Setting International Hosting for 40k Servers Using ISPsystem Ecosystem Products
About the client
PQ.Hosting is a major hosting provider whose international business has been running since 2019. They provide allkinds of hosting services, including VMs, dedicated servers, web‑hosting, VPN,DNS.
They are a member of RIPE, the worldwide association of Internet registrars with more than 250 Gb of sustained Internet traffic use.
PQ.Hosting owns more than 1,000 server nodes. Their servers are available for leasing in 35 data centers globally, and the list of countries is constantly growing.
There are more than 40,000 active serversin their client base. These are used by both small to mid-size businesses and big companies with virtual IT infrastructure that covers 1,500+ devices.
250GB
Internet
registrars
1000
server
nodes
35
data centers
globally
40 000
active serves in
their client base
Project background
As hosting services popularity is growing, so is the pool of hosting providers. The market has produced new players and the competition among them is high.
Here is what a client wants from hosting provider in today’s market:
- Reliability. Provider needs to ensure high availability and guarantee server time in operation.
- Speed. The faster the server is, the better the web-site works. Hence user experience will be positive.
- Support. Provider needs to ensure 24/7 all-round support.
- Service integrity and variability:
- Virtual hosting is when multiple users work simultaneously on one server, they are interdependent and extremely limited in their capabilities and resources.
- VDS/VPS or virtual server is aservice that offers the advantages of a dedicated server even for small projects.
- Dedicated server is a physical server that user can lease in full. In general, these are needed for large projects.
- SaaS technologies are state-of-the-art cloud applications supplied to users as a service.
Fast and reliable hardware managed by experienced personnel forms the basis to meeting these client requirements.
Meanwhile, usable and functional software allows to:
- make service ordering easier for clients;
- be flexible in service scaling with regard to new emerging requirements (driven by clients, market and/or state);
- use hybrid systems that cover multiple demands;
- offer high level of support.
PQ.Hosting project concept was to make hosting services as efficient for end-user as possible, regardless of geography and demands, that is: easier to select and pay for the services, less costly to create and configure, quicker to provide support and more flexible to address unconventional business-related tasks.
Project tasks and objectives
PQ.Hosting required integrated software solution, which would allow to launch commercial services quickly, optimize business and automate provisioning of all kinds of hosting services to clients of any size from anywhere globally.
Another key criterion for selection of software supplier for client’s business was ecosystem-based approach aimed at managing various products efficiently in a single interface.
Tasks:
- find a solution for hosting service sales automation (VPS/VDS, VDC, dedicated servers, colocation), IT services provisioning and account keeping;
- find a solution for virtualization management;
- find a solution for dedicated server provisioning;
- find a solution that allows for additional services and customization based on unconventional business-related tasks;
- find a solution that can be integrated with other solutions and manageable in a single interface.
Project solution
ISPsystem ecosystem is used for provisioning of full-cycle hosting services and IT infrastructure management in the project.
BILLmanager billing platform helps automating service provisioning. It makes the pool of dedicated tools available to the provider aimed at:
- payment acceptance and monitoring, integration with acquiring services;
- various tariff schemes (based on guaranteed resources, based on consumption statistics and others);
- work from client profile that allows to order and manage services, apply for support;
- geographically distributed IT infrastructure support;
- marketing tools: notifications, mailings, promotions;
- built-in support system (notifications and FAQ);
- built-in BI tools for analytical reporting.
The platform also enables leasing of computing resources to clients by virtue of integration with other ISPsystem ecosystem products.
For instance, BILLmanager integration with VMmanager virtualization management platform enables the following out-of-the-box:
- automate ordering and provisioning of virtual resources (virtual machines);
- manage virtual IT infrastructure in a single interface (monitor all global virtual servers in a single panel);
- monitor cluster nodes (server nodes) status;
- monitor each virtual server statistics;
- keep account of IP addresses;
- create scripts for VMs;
- monitor load and redistribute virtual machines between cluster nodes by preventing any issues using built-in Balancer service;
- decrease support workload through automation of billing, acceptance of payments and reporting.
Leasing and management of dedicated servers, traffic and power consumption monitoring directly from BILLmanager are through integration with DCImanager, another ISPsystem ecosystem platform.
This way, automation of and accounting for all available resources are achieved. This refers both to physical equipment and to virtual and cloud environments. Depending on client’s needs, integration with any IT infrastructure software can be implemented using open API.
Distinctive features of project solutions
Ecosystem-based approach
Hosting market is anything but young, and there are many individual products for infrastructure management, client panels and billing systems. One feature that all these products have in common is their ability to address one task only.
Ecosystem, on the contrary, is intended to address various integrated business-related tasks of a hosting provider.
ISPsystem platforms work as an integrated system. They are modular products. They are easy to deploy, operate and integrate with one another thus addressing key tasks of business hosting: quick implementation, convenient management and easy billing.
Quick entrance and hosting service launch
The solutions are suitable for any size of infrastructure, from small hosting providers to major cloud owners. Even for budgets that differ by an order of magnitude, management and administration tools will be equally usable and efficient.
