quota check + bandwidth check for resellers

[hedgehog]

I offer a reseller service with specific bandwidth and space allocations and think the new WHM feature still needs a little push : )

A reseller might want to create an unlimited account for himself for instance (to avoid being suspended for reaching bandwidth limit) and unlimited space without loosing the resources not used from his total allocation.

Instead of having a creation time limitation to the space and bandwidth, it would be nice to allow the reseller to allocate as much space and bandwidth as he wishes to but, on the other hand, to be able to monitor the total usage in order to bill him accordingly for space and bandwidth.

The general Idea would not be to place a hard limit on these but to be able to see the resellers going over the allocated resources. ; ) (Allows us to be more competitive and for the resellers to pay only for what they use).

A script adding up the actual disk space usage would be a great solution for the space problem.

Grouping the reseller's account on the same IP would also allow to monitor the TOTAL bandwidth generated by the reseller's accounts (including FTP, POP and others).

It would also allow to suspend/unsuspend all the reseller's accounts; to specify default error pages to all the reseller accounts and to put the reseller's own account on top of the vhost list in httpd.conf (thus showing his web site when a non-exising subdomain is called).

Nick,
Do you think something like this can be managed in the near future?

Anyone else with suggestions?

Thanks,
Hedgy

 

[hedgehog]

Opps, did not notice the poll before posting this...

Anyway, being able to monitor the actual usage and limit it would still be great. ; )

hedgy

 

[bdraco]

[quote:5dc6688466][i:5dc6688466]Originally posted by hedgehog[/i:5dc6688466]

I offer a reseller service with specific bandwidth and space allocations and think the new WHM feature still needs a little push : )

A reseller might want to create an unlimited account for himself for instance (to avoid being suspended for reaching bandwidth limit) and unlimited space without loosing the resources not used from his total allocation.
[/quote:5dc6688466]

Ok .. I've taken care of that problem .. it won't let you create accounts with unlimited disk or unlimited bandwidth.

[quote:5dc6688466]


Instead of having a creation time limitation to the space and bandwidth, it would be nice to allow the reseller to allocate as much space and bandwidth as he wishes to but, on the other hand, to be able to monitor the total usage in order to bill him accordingly for space and bandwidth.

The general Idea would not be to place a hard limit on these but to be able to see the resellers going over the allocated resources. ; ) (Allows us to be more competitive and for the resellers to pay only for what they use).

A script adding up the actual disk space usage would be a great solution for the space problem.
[/quote:5dc6688466]
So basiclly you want to be able to select a reseller from a listbox and then show all of their usage/customer usage ?


[quote:5dc6688466]
Grouping the reseller's account on the same IP would also allow to monitor the TOTAL bandwidth generated by the reseller's accounts (including FTP, POP and others).
[/quote:5dc6688466]

Noted.. there are still quite a few things that have to change internaly in cpanel to do this. Its going to happen but I've got to re-work lots of things first.

[quote:5dc6688466]
It would also allow to suspend/unsuspend all the reseller's accounts; to specify default error pages to all the reseller accounts and to put the reseller's own account on top of the vhost list in httpd.conf (thus showing his web site when a non-exising subdomain is called).
[/quote:5dc6688466]
Not sure about this one. Cpanel shys away from rearranging config files as people tend to customize things and this can create problems. However you could move it there yourself. Resellers accounts are generally created after the reseller so its a 99% chance they will be the first one on any new system that would do this. The error page thing would be easy...

[quote:5dc6688466]
Nick,
Do you think something like this can be managed in the near future?

Anyone else with suggestions?

Thanks,
Hedgy[/quote:5dc6688466]

 

[hedgehog]

Thanks for considering these ideas...

[quote:90886fe7da] Ok .. I've taken care of that problem .. it won't let you create accounts with unlimited disk or unlimited bandwidth. [/quote:90886fe7da]
Never actually considered this as a problem, but I think disabling unlimited accounts creation is better in terms of security. ; )

[quote:90886fe7da] So basiclly you want to be able to select a reseller from a listbox and then show all of their usage/customer usage ? [/quote:90886fe7da]
Not just the space/bandwidth usage... What I am hoping for is the ability to place a soft limit on the reseller's accounts based on the actual resource/bandwidth usage rather than on the allocation. (Just need to get emailed when the reseller is 80% or so near the allocated limits).

[quote:90886fe7da] Not sure about this one. Cpanel shys away from rearranging config files as people tend to customize things and this can create problems. However you could move it there yourself. Resellers accounts are generally created after the reseller so its a 99% chance they will be the first one on any new system that would do this. The error page thing would be easy... [/quote:90886fe7da]

Guess you are right about that one, and yes, I would prefer to control httpd.conf myself... grouping the accounts on the same IP is essential for this to happen so we will have to wait for that feature to be ready first. ; )

Speaking about urgent matters, please take the time to consider the following post: http://support.cpanel.net/obb/read.php?TID=1499

Thanks,
Hedgy

 

[Site5-Matt]

[quote:80407de29d][i:80407de29d]Originally posted by hedgehog[/i:80407de29d]
Not just the space/bandwidth usage... What I am hoping for is the ability to place a soft limit on the reseller's accounts based on the actual resource/bandwidth usage rather than on the allocation. (Just need to get emailed when the reseller is 80% or so near the allocated limits).[/quote:80407de29d]Maybe it's just me.. but doesn't this detract quite a bit from the automation of the whole system? It is more of a reactive solution than a proactive one. Honestly, if the system checks reseller resources once a day, it's more than possible that someone could go from 50% usage to 150% usage within the 24 hours that you receive the emails notifying you of their usage statistics. Then you are stuck either trying to collect from the reseller after the fact (you would definitely have to make sure that is somewhere in your contract, because I guarantee you nobody will be happy when they get their surprise overage bill), or suspending that reseller's account--and subsequently all of their customers' accounts--until you were able to collect the money that they owe you.

