cPanel Cloud Computing

[jmginer]

http://www.parallels.com/products/plesk/expand/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

CPanel ¿when?

dnsonly is very outdated!!

Greetingsss!!!

Cloud CompuTing <-- Title

 

[britsenigma]

I don't think there's anything to stop you now.

Cpanel will run on EC2 combined with S3 and block storage.

EC2 only allows 1 ip per ec2 instance though...doesn't work well with ssl enabled accounts.

 

[jameshsi]

Anybody using it ?

So is there anyone using it with cpanel and hosting a few accounts on it now ?
Can anyone share some experience ?

Is it possibile to use that service as a dedicated server or VPS and provide hosting service ? Compares to dedicated server/VPS service, is it more expensive ?

 

[silversurfer]

I have a test instance running and it works perfectly fine. It's really at the bottomline a Xen-based VPS. In short, if it runs on Xen VPS (and it does), it will run on Ec2. But as had been pointed out, with 1 IP per instance, you will only be able to host non-ssl accounts. You also have to note that internally it's a local IP. But that is not a technical challenge. You would just need to edit your default IP in WHM accordingly to the public Elastic IP.

As such, as a hosting shared server, it's probably isn't going to be very good.

The good thing is EC2 runs on Xen and so Cpanel considers it a VPS so licensing is a bit less.

Cost wise, you can easily calculate it. Unless you prepay upfront, it probably will not be cheaper. Using a large instance as an example since that is likely the minimum for a shared hosting server, you would be looking at:

Ec2 - $288/month
Data Transfer - $0.10/GB. Assuming you use 1000GB, that's $100/month
EBS - $0.10/GB. Assuming you use 100GB space, that's $10/month
Total: about $400/month

So for 4Ghz of processor power (about Dual Opteron 220), 7.5GB RAM, you pay $400/month. If you prepay for a year, you save about $80 on the Ec2 costs.

One issue is the non-persistent storage. The storage is link to the CPU instances. So you would need to work with EBS. EC2 is not invulnerable to losing your instances and all your data with it. You would probably also need to create AMI images as backups and use s3. Since these are virtual instances, if they fail to reboot, which is also not impossible, your only recourse is to launch a new instance from the last AMI image that worked, and attach the same elastic IP.

 

[wills]

@OP, I apologize for bringing-up an old thread. However, my search engine results displayed this thread, and I couldn't stop myself from replying.

If you're going to look at Plesk Expand as a "cloud" based contender, I strongly advise that you do your homework. Plesk expand is a POS, to put it simply. Just look at their forums, and you'll know what I mean. Additionally, Parallels has annexed further development for that particular product, only to include *some* of it's useful features in their Plesk server products. This information, was, provided by Terry Henretty at Parallels.

Best of luck with your cloud initiative.

 

[jmginer]

Hello,
my demand is not for install cPanel in Amazon,
the idea, is create a virtualization system (similar Amazon) but implemented in cPanel.

I suggest a virtualization system with cPanel.

Parallels = Virtuozzo
cPanel = ¿?

The cloud is now here, but is cPanel in the cloud?

Thanks for your innovations!!
Only a suggest

 

[wills]

We're running cPanel on a Citrix Xenserver 5.5 cloud without any issues. I suppose that's a higher level of cloud hosting, but, it gets the job done when redundancy and fault tolerance come in mind.

 

[HostColor]

Hi,

Although this is an old thread I think that there is something that shall be added here. With all due respect to Parallels and their Virtuozzo Containers, I think that they are still approaching the clouds. At this time they are attracting a lot of attention using the term "cloud" and i'm sure they deserve the attention.

But cPanel Inc. is a very different company. It does not do virtualization. It produces software automation products for the hosting industry. I'm far from praising them in their own forums, but anyone who wants to compare both companies shall compare cPanel and Encompass to Plesk and could say which control panel works better.

As far as for the Cloud... what do you consider to be a cloud? Do you mean virtualization or a cluster of virtual machines? Because if you mean any of these, cPanel/WHM works on any virtual environment.

If you consider a Cloud as an automated and load-balanced clustered environment... then I can say that cPanel "works on the cloud" and you would be able to find such solutions. There are already a few companies which run cPanel/WHM in a different kind of load-balanced clusters.

 

[jmginer]

In my classic infra I have 20 servers, all thems with LAMP, this is WHM+cPanel...
some is charged in cpu, some in IO disk and I dont profite all hardware from all servers, all my servers are not surcharged in more than 20%!!