It took us only a week to deploy the project by virtue of ISPsystem platforms usable interface and simple modular integration of ecosystem products. This is including the period of license purchase, test connection and further project launch to production.
Also PQ.Hosting project launch did not require an extensive headcount. The launch was implemented by two engineers from the client’s team.
Geographically distributed systems
It has been a while since one data center was sufficient for modern day hosting infrastructure. Clients need the last mile to be fast, and business needs the highest availability.
For instance, PQ.Hosting data centers are located in Moldova, Netherlands, USA, Latvia, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, Slovakia, Czechia, Great Britain, Israel, Turkey, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Ireland, France, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Belgium and Iceland.
Geographically distributed systems increase service reliability mitigating provider’s financial risks and supporting compliance with demanding requirements of SLA.
ISPsystem products intended for infrastructure management are scalable in parallel with the project. If you need new locations, they can be added to control panel easily and without extra cost to become a part of single IT system.
10, 20, 50, 100 global locations - the number of data centers equipped by any suppliers is unlimited. Single access point for control, monitoring and inventory management of all equipment with differentiation of access rights and logging of all actions.
Multifunctional solution to business-related tasks
It used to take one specific solution to address each business-related task. Nowadays clients prefer solutions, whose flexible functionality can be used to implement both main business scenarios and additional unconventional tasks.
For instance, VMmanager virtualization management platform enables background analysis of client’s virtual resources and detection of malware.
To achieve this, client’s team has created their own scripts for virtual machines, and used these scripts as well as VMmanager built-in integration with QEMU Guest Agent to monitor all virtual servers without the need to connect to them directly from the platform interface.
It is worth noting that more than 700 server nodes are managed from VMmanager single interface in this project. Integrated monitoring of key indicators and early recognition of critical deviations is crucial for this amount of resources. For instance, if any of server components fails to function, the client can detect configuration error at an early stage and migrate VM to another cluster node using built-in “live migration” function without the need to interrupt operation.
Another example of multipurpose approach to business-related tasks is application of DCImanager multivendor IT infrastructure management platform in the project.
It allows the client to cover scenarios in two areas:
administration and management of dedicated servers by clients; unassisted control over own global infrastructure (the client does not need to enter a specific panel of a specific server of a specific country to have the devices in all locations fully monitored through a single platform. The monitored parameters range from server name and its connection to temperature indication and other data.
Flexible improvements and customization
Billing system is the key element of hosting provider integrated automation. It is important that this element is not only efficient, scalable, multifunctional, multipurpose and integratable, but also adaptable to client’s business model.
BILLmanager is off-the-shelf solution that does not presume any development costs and has multiple “out-of-the-box” integrations with various payment systems and software. If needed, this platform also allows to create additional module and thus change the system operation business logic.
BILLmanager open API may be used to scale servers with flexible tariffs, obtain information about payments and withdrawals from the account as well as for other purposes. The client can develop a module virtually for any payment system, domain registar, SMS gateway and other systems.
In particular, PQ.Hosting team extensively uses the platform flexible customization options to write modules for custom-made payment system in various geographical locations.
Among these options, the platform enables interface branding depending on the client’s corporate style. API can be used to write your own front-end and connect it to billing back-end.
Additional services
All ISPsystem ecosystem products used in the project allow to deploy additional services for clients and increase the average bill.
For instance, PQ.Hosting used VMmanager to deploy the service for provisioning of VPN server using SaaS model. The platform already includes ready-to-go templates and tools to launch this service.
Meanwhile, this service ordering, configuring and provisioning is made through BILLmanager interface. Provider’s client obtains a ready-to-go VPN and deliberately disengages from virtual machine guest operating system administration.
Owing to the extensive pool of various templates from VMmanager repository (both ISPsystem out-of-the-box templates and those developed and integrated by the client) the client can perform unassisted deployment of additional services, including several types of VPN servers, proxy servers and other services.
Implementation take-aways and further plans
PQ.Hosting team has been successfully implementing all types of hosting services for more than four years, while its representation in various countries has been growing and its business turnover has been doubling on a year-to-year basis.
This has become possible owing to the use of ISPsystem platforms in the project. Not only they are tailored to address hosting providers tasks, but also efficient in combination as a single ecosystem with the synergetic effect.
So the recipe for quick launch of commercial services is simple:
- DCImanager for equipment management and dedicated server provisioning;
- VMmanager for VDS/VPS provisioning and virtualization;
- BILLmanager for IT service sales, service management and reporting.
Besides, standard platform application scenarios, the logic of solving business-related tasks and improved functionality have been implemented in ISPsystem solutions to address present day business needs and user feedback.
Company’s roadmap includes its own IT infrastructure scaling in new geographical locations and expanding the pool of functions in ISPsystem ecosystem solutions.
Opinion
“For us it was important that ISPsystem solutions are in line with ecosystem-based approach. It was outright clear to us that they will make the launch simpler, because everything works in combination. There is no need to make things work together or configure anything. The fact the team has got detailed technical documents was a large contribution to our selection of the supplier“
PQ.Hosting CEO