Colo/Dedicated Server Management Addon
-
Anonymous shared this idea 13 years ago
- Integrations
- 98 Comments
425
Votes
Login to Vote
While WHMCS does in fact allow us to manage the sale and
billing for Dedicated Servers, we do not have the ability to actually
manage them from within our billing platform. This would be ideal for
allowing us to have a single point of access for Client, Tickets, and
Inventory management. Some of the below entries are suggestions for
overall functionality:
Asset tracking / Server inventory
- I keep track of server serial numbers anyways, it would be nice to
keep a table of server details that are linked back to the serial
numbers. The serial number details might have more information on
specs, notes, location (see below), etc. You could see which customers
have had that serial number. It could show if it's currently assigned
to an active customer, terminated, decommissioned, or available. The
nice thing would be is if we had some older out-of-date servers it would
be a nice way to allow customers to see inventory and order them at a
discount. Once the order comes in it wouldn't be available and not show
up as orderable.
The accounting ramifications could be nice as well, I'm not an
accountant but I'm sure they'd like to see more details as far as when
it was ordered, PO #, cost, vendor. You could run a report showing
costs and revenues of equipment as well. When equipment is
decommissioned you know you made X amount back on the initial
investment, or how long equipment is lasting.
Who knows, maybe a batch of servers comes in with faulty hardware and
you see a pattern, you could see which customers are on servers from the
same PO # and email them about preventative maintenance.
Location Mapping
-
While it doesn't need to be complex on day 1, it'd be nice to also
group serial numbers by location. room : row : cabinet : U
Then you could drill down to the cabinet and see what is in it. To add
complexity you can see capacity (u) and other infrastructure (switches /
pdu). Keep in mind that the asset tracking knows sold/unsold so you
could pull up a row or cabinet and know what is available
rDNS/IP management
- Keep track of IP management, allow customers to set their own rDNS for IPs assigned to them. (PowerDNS)
Network Control
control / disable / label / switch VLAN on switch ports
- disabling a switch port for a server that is suspended / enable on un-suspension
- relabel / change VLAN on the switch port when assigning it to a server
billing for Dedicated Servers, we do not have the ability to actually
manage them from within our billing platform. This would be ideal for
allowing us to have a single point of access for Client, Tickets, and
Inventory management. Some of the below entries are suggestions for
overall functionality:
Asset tracking / Server inventory
- I keep track of server serial numbers anyways, it would be nice to
keep a table of server details that are linked back to the serial
numbers. The serial number details might have more information on
specs, notes, location (see below), etc. You could see which customers
have had that serial number. It could show if it's currently assigned
to an active customer, terminated, decommissioned, or available. The
nice thing would be is if we had some older out-of-date servers it would
be a nice way to allow customers to see inventory and order them at a
discount. Once the order comes in it wouldn't be available and not show
up as orderable.
The accounting ramifications could be nice as well, I'm not an
accountant but I'm sure they'd like to see more details as far as when
it was ordered, PO #, cost, vendor. You could run a report showing
costs and revenues of equipment as well. When equipment is
decommissioned you know you made X amount back on the initial
investment, or how long equipment is lasting.
Who knows, maybe a batch of servers comes in with faulty hardware and
you see a pattern, you could see which customers are on servers from the
same PO # and email them about preventative maintenance.
Location Mapping
-
While it doesn't need to be complex on day 1, it'd be nice to also
group serial numbers by location. room : row : cabinet : U
Then you could drill down to the cabinet and see what is in it. To add
complexity you can see capacity (u) and other infrastructure (switches /
pdu). Keep in mind that the asset tracking knows sold/unsold so you
could pull up a row or cabinet and know what is available
rDNS/IP management
- Keep track of IP management, allow customers to set their own rDNS for IPs assigned to them. (PowerDNS)
Network Control
control / disable / label / switch VLAN on switch ports
- disabling a switch port for a server that is suspended / enable on un-suspension
- relabel / change VLAN on the switch port when assigning it to a server
99 Comments
Login to post a comment.
I left a post about a little but very important mod for us... No luck for now...
