How can we improve WHMCS?

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Colo/Dedicated Server Management Addon

  • Anonymous shared this idea 13 years ago
  • Integrations
  • 86 Comments


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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nice thing would be is if we had some older out-of-date servers it would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

87 Comments

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Interesting idea for dedicated server management. On a related note, I have been exploring how AI video generation tools like Kling 3.5 (https://www.kling35.org) are changing the way hosting companies create promotional content and tutorials. The technology makes it much easier to produce professional product videos without expensive equipment.
This would be really useful for automation workflows. We use Trellis 3 for generating 3D infrastructure topology diagrams from our WHMCS server data — makes it much easier to visualize colo layouts. https://www.trellis3.com
Great idea for dedicated server management. When handling media-heavy servers, having integrated tools for content delivery matters a lot. For example, enabling clients to offer services like https://www.savetube.online/ (youtube video downloader) from their hosting packages could add real value. A unified addon panel would make all of this much more manageable.
This would be incredibly useful for providers managing colo and dedicated infrastructure. Tools like https://getcaption.net/ show how much demand there is for streamlined workflow automation — a native WHMCS addon handling server provisioning, IPMI access, and ticket routing in one place would save operators hours each week.
This would be a great addition. We create onboarding video content for hosting clients and server management is always the hardest part to explain. Tools like https://facelessvideos.app help us produce clear faceless video tutorials for technical processes - having a dedicated server management addon in WHMCS would make those tutorials much more structured and useful for end users.
A solid colo/dedicated management addon would also open doors for hosting AI-heavy workloads. We recently started offering GPU-optimized dedicated servers for clients running AI image generation tools like https://gpt-image.tech (uses OpenAI gpt-image-2 to generate 4K images). Having IPMI access, bandwidth graphs, and automated provisioning all within WHMCS would massively simplify our workflow. Would love to see this move from Under Consideration to planned.
This would be a game changer for agencies managing multiple dedicated servers for clients. We currently handle hosting for various niche businesses including equestrian sites like https://www.happy-horse.net and juggling server configs manually is a real pain. A native colo/dedicated management addon with IPMI access, bandwidth monitoring and automated provisioning would dramatically reduce overhead. Hope this gets prioritized in an upcoming release.
Hello,

This would be great I think this feature should be added plus allow ESXI VMWARE support for this to give customers control over the servers and also add RPD and PUTTY into the control panels as well so the customers can log in via the WHMCS control panel and reboot the servers from the control panels.
WHMCS is a billing platform, not a DCIM/IPAM. If you need this, use Netbox. It has a full/robust API thats easily integrated with.

I would much rather see WHMCS improve on billing features than spend thousands of hours re-inventing the wheel.
This would be great as long as they pay attention to it after release. How long has it been since the Project Management module has had an update? Or Live Chat?
This would be great to see integrated into WHMCS - we have had to custom build our modules for dedicated server customers but if WHMCS had it built in then that would be amazing!
I think there are the 3rd modules that allow integrating WHMCS with Server/Data Center management systems such as DCImanager or NOC-PS, aren't there? Some of them might allow management from WHMCS interface as requested.
Hi Peter,

There is indeed third party modules that allow this, however I personally think it would be great if it was built into WHMCS. Also not to mention that allot of these third part modules require you to use there product, which adds another control panel, software and server required to use the module.
Since Device Manager for WHMCS can control Cisco Switch port you may switch on or off the port based in WHMCS confiugration or manual process. You can easily create a product name called "Cross Connect" and add this to a Device Manager for WHCMS for inventory tracking and, if desirable, do bandwidth billing based in transfer (egress, ingress or total).
Cross connect tracking would also be an important addition. Ubersmith does this currently but there are many of us in the Datacenter World that would like to leave them for another platform. If WHMCS did device tracking for cabinets, servers, switches, and cross-connects it would be a real game changer for us.
Hello,

Here is a suitable solution for what you require: http://www.hostingmodules.com/devicemanager.php

This WHMCS Module manages Cisco switches enabling service management, automation and bandwidth tracking.

General Features:

  • Automation of suspension and unsuspension of dedicated servers and colocation .
  • Dedicated server and colocation inventory list.
  • Bandwidth Graphs for Admin Area and Client Area.