Dotnetpanel Forums

This thread has been created to call the attention of the sales and support staff of DNP.

I am currently a HELM implemented hosting provider and like many of us, are looking for an alternative to HELM which has recently been bought out by Plesk/Parrallels.

Please read this post on the HELM forums and you will understand our "dillema":
http://forums.webhostautomation.com/showthread.php?t=24205

We are aware of the generous discount should we migrate from another hosting panel solution but many are still having difficulties pulling the trigger...though I don't think it would take very much more to "initiate" a mass exodus. It seems that Parallels is hinting that we should find an alternative.

Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated...thank you and cheers!

My 2 cents worth is that you won't regret making the move to DNP. We have been using it now for over 12 months and our clients love it. Also if you want to introduce Windows 2008 it is already supported. Typical of DNP to be ahead of the tech curve.

Cheers,

Mark 

Your 2 cents is worth quite a bit Mark...thanks!

I've downloaded and installed DotNetPanel on a test server running Server 2008 and was blown away at how easy it was to setup and how blazingly fast it is!

It's also really intuitve for the end-user.

I really want to kick myself in the head for not looking into this sooner...yes...kick..hard

I agree with Mark.    We migrated over a year ago after seeing the direction H4 was going.  We are happy and so are our customers.  We still have a couple H3 servers running and plan to move them to DNP/Windows 2008 in the coming months. 

I sympathize with your dilemma CITADEL.  It must be equally tough for Adam and Mark to see their baby handled so recklessly. 

When Mark and Adam were there, there was definitely a lot of effort on ensuring patches and upgrades were happening and appreciated the sheer effort that was going into HELM...and I was willing to back this up by "hanging in there".

I was then hoping that Parallels would dedicate a certian amount of resources and move quickly with stabilizing HELM but this is very much not the case. It has actually rolled backwards.

It's time to remove any emotional (and financial) attachmenet with HELM, cut my losses and move on. And it looks like that DotNetPanel is a soft, warm and compfy place that I can lay my weary head and call home....THE END.

Now it there was some Migration path over to DNP from Helm 3 (or Helm 4) I would have already purchased DNP :) and left Helm moths ago.

I understand where you're coming from cfwebmasters. The problem with a migration path is that it would be too easy to "import" the issues that are "inherit"with HELM. I can see moving from HELM to DNP a real problem for larger hosting companies.

I pulled the trigger today to get start migrating my HELM accounts over to DNP (so much to do now). Had to do this. I've been with HELM for nearly 3 years now and never implemented a reseller program due to the fact that it has been unstable ever since (could have been making money during this time).

I'm completely amazed at how fast DNP runs! It's so logically laid out too due to the smart use of ajax!

 We have started to prepare for a move across from Helm 4 as well as it looks now that Helm is dead and to be mreged with other Parrallels recent buyups with Win2k8 support being moved to September at the earliest if at all.

 However, as we have over 300 customers and 500 web sites migrating across would be very difficult and very long, not to mention disruption to customers who are use to the present system.

 Luckily because Helm and DNP can run side by side and because we have our own inhouse billing system (due to Helms billing system never working) we can leave older customers on Helm and new customers and those that want to use Win2k8/IIS7 can be placed on DNP.

I have to say though after putting up with all the bugs in Helm 4 and it's overly complicated and confusing structure,  that DNP looks like a breath of fresh air and can't wait to get it into production.

We are just working on getting our billing system to work with DNP through DNP's API and we should then be all set to go. Although the DNP API looks allot better we hope to be able to integrate our system into DNP allot more than was ever possible with Helm.

Just hope after all this hard work that Parallels don't also buy up DNP as well to kill off otherwise we will all be using Plesk in a few years with no other market choice.

The only gap i found it’s that doesn´t exist any tool like, the very useful Helm Restore and Migration tool.

sergiorocha:

The only gap i found it’s that doesn´t exist any tool like, the very useful Helm Restore and Migration tool.

I agree with this. We need these tools desperately for DNP.

 We will be happy to give a nice discount on DNP software and DNP Servers or VPS Servers for anyone looking to switch to DNP from Helm, with free setup and install to get you going. If I were a Helm user I would start moving or start using a new panel ASAP as I don’t think you will see much development time spent on it.

 We understand that moving everyone to a new panel is very hard work, we moved about 5,000 domains from a HC cluster and have taken over a year to do this, we are still moving and probably have another 3,000 left, We started using DNP over a year ago and discontinued HC on our network shortly after.  So my suggestion is the same, I would not think of it as "I need to move all my domains" keep your Helm running and your sanity,  Just start a new DNP cluster and stop adding domains to Helm, and over time move domains to DNP or you will find customers that will want to move to the DNP and move their own domains themselves.  Overtime you will soon be off Helm or whatever control panel you are using. 

Another thing to note for Helm users moving to DNP, make sure you setup your boxes and windows network correct to start, it will save allot of work later on and allow you to grow your DNP network easily.

Best of luck to all Helm users.

Yes, I decided to go on and move from HELM to DNP too, since HELM is obviously marked for shutdown.

Since most users say it is better to keep HELM working in paralel with DNP, I am thinking what would be better:

1.) either to move HELM on separate virtual machine (win 2003) and build up clear installation on virtual machine Win 2008 with DNP

2.) or to install DNP on fresh Win 2008 machine and migrate existing HELM from Win 2003 to this Win 2008 machine to work in parallel

In either case I need to move/migrate from one hardware to another, since hardware upgrade is the mission priority no.1. Suggestions welcome.