And then, of course, you get into the whole notion about how long they have to exceed their resource limit for before they are actually billed for such. If they go over their disk space quota for 5 days, and then remove some files, do they still owe you for a month's worth of using X GB additional disk space? Or is it pro-rated on a daily basis depending on how many days they were over their limit? How do you factor in the 24 hour periods between notification emails for which you have no usage information? Of course, you also have to take into consideration how much they were over their limits at given points of the month. Do you average their daily overage together in order to calculate how much they owe, or do you simply use the day on which they were farthest over their limit and bill them for the entire month based on that figure--even if they were only at that level for a single day?

From my perspective, the way you (and apparently a few other people) want to do this, is an extremely complex, not to mention extremely error-prone method of doing things. In all honesty, I don't think that a simple email telling you someone is over their resource limit(s) by XX% is enough to base an entire reseller billing structure on, but maybe that's just me. I think your resellers deserve to be able to see a well-thought-out billing rubric, not to mention a way to figure out exactly how much they are going to owe for a given month's service at any time. This proposed method seems to me to be more of a &shoot from the hip& system than anything, and would not be possible to pull off without a fair amount of additional billing calculation code on the part of the provider.

Perhaps I have just been spoiled by Cpanel's pro-active and fully-automated nature.

Thoughts and opinions are more than welcome.

Matt

 

[hedgehog]

Thanks for the comments,
Hmmm,

[quote:c5b9fc9e14] Maybe it's just me.. but doesn't this detract quite a bit from the automation of the whole system? [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
My site gets a few cases of credit card fraud every day and honestly, I think that even if the system becomes automated, it will always require the attention of a real human person to verify that everything is working correctly.

[quote:c5b9fc9e14] , it's more than possible that someone could go from 50% usage to 150% usage within the 24 hours that you receive the emails notifying you of their usage statistics. [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
Based on my experience, this is not true. Unless you allocate 50 MB per reseller account I do not see how a reseller go over quota that fast ... (I previously had a reseller account with a dramatic signup rate and I could see the figures climbing in a predictable manner ) From a security point of view, I think getting emailed would be much better than trying to monitor things manually the way it is done now ...

[quote:c5b9fc9e14] And then, of course, you get into the whole notion about how long they have to exceed their resource limit for before they are actually billed for such. If they go over their disk space quota for 5 days, and then remove some files, do they still owe you for a month's worth of using X GB additional disk space? [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
The whole idea about a reseller account is that it gets upgraded as the reseller's need arises (unless he is going out of business and decides to stop selling). Even if he removes a few files to settle his quota problem, he will have to upgrade at some point in order to resell more accounts Anyway, if this ever occured, I would no charge him for the disk space usage excess.(I would rather keep him happy if he stays within his limits since he will eventually need to upgrade)

For the bandwidth allocation (which is the most important issue in my opinion) he would naturally get billed for the total monthly excess.

Again, I would be pretty flexible about that disk usage billing since it will become closely related to bandwidth if the reseller's accounts are grouped on the same IP... and to upload such huge amounts of data means they will using up the same amount of bandwidth... (not in any reseller's interest).


[quote:c5b9fc9e14] How do you factor in the 24 hour periods between notification emails for which you have no usage information? Of course, you also have to take into consideration how much they were over their limits at given points of the month. Do you average their daily overage together in order to calculate how much they owe, or do you simply use the day on which they were farthest over their limit and bill them for the entire month based on that figure--even if they were only at that level for a single day? [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
This issue is valid for all soft limits... not a new problem that will come up this enhancement. And again, bandwidth will add up no matter if the reseller removes files or not... Not upgrading his disk space allocation (in case he decides to remove a few files - which I do not consider to be a real solution for a reseller with 100+ accounts ) equals him deciding to stop creating new accounts, not a healthy decicion... but entirely up to the reseller.

[quote:c5b9fc9e14] I think your resellers deserve to be able to see a well-thought-out billing rubric, not to mention a way to figure out exactly how much they are going to owe for a given month's service [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
The solution is a link that would be added to the left frame where they can see the current usage... (shhh don't tell nick about it I am waiting for this to get implemented before submitting the enhancement request).

[quote:c5b9fc9e14] and would not be possible to pull off without a fair amount of additional billing calculation code on the part of the provider. [/quote:c5b9fc9e14]
Not really, if the reseller need more Disk Spacem he will need to upgrade to a larger allocation.

If he goes over the allocated bandwidth (which he will be able to monitor in WHM) he pays per excedd rounded to the next GB or he can prefer to prepay a certain monthly account to qualify for a discount (just as we do with our inidvidual boxes).

Hedgy