Data Center Geeks Hub

Many web hosting providers wonder if selling dedicated servers is a good idea. On the one hand, dedicated server sales generate more revenue per unit than shared or VPS hosting. On the other hand, the technical knowledge and financial investment necessary to offer dedicated servers can become an issue if done in a hurry. As with most things, there are trade-offs with selling dedicated servers. Calculating if this product fits your business offer requires more than a simple checklist. Concentrating on your business goals, existing resources, and ideal customer set is crucial when considering whether or not to sell dedicated servers. Selling dedicated servers vs. selling shared hosting Dedicated servers require various investments, buying or reselling hardware, expanding to a clientele that will spend more money, and technical ability that is different than spinning up a VPS and selling small chunks via inexpensive shared hosting. This post will address what goes into adding dedicated servers to your hosting business and answer the question: "Would it be difficult for my web hosting company to sell dedicated servers?" From technical know-how to marketing, we will explore how to sell dedicated servers and help determine if this exciting product makes sense for your next venture. Requirements of selling dedicated servers Technical know-how required Unlike virtualized technology where the web hosting provider's responsibility often starts at the hypervisor, with a dedicated server you may also be responsible for the hardware itself. To sell dedicated servers you will need to have or gain access to a resource with deeper technological expertise than if you are only selling shared hosting. In most cases selling dedicated servers means understanding the physical machines themselves as well as their connectivity, power, and security. Investments and resources Selling shared hosting is fairly straightforward: set up a VPS and WHM along with a simple website and you have a fledgling web hosting company. Selling dedicated servers requires resources and investment into more powerful and more expensive hardware. Reseller programs from web hosts do provide access to dedicated servers if you do not want to purchase or lease your own hardware, but the investment in time and resources to sell them is significant. Marketing to a different clientele The customers seeking out dedicated servers search for something completely different than those choosing shared or even VPS hosting solutions. As the name implies, dedicated servers mean not sharing any server resources with other tenants. That means a higher price and thus a different set of customers than those used to paying a few dollars a month to host a personal website or blog. Dedicated servers typically cost well into the hundreds of dollars per month per server. Crafting a message and marketing plan that resonates with this type of buyer is key. Benefits of selling dedicated servers Dedicated servers provide upsell opportunity While technical know-how, more resources, and different marketing can be the hard parts of selling dedicated servers, there are some significant and worthwhile benefits as well. The most obvious one? Having a better, higher-performance solution for existing customers as their hosting needs grow. Most web hosting providers know the awful feeling of a customer leaving because the provider no longer has the product the customer needs. Dedicated servers provide a logical upsell path that reduces churn, increases revenue, and keeps customers happy for the long haul. Dedicated servers cover a wider range of customer needs Just as dedicated servers offer an opportunity to generate greater revenue and reduce churn, so too do they offer a way to address a wider and more varied range of customer needs. For example, imagine you have a business-class customer that chooses to invest in a new ERP system that requires a dedicated server. If this is not part of your product catalog then you run the risk of losing some or all of that customer's web hosting business to a provider that does offer dedicated servers. By offering this technology your hosting business becomes a viable option for almost all clients across industries with various hosting needs. Dedicated servers generate more revenue... and profit It is wonderful to have a natural upsell path for existing customers. It is also great to cover a wider range of customer needs. Another excellent potential outcome aligns with your web hosting company's goals: generating more revenue. Dedicated servers command a higher price point which can positively affect your business in many ways. A solution that generates hundreds or even thousands of dollars per unit of profit is considerably more profitable than shared hosting which can generate only a few dollars of profit per month per unit. Selling dedicated servers means you need fewer customers to reach similar financial goals and opens new areas of opportunity for your business. What you need to sell dedicated servers Despite initial assumptions, selling dedicated servers is not complicated