Now I think in other infra with 1 (or more) storage for diferent filers and 3 (or more) "satelite" servers with differents "modules" web+mail+sql, and if i need more sql performance, only buy servers for sql performance, and not a full server with LAMP...

you understand me?

 

[jmginer]

or for example to store in a diferent filer the mails... normally all webmasters uses IMAP accounts, and we need to much space for a not hard CPU usage service... why not provide the possibility to store the mails in a basic server but with big hard disks??...

 

[gruvin]

... cPanel/WHM works on any virtual environment. ...

For the record and I guess my two cents worth -- unfortunately, NO, it does not. Case in point ...

Most, if not all of the VMWare based "vCloud" offerings run their internal IP network behind NAT. (Each public IP is mapped one-to-one with an internal IP behind a NAT router. Believe it, or not.) cPanel, quite reasonably, cannot tolerate this somewhat bizarre yet prolific and new situation.

Specifically, it means that cPanel network interfaces have to run on private IP addresses (eth0:0, eth0:1 etc), meaning that the public IPs needed to access cPanel services (WWW/FTP/etc) from the outside world cannot readily be accommodated. Of course, this is not a big problem if there's only one or two, manually configured IPs. But with automated software upgrades and self-service account creation, it all simply falls apart.

cPanel certainly *could* support NAT'd networks. All it needs is for a hash table (and UI) for mapping external to internal addresses and of course for all related code to become aware of that.

However, I'd not blame cPanel programmers for questioning just why on Earth anyone would put together a multiple IP, 1:1 -- Public:Internal NAT'd network infrastructure in the first place. Then again, it seems that NAT is here to stay, since AFAIK, VMWare vCloud offerings appear to *ALL* stick you behind NAT.

By all means, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Oh and, from what I can glean from Google (very little), this is not an issue with Amazon's EC2 offering. But 5 IP's per region? What? We have more like 20+ IPs per server! :/

 

[cPanelDavidG]

It is my understanding that Amazon EC2 is a NAT'd environment, but many reconfigure their cPanel&WHM server to get around the lack of native support for NAT.

 

[jmginer]

vmware ESXi, Citrix Xen, Linux KVM, Xen...
all work in bridge mode.

Requests for:

- more install directory options, for example to install mailboxex in a NAS server
- possibility to create system cloud such as service-only and more implementation to create remote server like mysql, mail, different webservers, etc...
- possibility to manage different system versions in diferent clouds...

any info about all this??
is cPanel working in cloud??
anybody in cPanel staff has play with vmware? you know DRS, vmotion, Fault Tolerance? and how it works with storage management? Please, check it!!!

 

[cPanelTristan]

Please post a feature request if you are unable to find an existing feature request on what you are asking to be provided with cPanel or WHM. That forum is at this location:

Feature Requests for cPanel and WHM

 

[jmginer]

done, more clear
http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/cpanel-cloud-computing-engine-216331.html#post893151
Regards!

 

[nibb]

Hello,
my demand is not for install cPanel in Amazon,
the idea, is create a virtualization system (similar Amazon) but implemented in cPanel.

I suggest a virtualization system with cPanel.

Parallels = Virtuozzo
cPanel = ¿?

The cloud is now here, but is cPanel in the cloud?

Thanks for your innovations!!
Only a suggest

Are you serious with this? cPanel cannot create a virtual platform and why would they? Xen is absolutely brilliant and you also have VmWare. Personally I use XenServer.

Parallels Virtuozzo is not really a virtualization solution. Make your homework. Its not even considered virtualization but just isolation where people are actually sharing OS files and kernel. This could explain their bad performance under heavy load circumstances.

I would ratter run away from Parallels products. Virtuozzo is terrible, it cannot be compared to Xen in any point or VmWare which are real virtual solutions. Plesk is buggy and insecure, even so I would still use them if they would not be so terrible in one thing. Support. Parallels is hell in support, even if you pay it. Its almost non existent.

So you could just say
cPanel = Xen

And yes Xen is free, its also what Amazon and Google uses, so if you really want the cloud, its called Xen.

cPanel runs perfectly well on it as well. I would like to see some more integration into multi server management. That means combine Linux and Windows cPanel servers, the DNS would be a start.

 

[jmginer]

nibb, your quoted post was written near 3 years ago, should see the full topic...
Please, read this topics to get more clear my request:
http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/cherokee-web-server-apache-alternative-98945-p2.html#post893102
http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/cpanel-cloud-computing-engine-216331.html

Regards!

 

[TopCatHost]

Hi, I guess I am catching up with things from a year ago! My question is to Gruvin's comment:
"Most, if not all of the VMWare based "vCloud" offerings run their internal IP network behind NAT. (Each public IP is mapped one-to-one with an internal IP behind a NAT router. Believe it, or not.) cPanel, quite reasonably, cannot tolerate this somewhat bizarre yet prolific and new situation."