We're running small dedicated server leasing company and were looking for a easy-going system to run our biz...WHMCS is just great, almost everyhing we need is here just right out of the box!BUT, there's some things is not applicable for dealing with a database of used hardware.Here is an example:We have 100+ servers with tons of different hardware parts, needed to be stored in VDS/VPS product group. So it's clear to use configurable options as a specific parts of a server - one for CPU, another for amount of RAM, type of a chassis and so on... But here comes a problem! If we need to save HDD config - there's no way to do it, with a combinations of 2x500Gb+5x2Tb+6x3Tb... Only way to deal with it is creating EVERY type of HDD (15 sizes, not saying about vendors!) as a separate configurable option! Here comes problem with order forms (needed to hide 0 valued options)!So the VERY useful thing is a combination of a dropdown type of an option and then, in addition - quantity for this item, and the best thing - quantities for multiple selected items!I think it would be very handy to many WHMCS users, not just us!Can anybody help? Ready to pay for such an option!P.S. You can watch the principle of how it's working on our site config calc here, try choosing some options in HDD/SSD array:http://highload.biz/en/calculator/
I left a post about a little but very important mod for us... No luck for now...
We're running small dedicated server leasing company and were looking for a easy-going system to run our biz...WHMCS is just great, almost everyhing we need is here just right out of the box!BUT, there's some things is not applicable for dealing with a database of used hardware.Here is an example:We have 100+ servers with tons of different hardware parts, needed to be stored in VDS/VPS product group. So it's clear to use configurable options as a specific parts of a server - one for CPU, another for amount of RAM, type of a chassis and so on... But here comes a problem! If we need to save HDD config - there's no way to do it, with a combinations of 2x500Gb+5x2Tb+6x3Tb... Only way to deal with it is creating EVERY type of HDD (15 sizes, not saying about vendors!) as a separate configurable option! Here comes problem with order forms (needed to hide 0 valued options)!So the VERY useful thing is a combination of a dropdown type of an option and then, in addition - quantity for this item, and the best thing - quantities for multiple selected items!I think it would be very handy to many WHMCS users, not just us!Can anybody help? Ready to pay for such an option!P.S. You can watch the principle of how it's working on our site config calc here, try choosing some options in HDD/SSD array:http://highload.biz/en/calculator/
You do not do accounting with it, but managing servers etc.. is what it does, so this needs to be in there.
Do you even know what whmcs is for?
https://www.serverboost.com/
management
[u]
[/u]
For those that commented to use that other software called HB for that, really? Most people moved to HB because WHMCS was lacking this features, so this actually hurts WHMCS. And I moved from they to WHMCS, even while that "other" software has all this features, they are buggy and the software is almost not usable. I think WHMCS should develop this as an addon for those that actually have physical servers, and colo, they can track assets, manage IPs, etc.
This is and was the biggest attach on WHMCS so far in many hosting companies, that it never evolved from basic shared hosting. Also why in the world would you have 2 billing softwares? One for servers, one for shared, that is ultra stupid. You should have one billing/login systems for all customers. There is nothing wrong to have this as an extra module/addon, so the users that don´t want it or need WHMCS will work as usual, but for those that actually looked into moving away from WHMCS because it lacks this features, it would make them stay with WHMCS and it would put WHMCS in another league.
I need it too
I need it too
The WHMCS add-on will be a combination of our Advanced and Premium products, the features will be developed as per the priorities gained from user votes. Because we have the human resources available, we're looking at cca. 2 months.
The price will in any case be better than on our web pages, because we have a lot of interest for the NocLayer add-on, we're prepared to offer a more competitive price.
For any other questions, please feel free to contact us.
Thanks
Alen
I've only taken a brief look, but that sounds pretty neat.
- What sort of timeline are you looking at to get it integrated in WHMCS?
- Would there also be functionality for the client end?
- What is the status on the features that are listed on your (coming soon) Premium package? (please be realistic - if you want to get those features right, it's a *lot* of work)
- Any idea what pricing of the Premium package will be like?
If you can't answer these questions publicly, just let me know. I'm just posting this here as I suppose others may be interested in the answers too.
we here at noclayer.com have been tinkering with the idea of implementing our rack management and monitoring system, including all of the features listed here, into the WHCMS platform as an Addon. We already have a good portion of the features and are after beta testers for the initial phase. This post is to gauge interest in this venture, please let us know what you think.
preview 1
preview 2
I'd definitely be interested in something as well and would be willing to help subsidize the cost, but I think it's key that the code be developed by WHMCS, or at least be supported by them in some way - I don't want to be in a position where WHMCS updates could potentially break functionality of the module.
The only thing that would be useful for us that I haven't seen listed here would be IPMI / DRAC / iLO integration, which would allow for us to provide access to IP KVM and reboots without giving users direct access. Some way for users to do a cold reset on the BMC would be good as well.
I'd be interested to see what people would be up for paying for it as an addon if you could post what you think? I'm not looking to make a profit, just subsidize or cover the costs over time.
It looks like everyones requirements are very similar so i think it would meet most peoples needs.
If there are any other features not listed above let me know as well.