once you understand what you need to be successful. Additionally, the benefits of selling these can substantially outweigh the challenges, particularly once you get your dedicated server offerings out to the market for the first time. In the most basic sense, you need three things to successfully expand your business offer to new and existing customers. Dedicated servers through purchase, lease, or reseller agreement First, you will need access to dedicated servers. In some cases, it makes sense to purchase or lease servers and take responsibility for their complete management, maintenance, and security. However, if you are new to selling this solution then we would suggest finding a reputable web hosting provider with a reseller program you can join. These programs typically include a generous gross margin for you when you resell a dedicated server. Additionally, reseller programs often leave the provider responsible for power, connectivity, and physical security for the dedicated servers. This means less for you to handle while still recognizing the benefits of selling this new solution. Software to manage dedicated server automation Next, a number of software offers including EasyDCIM can help automate a lot of the technical aspects of offering dedicated servers. For example, inventory counts and server provisioning can be handled by EasyDCIM. Tools like WHMCS and HostBill can help with billing. In fact, most of the actions necessary for the management and maintenance of your dedicated servers can be addressed with software. The right software can completely remove the need to do anything manually when it comes to the dedicated servers you are offering. A marketing plan to target new and existing customers Finally, to succeed in selling dedicated servers you will need a marketing plan or strategy to promote this new addition to your offer. Email newsletters announcing and promoting dedicated servers to existing customers can be very effective. Otherwise, the marketing channels you are already utilizing can be excellent for promoting dedicated servers, you simply have to fine-tune the messaging a bit. From targeting potential buyers with larger budgets to sharing potential use-cases where dedicated servers are the best option, different messages and audiences can lead to a significant increase in sales. Difficult or not? The conclusion Selling dedicated servers can feel difficult but in reality, it is not complicated in the slightest! With essentially the same amount of hard work as selling shared or VPS solutions, you can find success selling this higher-end solution. The challenge emerges when gaining access to the servers themselves, managing technical requirements, and getting the word out. Thankfully there are straightforward solutions for each of these. The decision if your business should offer dedicated servers ought to be driven by your business goals and the amount of time and attention you can offer to make such an initiative a success. To learn more about how automation software, including the EasyDCIM platform, can make selling dedicated servers easier for you, feel free to reach out to us. We would love the chance to work with you as you begin offering dedicated servers to both new and existing customers. Contact us!

Considered "so good, there's simply no reason to not use it", Debian 11, with quite a suggestive nickname "bullseye", has become our next prime target as soon as it popped up on our radar back in 2021. It immediately seemed clear to us that turning integration with this particular Debian distribution into an official feature of EasyDCIM would be... a bullseye (pardon the pun). But what precisely does the transition from Debian 9 mean for EasyDCIM, and how does it justify calling the platform's 1.9.0 version a game-changer on so many functional levels? We're about to find out! The mother of all Ubuntu-based distributions Among all Linux distributions you could possibly think of, Debian, with almost three decades of growth, is continuously being ranked as the most stable and versatile one. Its leading position on the global stage can best be illustrated by the fact that other no less known distributions such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, etc. can find their roots in Debian. Did you know? Each Debian release gets a codename from a Toy Story character. In like manner, it is Woody's wild west horse from Toy Story 2 that has officially become the face of Debian 11. Eleven is your new lucky number Debian 11 premiered officially on August 14th, 2021 and, just like all previous releases, is going to be actively maintained for the next 5 years. And to give you a scale of how fruitful two years, one month and nine days of development can be - "bullseye" contains over 11,294 new packages out of an impressive number of 59,551 ready-to-use packages overall in Debian's repositories. As you can easily guess, it's quite impossible to do Debian 11 justice in just a few words, but we'll happily use this limited space to discuss the most impactful changes (as if we haven't already done so dozens of times in the