VPS.one's experience
Transition from hand-crafted scripts to production platform: the history of automating the international hosting using VMmanager and BILLmanager
About the company: background
VPS.one is an international hosting provider specializing in KVM-based virtual servers (VPS) with SSD drives and full root access. The company works with clients worldwide, focusing on developers and small and medium-sized businesses that need predictable resources, transparent pricing, and control over their infrastructure without the excessive “cloud-enterprise” complexity.
VPS.one's infrastructure is located in Tier III data centers in Europe – the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Serbia – with the option to choose a location when ordering a server. The company offers over 10 Linux distributions, payment options by the day, month, or year, accepts bank cards, WebMoney and crypto currency, and provides 24/7 technical support.
How the IT unit is structured
The IT function at VPS.one is distributed, but essentially represents a single product and technical unit of 10–12 people, divided into several key areas:
| Area | Function |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure team | Servers and networks in data centers, virtualization, backup, and monitoring |
| Platform team (DevOps) | Deployment of control panels, billing integration, VPS lifecycle automation, CI/CD |
| Support 24/7 (L1/L2) | Working with clients via the ticket system: configuring OS, control panels, migrations, performance issues |
| Product and analytics | Monitoring metrics (conversion, load, revenue), launching and testing new tariffs and locations, and special offers |
The main tasks of the IT department:
- maintain stability and predictable performance of the VPS infrastructure;
- quickly scale capacity to accommodate increasing load;
- ensure automation of all standard operations (creation/transfer/deletion of VPS, billing, document flow);
- provide marketing and sales with a predictable, manageable product.
Project architecture: before and after ISPsystem integration
At the start, the project was developing rather crudely by the standards of a professional hosting provider:
- Linux KVM-based hypervisors in several European data centers;
- virtualization management through a combination of Proxmox and custom scripts/utilities;
- management of IP addresses and configurations in separate tables and files, and partially in the monitoring system;
- in-house development of billing and personal account with basic integration of payment gateways, without flexible per minute/per day tariffs;
- tickets and support via email and a separate helpdesk, not connected to billing.
IT resources interacted poorly with each other: a separate virtualization platform, separate billing, and separate IP and ticket management tools. Any upgrade or tariff change required edits in multiple areas, and the automation of the VPS lifecycle was heavily dependent on custom scripts.
After the implementation of ISPsystem products, the architecture became significantly more integrated:
| Component | Role in infrastructure |
|---|---|
| VMmanager | Manages KVM hypervisor clusters in data centers in the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Serbia: controlling nodes, OS templates, creating/deleting VPS, managing resource |
| BILLmanager | A focal point for billing, tariffs, orders, renewals, balance management, referral programs, and financial reporting. |
| Personal account | Built on top of BILLmanager and linked to VMmanager. VPS ordering and management occur without a gap between billing and infrastructure. |
| Payment systems and tickets | Integrated into a single BILLmanager framework, service statuses are bidirectionally synchronized with VMmanager |
As a result, much of the logic that was previously implemented through custom scripts and manual operations has been moved to the standard functionality of ISPsystem platforms, with additional customization for specific VPS.one scenarios.
Challenge: why a new platform was needed
By the time VPS.one began searching for a solution, they had accumulated several critical issues that were hindering their business development.
Fragmentation and manual operations
Creating and modifying VPSs in multiple data centers occurred in different ways: in some cases through the Proxmox interface, in others through the CLI and custom scripts. This increased the number of errors, complicated the onboarding of new employees, and slowed down the response to increased demand.
Limitations of custom billing
The old billing system provided poor support for:
- pay per day – a key feature of VPS.one;
- flexible discounts and promotions;
- work with multiple payment systems and currencies;
- normal accounting of service validity periods and automatic renewal.
No unified picture for a client
The ticket system existed separately from the billing. Support team did not have a single window for viewing customer services, payments, request history, and technical operations. This made it difficult to maintain a high level of service and resolve issues quickly.
Scaling difficulties
With the emergence of new sites in Europe, it became clear that the current combination of "custom billing + Proxmox + scripts" does not scale well and is difficult to manage when expanding geographically.