From what I understand I have gotten True Cloud Servers, and I am concerned about what he says, b/c there is a point where you either believe the Features and Benefits of technical specs that may be beyond our understanding, or ask about their features in forums like this:

Feature: Fault-Tolerant Advanced Storage System
Benefit: "Cloud Servers are stored on redundant iSCSI enterprise storage servers with advanced technologies that utilize high performance solid state drives to accelerate both read and write performance."

Not my words, the features described by my provider.

In truth, I am moving into "three new [to me] technologies" at the same time:

1) Using a VPS
2) Looking into updating to Cloud Linux (and now using cPanel/WHM with full root access)- unmanaged
3) Using what appears to be a true "Cloud Server" as a web host reseller

Oh, and I forgot, pretty soon I will be finally going with the WHMCS license (on my older non root level resellers, and master resellers)

That being said having studied the information out there on Host Bill and OnApp and Solusvm I am sure t be scratching my head quite a bit.

It seems that there is some significant aspect to "Cloud Deployment" that involves some newly developed abilities to "add" additional resources "as needed" and that the "Real Cloud Solutions" are these incredibly expensive options that seem to be low cost, because you only pay for what you "truly use" as in metered usage.

So, my question is, that if I go ahead and spend in the "range" that you really have to spend for an "Average" Cloud Server "lets say its gotta cost close to (if not more) than $100/month. Will I really be getting the benefits of a "True Cloud Server"- meaning that when properly provisioned:

With enough Ram, Storage, BackUP, and Bandwidth, and some sort of load balancing software (say Cloud Linux) will the amazing cloud features of: Terabytes of Bandwidth, along with One GigaByte upload Link Speed, and all those other great features, really be something that will make a difference?

Because, there is no doubt that right now the Cloud, is an expensive option.

 

[TopCatHost]

So, here are my questions:

1) I am pretty new to the VPS environment and feel lucky that I have gotten as far as a cPanel login. I added some packages brought in a few domains on WHM-

- I noticed that the same place that sells cPanel also has Fantastico and (or maybe it was Cloud Linux) I was wondering what anyone might advise me:

Should I just try out getting cPanel operational with Fantastico etc, or should I go all the way and get the VPS optimized C-Pannel with Cloud Linux and Fantastico, its not just the money its a question of:

A) If I get things set just the way I like it, will Cloud Linux - over-run all my settings?

I am not sure if I am currently the right cPanel its:
WHM 11.30.6 (build 4) [TRIAL]
CENTOS 5.8 x86_64 xenpv on server

Ah, so that looks like I have xen (virtualization) which from what I heard acts to "contain" the systems resources? Naturally I want to have the "True Cloud" experience and expect to see my website's graphics to load quickly. Of course without loading up some websites or developing some with the simple to use Fantastico I am not really putting my system through the test.

If its just about spending the extra money I might as well try out Cloud Linux with the Cloud Server and do some "independent Load" testing of my own:

Has anybody upgraded from CentOS to Cloud Linux on an "unmanaged VPS" recently to give me an idea what to expect?

Just to reiterate I have gained some experience with WHM and cPanel yet have not had "full root access" I guess in general its easier to update things, yet maybe more to worry about:


Lets start with:


Is cPanel WHM the VPS version a cloud friendly thing in the 1st place. Is it going to be a waste using Cloud Linux perhaps because of some build in limitations within cPanel.

I am about to just "Go for It" but I figured I might as well consult with the experts and look before I leap!

I did not invest a lot of money yet, here is the config of the VPS Cloud Server I have:


Cloud Servers-Custom Server
+ CPUs: x 2
+ RAM [MB]: x 768
+ Disk Size [GB]: x 25
+ Bandwidth: x 25
+ IP Addresses: x 4
+ OS Template: CentOS 5.6 (cPanel/WHM — 64-bi



I dont know if the disk size is going to be an immediate problem or not and I still refuse to believe that a True Cloud Server can give you such a small amount of bandwidth. Had I gone with spending twice as much with the "Pre-configured" system I would have been able to have plenty of bandwidth, that was my main mistake so far.

Perhaps other than paying the company the $50 set up fee to get cPanel/WHM installed (I guess that would have included the Cloud Linux too ) .


Any experts out there or recent users of this stuff want to advise me before I start burning the midnight oil to set this up?

 

[sardelich]

ummmm...get a dedicated server with cloudlinux,cagefs and RAID1?