office), which we believe are: Linux kernel 5.10 series with support for the exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) filesystem used by default to mount exFAT filesystems. Several desktop environments, such as: Gnome 3.38, KDE Plasma 5.20, LXDE 11, LXQt 0.16, MATE 1.24, and Xfce 4.16. A huge variety of updated software packages, including: Apache, BIND DNS Server, Emacs, GIMP, LibreOffice, MariaDB, OpenSSH, Perl, PHP, PostgreSQL, Python, Rust, Samba, and Vim. The powerful combination of EasyDCIM v1.9.0 and Debian 11 will not fail to produce a vast range of benefits, with higher security and faster performance being those particularly welcome. A word of caution: Debian 9 "stretch" goes End of Life (EOL) on June 30th, 2022, and as such, will not receive any security updates after this date. In consequence, Debian 11 will from now on be the only supported system on which EasyDCIM can be installed. Our documentation has been updated with detailed guidelines that will walk you through migrating from Debian 9 according to the method you find suitable. EasyDCIM has got your back! Secondly, to ensure that you are never left without access to effective protection in the event of e.g. system failure, OS Installation extension returns in the 1.9.6 version with an updated equipment meant to help you with various admin tasks: Clonezilla 2.8.1-12 Memtest86+ 5.31b GParted 1.3.1 Hiren's BootCD PE 1.0.2 A new face of power outlet management Another bold feature of EasyDCIM v1.9.0 puts the spotlight on the range of PDU drivers which has been momentously expanded to cover a new driver supporting Dell rPDUs devices. The list of available actions handled by PDU Management v1.2.2 extension include, inter alia, automatic device detection with easy viewing of key parameters as well as power usage monitoring simplified with a graph.   While we focused on highlighting Debian 11 support along with a few other newcomers in EasyDCIM v1.9.0 that we're personally most thrilled about, the changelog will, as always, detail every single kind of modernization that the platform has gone through. If you are eager to figure out which one is your own favorite, there's only one quick step left for you to take: View the Full Changelog!

As a data center owner, spare time isn’t likely something you have at hand in overly large amounts. There are quite a few things we imagine that you have a lot of though... like tasks to accomplish, and deadlines to meet. So how not to break down under the strain of overwork and carry through the business chores in a shorter time? With EasyDCIM v1.8.3 of course! Leap into (bulk) action! We would not do justice to the mightily time-saving nature of this just finished 1.8.3 release without turning the spotlight on a brand-new feature empowering you to add devices or items in bulk. The "Mass Add" tool has been introduced to free you from the repetitive, mundane task of manually creating inventory items one by one... We're getting a headache just thinking about it. Fortunately, those rough times are over, as now you can easily - and above all quickly - add as many devices or items of the same type as you only need. If you take a good look around this new set of equipment, you certainly won’t fail to spot an additional option for managing the bulk import from a CSV file. The possibility to import data about all your devices and items at once will come in particularly useful for new EasyDCIM users during the early phase of migration from other systems. And to make this entire process as comfortable as it is express, the form of the table with inventory elements mirrors that of the world-popular Google Sheets (with all proportions intact). Next chapter of visual makeover What only adds to the modern look and feel of EasyDCIM, manifested specifically in the visually pleasing 1.8.0 edition, is a new driver based on "Chart.js" that has been implemented to handle interactive graphs in the backend. Naturally, previous graph types are still supported, so you can freely specify in the global system settings which one exactly you would like to apply. Apart from an even more tasteful model of data visualization, the update is also responsible for enriching the repertoire of available graphs with as many as 13 new ones, presenting such important insights as: Aggregate Traffic Average Packet Size Load Network Traffic Percent Utilization Ping Power Usage Remote Agent Status Remote Poller Performance Status Traffic Unicast Packets User Aggregate Traffic Greater controllability at hand Is he using his port too much again? No worries, you no longer have to stand idly by. Because next time one of your customers starts generating a high traffic on their Arista VEOS device, you can simply change the allowed speed of their port to a lower one. All credit goes to Switch Management For EasyDCIM v1.4.1. Working hard will only get you far but working smart will propel your business to heights you have never even dreamed of. The changelog will take it from here to bring you up to speed on other newly established powers within EasyDCIM v1.8.3. Enjoy! View the Full Changelog!