The VPS.one business model is based on:
- high level of automation (so that operating costs do not increase as the number of VPS grows);
- rapid introduction of new tariffs and locations;
- 24/7 support and predictable SLA.
Without a stable management and billing platform, the company was hitting a growth ceiling and risking a decline in service quality.
Why ISPsystem was selected
When choosing a solution, foreign SaaS solutions, open panels in conjunction with external billing systems, and other options were considered.
Several factors played in ISPsystem's favor:
- The deep integration of VMmanager and BILLmanager creates a unified ecosystem for virtualization and billing without the need to patch up disparate products.
- Flexible billing supports various payment models, discounts, promo codes, and advanced reporting, which is critical for marketing and unit economics.
- Data control provides the ability to fully deploy solutions on your infrastructure.
- Expert support and documentation during the testing phase made it possible for the ISPsystem team to quickly respond to questions and assist with complex integration scenarios.
ISPsystem products used and key functionality
VMmanager is a platform for creating high availability virtualization environmentVMmanager manages KVM hypervisor clusters in VPS.one's European data centers and provides:
automatic creation, reboot, shutdown, and deletion of VPS based on commands from the billing system;
storage and deployment of more than 10 Linux distribution templates (AlmaLinux, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, etc.);
single-interface management of resources (CPU/RAM/SSD), limits, network settings and IP addresses.
BILLmanager is used as the basis for VPS.one clients' personal accounts, and covers the full billing and support cycle:
registration, ordering services, renewal, payment history, document flow;
implementation of tariff plans with payment by days, months and years, as well as special offers;
integration with multiple payment channels (bank cards, WebMoney, crypto currency), which is critical for an international audience;
a built-in ticket system that provides 24/7 support for specific client services and payments.
This integration allows the customer to cover the entire cycle: from the tariff storefront on the website to the automatic deployment of a virtual machine, its renewal, suspension, and support work – without the need to maintain multiple, overlapping, custom-written systems.
Takeaways: how ISPsystem products helped business
Who works with products
| Role | Product | How to use |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure team and DevOps | VMmanager | Manage nodes, OS templates, incident diagnostics, capacity planning |
| Support team and billing specialists | BILLmanager | View clients’ services, issue invoices, process tickets, manage payments and renewals |
| Marketing and product team | BILLmanager | Revenue analysis by tariffs and locations, planning special offers and changes to the product range |
Service life
The transition to ISPsystem solutions and their production use took several months. The VMmanager + BILLmanager bundle has been operating in production mode for over a year. During this time, the company gradually expanded to its main geographic locations and introduced new tariffs.
Key takeaways: 5 main effects
Based on internal assessments and metrics, VPS.one have achieved the following:
Reduced time to render a service
The time from payment to receiving a ready-made VPS has been reduced to less than a minute, regardless of the data center selected. Previously, some deployments required operator intervention or script verification.
Reduced operational load
The share of manual operations when creating/modifying VPS and managing IP resources has been reduced by approximately 30–40%. This made it possible to avoid increasing staff as the number of active VPSs increased.
Improved customer experience
Owing to a unified personal account and ticket system, the number of disrupted requests and repeat inquiries from clients has decreased. The quality of the initial reply and the time to solve typical problems have become more predictable.
Flexible tariff policy
Marketing now has the ability to quickly launch and test new tariffs, payment periods, and promotions without engaging developers in rewriting custom billing systems.
Preparation to scaling
Having a standardized management and billing platform made us more confident in planning the launch of new locations and services (VPS storage, gaming scenarios, dedicated VPN tariffs, and others) without the risk of disrupting the existing infrastructure.
Further plans
VPS.one continues to develop along with the ISPsystem ecosystem. The company’s roadmap includes:
- geographical expansion with the addition of new data centers;
- launch of new product ranges (Storage VPS, dedicated tariffs);
- further automation of operational processes;
- strengthening the position in the international VPS hosting market.
Opinion
CTO of VPS.one