integrates directly in with both cPanel & ISPManager. Licensing is available at $9 a year.

Rvskin - The Rvskin set "beautifies" cPanel, offering you 2 additional skins in 7 different colors. Even more advantageous is the Rvskin set is available in 25 different languages. Rvskin is only available for users running cPanel and is $18 a year.

Misc.

Lightspeed Web Server - LiteSpeed Web Server is the leading high-performance, high-scalability web server. It is completely Apache interchangeable so LiteSpeed Web Server can quickly replace a major bottleneck in your existing web delivery platform. Litespeed is a drop in replacement for Apache on cPanel servers. Lightspeed licenses are only available for users running cPanel and can be purchased for $14 a month.

CodeBase - Codebase is a source code hosting and project management platform. While a CodeBase account usually runs you $79 a year, VPS.NET subscribers are able to get one free of charge.

FusionIO Node - FusionIO is solid state, high performance database hosting solution. With the solid state technology, your databases are able to be transferred and processed significantly faster, dramatically speeding up dynamic content driven websites. FusionIO nodes are available in both Atlanta and London and are $50 for every 2 Gigabytes of Storage Space.

HostBill - For company's out there selling web hosting services off of our VPS Nodes, I highly recommend you look into HostBill. It's a great client management system, with payment gateway support, and a complete support suite. Best of all, it's available free of charge at VPS.NET.

Softaculous

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softaculous Softaculous

How special is Softaculous that it deserves it's own blog post? I'll explain my story on how I became a fan.

I run my own personal website, which hosts my RSS Reader (Fever, which I'm a huge fan of!) and then a simple Gallery script where I store pictures from various vacations. I'd link to it, since I know everyone is dying to see my mug, but a few weeks ago it was ... destroyed. I had manually installed the Gallery script 3-4 years ago, and I tried to keep it up to date. I really did. I failed at it. I wasn't even very good at uploading photos in a timely manner, so updating the software was definitely out of the question. As a result, it was hacked, and my photos were lost, along with two hours of my day that I spent cleaning up the hack job.

How is this relevant? Softaculous is an automated script installation tool, that not only installs over 130 different scripts, but it also has the tools to keep them upgraded. Had I used Softaculous it would have seriously been a one button upgrade process. So, not only does it make your installations significantly easier, but it also helps you keep your site up-to-date, and safe and secure.

If you're in the business of hosting websites from VPS.NET, I can tell you that your customers will LOVE Softaculous. They'll have access to easily install scripts like WordPress, Joomla, phpBB, CopperMine, MediaWiki, SugarCRM, Magento and so on. It'll cut down on the number of support inquires you have, broken software problems, and it'll give them that pleasure of just playing around with the various scripts available to them.

Now the other cool thing that Softaculous does is it will import any installs you did with Fantastico. Fantastico is another piece of software that automatically installs scripts, but it doesn't quite have as many scripts available, and they're not quite as fast getting updates on the scripts out, which is really important. So if 3 years ago you installed a Gallery script using Fantastico, Softaculous will support that and still give you the option of doing a one click upgrade.

Softaculous directly integrates in with cPanel, DirectAdmin & ISPManager, and is a simple install. VPS.NET offers Softaculous at a rate of $9 (£6) a year, and is available through the license manager in your VPS.NET control panel. I highly recommend it, especially for those who use one of the scripts available in it simply for ease of administration. If you're running a web host, like I said, your customers will LOVE it, and will thank you 1,000x over again for giving it to them.

On a side note, if someone can tell me how to pronounce the name (Is it Soft-a-culous?), I'll give them a shout out in the next blog post!