For a rapidly growing control panel that deals with countless types of data center operations on a daily basis, keeping up with the times seems to be the only right New Year’s resolution. And even though we are still a few days away from officially stepping into 2022 with this very goal close at heart, we are closing the EasyDCIM’s busiest year of development yet with a true cherry on top - a spanking-new 1.8.2 release which apart from following the current trends and customer expectations, progresses in leaps and bounds into the future, especially in the field of effective control over switch devices. VLAN management got smarter… again! Juniper was today joined by the switches based on the HPE Comware Software and Arista VEOS systems in the group of officially supported devices. Just like the previous addition, this pair of newly implemented drivers is responsible for allowing you to manage VLANs as well as toggle the network ports on and off without the need to use any other protocols. Switch Management For EasyDCIM, with its latest 1.4.0 edition, is an extension where all the key actions on VLANs happen, including that of: VLAN addition, VLAN assignment to the network port (either singly or in bulk), automatic detection during the device’s polling process. Let all those craving an even more sophisticated understanding of the subject feel cordially invited to explore our documentation loaded with various business-critical insights. Zero in on furthered Proxmox VE support Another major step up for the automatic OS installation has been scored by adding the leading-edge generation 7.1 of Proxmox Virtual Environment to the rich portfolio of system templates - all for your clients to acquire instant access to a number of functional capabilities of this ultra-modern platform for virtual machines and containers management. But that’s not the only reason why we are bringing OS Installation For EasyDCIM right before your eyes today – let’s not forget that Debian 11 "bullseye" system template also forms a central part of the extension’s fine-tuned 1.9.5 update. Feeling tempted to delve much deeper into this brand-new spot on the EasyDCIM’s growth map, and learn how to work the above described along with multiple other supplies of freshly unlocked powers straight into your data center business? View the Full Changelog!

Now that the quality graphics of "Locations" and "Floors & Racks" sections have smoothly blended into your everyday workflows, making your admin experience as aesthetically pleasing as it is technologically advanced, the timing is perfect to unlock more doors to EasyDCIM's functional growth. Though the expanded PDU management capacities alone can elevate it to the must-have status, this article highlights a few more reasons why the all-new EasyDCIM v1.8.1 deserves every ounce of attention it can get. Raritan takes the stage What many shall view as the centerpiece of this stand-out release - and quite rightly so - is PDU Management For EasyDCIM v1.2.1 which has had its collection of PDU drivers enlarged with support for Raritan devices - more specifically, for their PX2 and PX3 series. Something to think about: Raritan’s intelligent solutions have been chosen by more than 60,000 data centers around the globe - including 9 of the top 10 Fortune 500 technology companies. Among the key features that we developed with Raritan’s PX PDUs in mind you will find, for example, detecting devices along with their key parameters via the Auto-Discovering process, controlling the status of power outlets as well as collecting real-time data on power usage in graph form. Two more reasons to appreciate JAVA KVM IPMI Integration For EasyDCIM is back in a vastly updated 1.4.2 version featuring a couple of new drivers for the JAVA KVM console: one dedicated to HP iLO 5 and the other to Lenovo ThinkSystem (TSM) devices. Whether either of these two is a likely choice for your business, we’ll leave it for you to decide, and instead focus just on reminding how important, yet often unseen role the KVM console plays these days. Working as an application in your browser, the console’s job is to imitate a real-time keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) interaction with your servers from any remote location. To put it more visually, if that helps your understanding: imagine as if you were sitting directly in front of your server - this is precisely how easy it is to operate your devices with the use of a KVM console. Another attractive OS alternative at hand The guide to our favorite additions of EasyDCIM v1.8.1 could not possibly be complete without mentioning the growing catalog of OS templates. Included in OS Installation For EasyDCIM v1.9.4, the latest template is responsible for the automatic installation of Windows Server 2022, the system which continues to be quite a hot-button issue in the eyes of the IT community. Interestingly, Windows Server 2022 did not become known for an outstanding set of features in the first place, but rather for its pretty unusual - to say the least - way of announcing its own general availability, far less festive than the one which made Bill Gates dance 26 years ago. However, it would be grossly unfair not to give Microsoft credit for a number of new solutions contained in Windows Server 2022 that rank it as the most sophisticated version to date. The most noticeable enhancements include: ✓ Secured-core server - Apply an active multi-layered protection against advanced attacks. ✓ Azure hybrid capabilities - Connect with Azure Arc to take advantage of assorted cloud services with on-premises Windows Server 2022. ✓ Flexible application platform - Benefit from 40% smaller Windows Containers images, better application compatibility and simplified Windows Container experience with Kubernetes. Help is on the way! A different yet just as valuable feature that was made available upon the update of OS Installation extension is a new SystemRescueCd 8.0.4 rescue template full of tools that will come in particularly useful when the need to restore the server configuration arises. Essentially, it secures an easy way to carry out many key actions on your computer such as creating or editing the hard disk partitions. We hope this article, though brief, shows clearly how many more doors EasyDCIM v1.8.1 has opened when it comes to efficient and trouble-free data center management. Make your next stop at our website as the full changelog of this release promises you an even wider variety of the newest developments to delve into. View the Changelog!

