YorkHost experience
How YorkHost automated dedicated server management with DCImanager
About the company
(YORKHOST SAS, AS199415) is a French hosting provider specializing in game server hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers. The company serves around 2,500 clients across Europe.
YorkHost operates its own network and IP space with colocation presence in two Paris data centers: DC2SCALE PAR3 and Equinix PA6. The network includes its own BGP edge routers based on Cisco Nexus 9000, as well as multiple transit and Internet Exchange (IX) connections.
The infrastructure team is small and hands-on. The team designs, racks, cables, and operates the entire infrastructure in-house, from the network layer to virtualization and billing stack.
Infrastructure architecture before and after the project
YorkHost’s virtualization layer runs on Proxmox VE clusters. HostBill is used for billing and service provisioning and WISP/Pterodactyl for game server management.
Before implementing DCImanager, bare-metal servers were managed manually: IPMI access per machine, manual OS installs, manual IP assignment. There was no unified inventory of the dedicated server fleet.
Today, DCImanager serves as the bare-metal management layer of the infrastructure. It is integrated with Proxmox and HostBill and operates on top of YorkHost’s own network infrastructure, including Cisco Nexus 9000 and access switches, as well as the IPMI network.
The challenge: scaling dedicated server provisioning
Dedicated servers are a growing revenue stream for YorkHost, but the previous manual provisioning process did not scale with the business.
Each server delivery required several manual steps, including working with IPMI, installing the operating system, and configuring the network. This increased delivery times and created a risk of human error.
As the dedicated server business grew, YorkHost needed to automate routine provisioning and infrastructure management while keeping its existing architecture in place.
Why DCImanager
YorkHost needed to automate routine bare-metal operations without changing its existing infrastructure. DCImanager provided the required tools for automated OS deployment, centralized IPMI and console access, power management, and server inventory.
It was the most complete solution available on the market and matched the client’s requirements for the project, which is why YorkHost chose it.
Implementation process
The deployment of DCImanager took one month. The setup took roughly some days, including racking integration, IPMI network configuration and switch discovery.
The YorkHost team also developed a custom console proxy in front of DCImanager using HAProxy. This allows customers to access server consoles through YorkHost’s own reverse proxy layer.
The resulting setup integrates DCImanager into the existing infrastructure without replacing the systems already used for virtualization, billing, and game server management.
Results: faster delivery and less manual work
DCImanager is used daily by YorkHost’s infrastructure and support teams for the dedicated server fleet. It handles automated OS reinstalls, IPMI and console access, power management, and inventory.
Key results:
Dedicated servers are now one of YorkHost’s main commercial priorities. DCImanager provides the management layer that allows the company to grow this part of the business without increasing manual work.
Now the company plans to continue adding dedicated servers and commercializing new ones relying on DCImanager.
Opinion
DCImanager has become part of our day-to-day server operations. We use it to handle OS deployment and reinstalls, IPMI and console access, and server inventory. This allows our infrastructure and support teams to manage our dedicated server fleet without changing our existing setup. Overall, it’s all good for us.
CEO, Lead & Founder