We have used Ubersmith here ata Data102 for several years (since august 2009? I think?) and have been very pleased with it. As a datacenter operator, it provides a truckload of tools and (perhaps the most important thing about it) integrates it all together pretty seamlessly. For a simple example - it can do all the general snmp graphing of a switchport, turn it on/off based on billing paramters, attach a device to a switchport, and come billing time, calculate and bill the 95th%. Very, very easily. It also handles monitoring metered power strips, can deal with switched PDUs, and allows all of that to be managed by the customer as well (yay for remote reboots through a decent UI!). Lots of other handy integrations (xen, vmware, cloudstack, onapp, pmacct, puppet, cdp, more!). And it all integrates pretty well with ticketing & customer accout management. It's new pricing structure is very off-putting. It used to be flat-rate, per-device, which was agreeable - somebody wants a managed server, add $1. No problem. Now, it is very much FUPayMe -- separate pricing for this feature, for this feature, "normal" devices and "advanced" devices. It's a ~50% hike from our current rate. As a small shop (~10k sqft, 15 employees), it's pretty brutal. I can't imagine what they're charging larger, more integrated places. Since the acquisition by Internap we have seen everything go downhill: quarterly updates turned into year-long waits; features & requests pretty much ignored; support seems more management-y; documentation has not been updated; they don't update their website pretty much at all; the order & sales manager appear to be completely disregarded and perma-beta; no updates at all to the 2.5.x codetrain; and 3.0 is now hidden behind the pay-more wall, after an 18 month wait. Maybe all of these are unlocked once we pay? We have been looking for alternatives since October or so, and the WHMCS Datacenter add-on looks OK, and Hostbill might be an option. We are loathe to go down the never-ending roll-our-own path, as it would take a lot of time to recreate what we have already enjoyed. We would *LOVE* to try out NocWorx, but they are not accepting new customers (and haven't for a year+). Tough spot for us. Any input would be awesome. Randal On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 7:14 PM, matt kelly <mjkelly@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm also a bit leary of them now, considering they are owned by internap after the voxel acquisition. I like their software and used it for years. It just seems like they're trying to compete in the market of zuora and others when they are something completely different.
I'm also surprised there have been no competitors to ubersmith in the data center space.
Matt On Jan 9, 2014 9:08 PM, "Jimmy Hess" <mysidia@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 7:30 PM, Aaron <aaron@wholesaleinternet.net>wrote: > We rolled our own. A friend is migrating to WHMCS from Ubersmith.
Aaron
I would be standoffish, due to Ubersmith alleged recent history of price increases. Admittedly... I am very skeptical about the concept of datacenter management or billing software providers charging a big monthly fee, plus extra per-client and extra per managed-device.
That doesn't mean it's always a bad idea; it's just really annoying.
If smart phones were sold like Enterprise software....
"Customer: How much for this smart phone?"
"Sales clerk: How many people do you plan to call with it?"
"Customer: Uh, 5 or 6 friends and family members."
"Sales clerk: I see... well that will be $300 plus $25 per contact, so the total comes to $450. In 5 years the newer model will be $499 for you."
"Customer: Wait... I also need to receive calls from 3 important business clients"
"Sales clerk: In that case, the same smart phone costs $2500, plus an extra $100/month license fee for each business contact, and a 30% annual maintenance -- if you fail to renew before the end of the 12 months, it will deactivate and it will be full price to turn it back on."
-- -JH