If you own a hosting business then you are likely familiar with the potential that comes from upselling accounts. The most common way that providers upsell customers? By offering larger and more robust infrastructure options. Dedicated servers, specifically, offer huge growth opportunity for companies and their clients alike. Such a server gives users the technological horsepower needed to run even the most ambitious sites, applications, and projects. Similarly, these higher-end offerings can be a huge profit center for the company as well. More reliable in nature, those solutions command a higher price point and result in increased customer satisfaction. In fact, while many providers begin by selling simple shared accounts, most have the ambition to offer bigger - and more expensive - services to customers over time. However, if selling dedicated servers was so easy then everyone would do it, right? The truth is that expanding your hosting offerings with solutions more complex in scale is fraught with challenges and roadblocks that can frustrate even the most experienced technologist. In this Blog post, we will cover seven main struggles that you may be forced to deal with if you own a hosting company and start providing different, high-priced offerings to your customers. 1. Reading customer needs Dedicated servers are often more trustworthy and offer better performance than shared hosting plans since they have access to more resources. Furthermore, those resources are not shared with other tenants. Even if they sit idle when not in use, resources from this type of a server are specific to the customer, and not impacted by other users or companies. The difficulty behind selling dedicated servers may lie in figuring out what customers want with regard to server specifications, which can depend on the company's target market. Some users want higher quality at a lower price, while others need devices for high-traffic websites that experience spikes in demand throughout the day. 2. Taking inventory One of the main challenges in offering dedicated servers comes in how to keep up with them as they grow more and more in demand. There are typically two ways to maintain the inventory: by hand or with some type of an automated system or software. The manual method includes counting from an account dashboard. For some businesses, the manual calculation comes from literally walking into the data center and adding up devices on the rack. With an automated system, the number crunching is handled regularly by software, reducing the manual work and improving the accuracy of calculations. For example, EasyDCIM automates inventory counts for connected servers, showing what devices are in use and which are idle, and thus available for provisioning. This allows owners and administrators of hosting providers to save vast amounts of time. Additionally, the platform makes the inventory calculations more precise and stored in a streamlined system instead of being kept in a random spreadsheet or notebook. 3. Server restarts Another challenge comes in how you choose to handle device restarting processes. The common ways of addressing this need are either performing restarts internally or allowing customers the freedom to handle this task individually for servers they purchased from your company. In case you choose to shut down and turn on the servers all by yourself, then it becomes an integral part of your professional workflows, costing time and resources. Then again, if you choose to give users the ability to restart servers they are using, it ends up being a shared responsibility. In general, it is not possible to equip clients with the power to perform server restarts without the right software. Hosting providers that utilize EasyDCIM can easily offer this sort of functionality to their customers, and all that without sacrificing control over the provisioned devices. 4. Server hardware investments and expenditures Dedicated servers are a sizeable investment for most hosting companies mainly because there are ongoing costs associated with upkeep and maintenance. The challenge is knowing when or how often server hardware needs to be upgraded or replaced. In many cases, reseller programs can be a great option for hosting providers looking to grow. By leveraging a reseller program held by a larger provider, a company can branch out into offering a wide range of dedicated devices without taking on the burden of buying or leasing any hardware. When adding in the costs of data centers, connectivity, electricity, and security, it rarely makes sense for a small or even mid-sized entrepreneur to purchase hardware for sale. 5. Migrating customers between hosting server types Migrations are complicated in almost every situation, and the migrations from a shared hosting account or VPS to a dedicated server are no exception. If you are going to offer more powerful infrastructure, you should first consider how customers will be transferred to these new offerings. Will you have a separate team for professional services to lend a hand? Automated software to handle the process? Or, like many providers, will you leave the migration to the users and their team, and not provide any help at all? Ensuring migrations go smoothly is a go-to way to sell more units and keep customers happy. At the same time, you should take into account that providing technical assistance can prove to be a costly burden to your company’s support and engineering teams. 