8 problems of VPS providers and how to solve them

VPS hosting is a competitive business. As providers enter the contest with each other for customers, the prices go down. But apart from low cost, buyers are also on the lookout for quality service: with appropriate speed, stability and convenience. Today we will discuss 8 obstacles to offering VPS service, and see how VMmanager helps to eliminate them.

Outdated panels take it forever to deliver a VPS. Users, on the other hand, have no intention of delving into technical details. They simply expect the service once they have paid. You pay for the server – you expect to be able to start working immediately. Any delay causes frustration.

VMmanager delivers a VPS fast: about 1.5 minutes for Linux-based OS and 2 minutes for Windows. The panel determines precisely the available resources on each node, and avoids launching a virtual machine on an overloaded server. Therefore, if the installation process has started, it will be sure to complete soon.

Customers most often order a VPS for a website, proxy, CRM or other tasks. Buying VPS with pre-installed software from provider adds extra convenience. The only problem then is speed. Conventional control panels first create a virtual machine, then install OS on the machine from image, and only then install extra software via scripts. The whole process takes from 15 to 60 minutes.

VMmanager creates a pre-configured VPS much faster. This is achieved through the capability of creating complete disk images. Provider configures the required software on a virtual machine and saves its image. New VPS from this image will be configured identically and deployed equally fast on a virtual machine with OS.

Customers expect not only fast server delivery, but also quick problem solving. When a VPS is created without a panel, or with an outdated panel, customers contact support with any type of requests: to re-install the OS, add extra software, configure the networks. The questions are many, staff fails to cope in time, and customers with less critical problems are left waiting.

With VMmanager, each customer has his/her own access to the panel. A modern interface is easy to navigate. User will be able to find how to turn on, turn off, or restart the server, how to log into the VNC client and launch the restoration mode, if required. Throughout all this time, the provider's support service has the time to resolve more complicated issues.

Conventional control panels are good at coping with moderate load, but when more than 500 virtual machines are being created, they tend to work slower or fail altogether. To avoid this, providers set up a number of panels. This is inconvenient and the efficiency of resources use is less than perfect.

VMmanager works stably and fast even if provider has as many as 5,000 virtual machines. The trick is how the tasks are managed: they are executed as deferred tasks, in isolation from each other. The panel compiles an optimized task queue and certain types of tasks are executed in parallel. When something goes wrong, not the entire system, but only one operation is affected.

Customer's projects are always under threat. A DDoS attack, a virus or an incorrect script may quickly bring a virtual machine down. Without knowing the cause, customer tends to blame the provider.

VMmanager controls the load on servers and virtual machines: keeps track of memory use, processor and hard drive load, network traffic. When the load reaches critical level, the panel will inform the administrator. Load graphs are shown on the dashboard, in nodes and virtual machines lists, as well as on cards. Soon VMmanager will feature a problem alert system. The administrator will be getting alerts via messengers and email.

Once the problem has been detected, we need to find its root cause and fix quickly. When virtual machines are created without a panel, the cause can only be found via the command line. Going through the possibilities takes time. Customer is kept waiting.

In VMmanager, all operations are displayed in the Tasks List. It contains the information about ongoing and completed operations with virtual machines, nodes, OS templates. Regularities can be derived based on task execution time: the amount of time taken by a particular operation and who initiated it. If an operation ends with an error, its log is displayed in the interface. In case of script failure, the error log will be displayed as well. The action path becomes evident immediately.

Providers are rarely limited to their own infrastructure only: apart from own servers, they offer capacities of major data centers in other countries. Different locations mean different clusters. A separate panel needs to be created for each cluster. This is definitely inconvenient.

VMmanager supports managing multiple clusters at the same time. Provider can manage servers in different locations from a single panel. Virtual machines lists can be sorted by nodes or clusters.

Equipment may eventually age and malfunction. To restore website and service capability, you need backups. Backups will also be useful for preventive maintenance: while one server is being maintained, the project is running on another server. In these matters, a lot will depend on how exactly backups are created.

VMmanager uses image technology for backups. They are created without stopping the virtual machine. The image can be used to restore a damaged VPS or deploy a VPS copy on a new server.

Quality service is a competitive advantage of any VPS provider. VMmanager will enable you to offer exactly that: through fast delivery and stable operation of VPSes. Don't just take our word for it, test the panel yourself.