New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
entry level server for VPS nodes?
I run a small web host mainly selling shared hosting. Some of our customers have been asking for VPS but we do not currently offer so have always setup through 3rd party.
We're in a position now we can invest in some more servers so we're looking to expand and potentially sell our own VPS.
I am looking to strike a balance between cost and scalability.
Going 'all out' spending lots with massive overheads and only a few potential VPS clients to begin with. (ie.. making a loss)
Or going too cheap hitting a bottleneck before we even get off the ground.
I guess I'm looking for some hardware specs that strike a balance?
How can I calculate how many VPS nodes I can fit on each server?
Thanks in advance.
Comments
Your looking to buy the HW or lease it ?, if leasing maybe I can set you up with a nice deal that would include a /26 to get you started.
Regarding how many VPSs you can fit on a server it depends if its KVM or OVZ, are you looking for quality or quantity ?
Before you even think about hardware these days, you have to lock down network. IPv4 is becoming scarce, hardware doesn't do you any good unless you have a steady supply of IPs that doesn't break the bank.
Get a VPS reseller account to get started. Minimal investment. Some even have a WHMCS plugin and/or white labeled control panel. BudgetVM has a nice reseller setup.
If you've never done VPS before, be aware that everyone is used to having WHMCS and SolusVM- and it needs to be deployed yesterday for a $3/mo service.
Or, you could do like so many folks seem to and resell OVH.
Dediserve, BudgetVM etc are good options for VPS reseller accounts. But if you still want to go your own dedi way, do remember that there will be extra costs (license for the VPS panel, IPs, management etc).
Do you have any specific location in mind for the base of your VPS?
Do you know if you want to run OpenVZ, KVM, Xen or...?
Varies depending on the packages offered and the customers usage; there is no ideal golden ratio unless you don't oversell to some degree.
@lunah
It really depends on what your budget it. Do you have a number set in mind on what you are willing to spend a month.
Best option would be to just get going with a VPS reseller program. This way you have no expense until you sell a VPS.
If you want to go the route of having your own dedicated server. You will also need to keep in mind on cost. You will have server cost, Ip cost, depending if you use solusvm or virtuozzo to set up the VPS.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Been down that road so if in turn we can help someone with info with our lessons learned we will be glad to help.
Also since you're a small operation, installing Proxmox on your dedicated server then creating a KVM instance for your web server and creating individual OpenVZ VMs might be worth considering. I've done this. 16-32GB RAM cPanel/CloudLinux KVM works nicely. Finding a Proxmox WHMCS module for VM control is tricky though but one of the Modules* (cant remember "Factory" or "Garden") sites had a decent one that I tried.
Thanks for the replies.
@RapidDedi Looking to lease, we have some dedicated at the moment but all housing shared accounts. Where are your servers located?
@Microlinux didn't even think about IPs to be honest, just assumed they would be supplied (at a cost) via the Dedicated lease company.. I'm aware the IPv4 price is going up due to short supply?
@doughmanes Thanks for the suggestion, will look into budgetVPS. As long as the entire process is whitelabeled and fully integrated it could be a good shout.
@WWS We have a licence for WHMCS and SolusVM
@quadhost Europe would be preferred
@CenTexHosting we haven't set a budget yet. The right solution at the right price would preferred... not knowing what that is, it's hard to budget.
@doughmanes Do you mean cohabiting.. cPanel accounts and VM on same server?
BudgetVM
>
Sent you a PM.
@lunah You have PM.
If you are going with the reseller packages I'd look for one with a management API or similar to assist with automation.
I'd also think twice about deploying based on SolusVM based on their current state, see @AnthonySmith s comment history for some insight.
The things to be concerned with are cost and availability. You might not be able to get as many IPs as you need at any price from some vendors.