6. Pricing strategy Settling on the price of any infrastructure service can be complicated. Some hosting providers choose their pricing rates based on the rest of their products and solutions catalog. Others price their offerings relatively to competitors or according to customer surveys. Because dedicated servers are inherently higher-performing, more reliable devices then they are typically priced higher than VPS and shared alternatives. Outside of that guidance, however, you’ll likely need to try different price levels to see what your market and your clientele will bear. 7. Marketing dedicated servers Lastly, many providers may face various challenges when it comes to marketing and selling dedicated servers. The goal is to advertise these devices as a premium product because they are more robust and powerful than shared web hosting or VPS plans. The best way to market your new, higher-priced offerings is to position them as the next stage in the natural growth path for customers as their businesses evolve. This is an effective technique to let your clients feel you are a partner in their success and not simply trying to sell them something more expensive. Dedicated servers provide high performance and uptime - users that need both will recognize the value in your new offering when the time comes for that to fit their needs. Should you make dedicated servers part of your business? As you can see, there are quite many challenges hidden in the craft of selling dedicated servers. However, what should be stressed above all is the fact that each of these possible struggles is far outweighed by the positive impact that branching out has on your business. Improved customer satisfaction and higher-value sales can be transformative for your hosting business. Our team at EasyDCIM is on a mission to help hosting providers and their customers get the most possible value from dedicated servers. The platform's suite of extensions as well as integrations with key systems like WHMCS turn the server management into something to look forward to. If you are keen to learn more about adding dedicated devices to your product base, simply click the button below. We would enjoy the chance to help you explore how adding better solutions and more valuable revenue streams can impact your hosting business. Contact us!

While growing the variety of EasyDCIM tools with ever more advanced solutions is an explicit goal, it is of equal weight for us to keep its equipment invariably easy in navigation and intuitive in regular use. But what exactly does it take for a control panel to be user-friendly? On August 25th, EasyDCIM makes a successful comeback in a 1.8.0 version, ready to bring some next-level thinking to the table, together with its newly minted "Locations" and "Floors & Racks" sections. Let’s unfold the map! As the user experience officially becomes a ranking factor in Google search results, it no longer comes as a shock that the times of text-heavy content are over (good riddance!), replaced by a way more digestible model of data visualizations. It was therefore only to be expected that we tap into this indisputable trend sooner rather than later. And voilà! The grand debut of two new sections of EasyDCIM is a tribute to an effortless, and visually aesthetic management of locations, floors and racks. Everything from generating a building view to placing racks in a grid of selected sizes is now based on easily navigable graphic representations. Hand in hand with the world map showing the exact location of each server, switch or PDU device, the "Locations" section invites you to scan statistics on either all or single locations in the system as well as traffic and power usage presented in graph form. The "Floors & Racks" section features the building’s 2D view where you can create a grid for each floor and locate rack cabinets in any preferred position with no more than just a few clicks. This one is also equipped with a handy set of graphs and figures to let you quickly drill down into specific pockets of information on floors and racks. [gallery link="file" size="large" ids="3027,3028"] No such thing as too much choice OS Installation For EasyDCIM extension continues to be more and more versatile with its collection of system templates. To satisfy a popular demand, its 1.9.3 edition unlocks the automatic installation of: 1. Rocky Linux 8 - named after one CentOS co-founder (Rocky McGaugh) and kicked off by the other (Gregory Kurtzer) in direct response to Red Hat’s strategy shift towards CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux has proven instantly popular as a free, "bug-for-bug compatible" drop-in replacement distro for the RHEL distribution. See Kurtzer himself praising the project on LinkedIn: 2. Oracle Linux 8 - aspiring to the title of the fastest-growing Linux distribution on the market, Oracle Linux is a freely distributed open source OS that is fully compatible - both source and binary - with RHEL, and suited to enterprise-class workloads. If you are eager to learn some salient facts about other operating systems hailed as the most functionally capable to fill the void left by CentOS, this article is your next go-to guide. More functional powers on tap Just in case you are wondering, that is still not all EasyDCIM v1.8.0 has up its sleeve. Go ahead and dig around for more updates packed into the following extensions: IPMI Integration For EasyDCIM v1.4.1 PDU Management For EasyDCIM v1.2.0 EasyDCIM v1.8.0 with its brand-new layer of graphics is much more than just pleasing to the eye. It improves scannability and reduces mouse clicks by providing a high-level snapshot of the absolute essentials - locations, floors and racks, with at-a-glance views of how much data transfer is used. And that’s all at a fraction of the time it would take to get the same meaning from just the numerical data! So, are you ready to take your data center beyond the bare figures? View the Full Changelog!

Right after answering the fundamental question of why you should capitalize on dedicated servers, the very next one in our series that deserves an in-depth elaboration is the "how" question. However, given the many "hows" involved, in today’s article we will focus specifically on how you can upscale your business through server reselling via WHMCS with just a little effort put into it. So now that you have followed our advice, and branched out your offer into dedicated servers with a helping hand from EasyDCIM, you are actually able to spend more time thinking about ways to further polish your routine workflows. To help you put this train of thought on the right track, we are highlighting a couple of cutting-edge WHMCS tools that will make you wonder how you could possibly go so long without the advantage of business automation. Auto-provisioning at its finest EasyDCIM Dedicated Servers For WHMCS is a free module designed by ModulesGarden to create a bridge between your WHMCS and EasyDCIM, and by that means open up a whole new level of possibilities in realms of your offerings. Not only will you be able to provision adjustable dedicated servers of EasyDCIM in a fully automated manner, your customers will enjoy a wide choice of available instruments for handling their own products, and all this without ever leaving your website. Eventually, there may come a time that selling dedicated servers on your own no longer feels like you are tapping the full potential of your business. And there is nothing wrong about that! That most likely is the first sign that your company has reached sufficient maturity to go all in and establish your own circle of resellers. Benefits of the reseller model make a long list, one that seems to only grow over time - starting with reaching a much wider audience and targeting customers in sectors you may haven’t even thought of before. And if we were to give you just a single tool go-to for thorough and seamless management of your reseller network, this would certainly be Products Reseller For WHMCS. A new stream of reselling flexibility Products Reseller For WHMCS is another vastly innovative ModulesGarden module that will empower you to effortlessly manage your reseller groups without leaving the confines of your WHMCS. A number-one reason why it may mark a turning point in your career is the tool’s newly secured integration with EasyDCIM Dedicated Servers For WHMCS which unlocks an extra spectrum of using its extensive toolkit to resell dedicated servers! To be slightly more precise, the module will equip you with all kinds of features essential to set up custom pricing rates for your products and services, track generated income via smart graphs as well as supervise everyday actions taken by your resellers. Each of your resellers, on the other hand, besides being welcome to look up all crucial information on acquired customers and orders, will gain access to advanced API documentation and use it to supply your servers to end clients through their own platform, be it WHMCS or any other one. See? There are ways and means for optimizing the management of dedicated servers that you can make immediate use of in order to forge enviable bonds with your resellers and create an unblemished, tailored customer journey at the same time. Add to that the fact that these terrific modules will please your wallet as much as your business, and you already know what your next move is going to look like. Dare to thrive!

What can safely be described as the end of an era is unfolding right before our eyes. The EOL of CentOS as we all know it. The news of this unlooked-for farewell that shocked the entire community triggers a rather obvious question: "What to do now?" To make answering a bit easier for you, we are today delivering our latest brainchild - EasyDCIM v1.7.4 kitted up with three entirely new system templates going hand in hand with a major bonus for IPMI proxy servers. As for April 28th, 2021, CentOS Linux is actively used by 4.7% of all the websites whose operating system is known to public. However, that level is doomed to drop radically in the months to come, all because of the latest Red Hat announcement about shifting focus exclusively to CentOS Stream. CentOS under the microscope CentOS, which stands for the Community Enterprise Operating System, is a 100% rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. While RHEL is a paid product, CentOS has always had a definite advantage over it due to being a free community-inspired Linux distro. Developers and companies with first-hand experience in Linux in most cases have opted for CentOS to kill two birds with one stone - that is, to save money, and work with enterprise-class software at the same time. But the free ride is over. What’s next? Even with the support for CentOS Linux 8 being maintained up until the end of 2021, many people are already considering replacement - and who could blame them? To spare you the research, we are sharing what we found to be among the no. 1 alternatives on the market. 1. AlmaLinux, created by CloudLinux and launched with the code-name Project Lenix, is a community-driven, free and open-source Linux operating system, self-proclaimed to be the perfect replacement for CentOS 8. The first stable version of AlmaLinux was released just a month ago, on March 30th, 2021. ✓ When asked "Why Alma?", Igor Seletskiy, CEO & Founder of CloudLinux explained: "At CloudLinux, we have benefited from the dedicated, nourishing efforts of the Linux community - just like everyone else that relies on a Linux-powered OS. This community is the soul of Linux – and in the spirit of a dedicated community, we decided to call our new distribution Alma: a Latin-language word for soul." ✓ Some others say AlmaLinux may owe its name to the goal of capturing the soul of CentOS. ✓ AlmaLinux created a non-profit organization called AlmaLinux Open Source Foundation meant to take over managing the future project development. ✓ CloudLinux granted a $1 million annual endowment to support AlmaLinux until at least 2029. 2. CloudLinux, the origins of which reach as far back as 2010, needs no special introduction. It is a community-supported Linux operating system known for delivering advanced management of resources, strengthened security and a high-quality performance tailored specifically towards the multi-tenant hosting ecosystem. 3. CentOS Stream is a logical and interesting alternative. It is a rolling-release distro, serving as the upstream development branch of RHEL. It has been brought into being as an initiative to bridge the gap between the surging Fedora and the latest stable release of CentOS.   // The above analysis of the emerging trends in the data center space laid the groundwork for what has become a prime addition to the OS Installation For EasyDCIM extension. Updated vastly into the 1.9.2 version, it now features three entirely new system templates to ease the installation process of: AlmaLinux 8 CloudLinux 8 CentOS Stream 8 With so many alternatives available for immediate use, the demise of CentOS doesn’t sound so terrifying anymore, does it?   A new face of IPMI proxy servers We wouldn't be ourselves if we didn't introduce at least one more enhancement to the brand-new release. And here it is! You probably think: "But IPMI proxy is hardly news". Technically yes, but to make it work properly so far you had to configure an additional physical server, which in a way was a needless waste of the resources. Upon promoting the IPMI Integration For EasyDCIM extension to the 1.4.0 version, IPMI proxy servers have been moved to remote agents. Now all you need to do is configure a proxy server, and specify in the settings which remote agent should use it. No additional data to connect, no additional servers. Easy and resource-friendly! Among the other new IPMI proxy-related features that made it into EasyDCIM you will spot: three predefined JAVA versions to choose from in place of just one an all-new possibility to change the JAVA version for a proxy server downloading JAVA KVM applets now taking place on the remote agent instead of on the EasyDCIM main server to avoid problems with network configuration   How did you take the news of the CentOS project coming to a close? Even if you consider the Red Hat’s decision to be a somewhat controversial move, you have no other choice but to face its consequences. But you do not have to shoot in the dark, luckily. Spare an extra minute to scroll through the rest of changes in EasyDCIM v1.7.4, and make it your most trusted business partner! View the Changelog!