Case Studies, Control Panels, Customer Testimonial, Plesk Panel

Case Study: Leading Australian web hosting provider Net Logistics builds up new revenue streams with Parallels Plesk Panel and Parallels Virtuozzo Containers

 

This case study is part of series conducted by Parallels that examines how Parallels partners are optimally using our products.  For a complete copy, click here [PDF].

 

Partner Summary 

 

Net Logistics is a leading web hosting service provider in Australia with over 6,000 customers. It offers flexible, easy-to-use and affordable solutions tailored to companies ranging from small businesses to large enterprises.

 

Net Logistics started out by providing shared hosting services, then organically expanded into reseller hosting and then to Virtual Private Server (VPS) and dedicated server hosting as customers demanded more of such services. Today, 60 per cent of its revenues come from VPS/dedicated servers. Another key segment is the developer and reseller market for white label offerings, which today makes up about 30 per cent of its customer base.

 

Customer support, both pre-sales and post-sales, is a key focus for Net Logistics, said Joseph Salim, Business Development Manager. The company has about 50 employees, with over 20 involved in back-end support. One of its core value propositions is the fact that it has its “hands on the ground”, providing customers with direct access to technical expertise within the company. This has helped strengthen the company’s reputation for customer support excellence, with high positive ratings in forums such as Whirlpool.

 

Business Situation

 

In 2008, the commoditization of shared hosting led to lower profitability for this segment of the business and presented a significant business challenge to Net Logistics. In response to this, the company began looking into opportunities in the reseller hosting market as well as the VPS and dedicated server hosting market where it could differentiate itself with customized managed services. At the same time, the company also sought to increase its average revenue per user (ARPU) by providing scalable solutions to its customer base. 

 

“VPS was identified as a key part of Net Logistics’ strategy to move upstream. As we moved up the hosting value chain, it was also imperative for us to maintain or even enhance our customer support standards, and continue to provide customers with fast resolution of any issues that they may encounter,” said Karthick Rajendran, Managing Director, Net Logistics.

 

Net Logistics also had to rein in operating costs and to adopt a more environmentally friendly approach to doing business. In particular, it was looking to optimize the use of its infrastructure in order to reduce power consumption, which is a relatively high cost component from both the monetary as well as the environmental perspective.

 

Solution

 

To address these business challenges, Net Logistics was looking to deploy a server control panel and automation solution together with a virtualization tool that would enable it to manage its infrastructure and provision upstream services more efficiently. After evaluating several options, it decided to go with Parallels Plesk Panel and Parallels Virtuozzo Containers (PVC). 

 

“We chose Parallels for its depth of experience in delivering solutions finely tuned to the needs of a hosting business model,” said Salim. 

 

While Net Logistics also evaluated virtualization solutions such as Xen and VMware, it decided on PVC because of its seamless integration with Parallels Plesk Panel. This integration would make it easier for Net Logistics to manage and monetize its infrastructure. Said Salim, “One of the best reasons for working with Parallels is the total stack of products that helps us to configure and bundle products. There is one vendor to work with unlike with Xen or VMware. This makes it simpler and easier to do business.” 

 

Parallels Plesk Panel is a sophisticated control panel tool which assists Net Logistics in web hosting account and server management. It includes complete, cost-effective control panel technologies designed for hosting accounts as well as for reseller, VPS and dedicated server platforms. Complementing the deployment of Parallels Plesk Panel is the PVC virtualization software which enables Net Logistics to offer greater support efficiency and implement effective backup solutions in mission-critical environments.

 

In Parallels, Net Logistics also found a partner with a common approach towards customer service and support. This synergy gave Net Logistics added confidence in going with Parallels Plesk Panel and PVC. “We need to be able to trust the vendor to provide support when needed,” said Salim. “With Parallels, support becomes much easier. We know that we can escalate any issue and have it resolved very quickly.” 

 

Benefits

 

The deployment of the Parallels Plesk Panel and PVC has enabled Net Logistics to deliver intuitive hosting services to the Australian market efficiently and cost-effectively.

 

Introduction of new revenue streams

 

With the deployment of Parallels Plesk Panel, Net Logistics is now able to deliver profitable services easily and offer its customers a quick and easy way to create and manage web sites as well as server resources. It has enabled Net Logistics to grow its VPS business from scratch three years ago, to make up 40 per cent of its customer base today. 

 

“Over the past 12 months, 60 per cent of all new customers have been buying VPS,” said Salim. Parallels has also helped Net Logistics to create greater awareness of its offerings, by providing it with opportunities to participate in events such as the Parallels APAC Summit and the global Parallels Summit. 

 

Enhanced customer support 

 

With Parallels Plesk Panel providing reliable administrative support for wide range of web hosting scenarios, Net Logistics has been able to provide better customer support without having to incur high manpower overhead.

 

“Parallels Plesk Panel provides a powerful, impressive solution to ease hosting account administration across the full range of shared, reseller, VPS and even dedicated solutions. We are now able to offer our current and prospective customers better management and higher reliability as well as being cost effective and highly profitable,” said Salim. 

 

Reduced costs

 

Net Logistics has deployed PVC to virtualize its entire infrastructure, including its dedicated servers. This has resulted in an estimated 30 per cent savings in power consumption. 

 

“Power consumption is a significant cost component in our operations. The deployment of PVC to virtualize our infrastructure addresses this by allowing us to make more efficient use of our infrastructure resources, thereby reducing power consumption and enabling us to adopt a more environmentally sustainable approach to doing business,” said Trung Nguyen, Finance Director, Net Logistics. 

 

At the same time, Parallels Plesk Panel comes with an easy-to-use and powerful management tool that reduces the need for Net Logistics to deploy costly manpower to optimize and manage its IT infrastructure, for example, to handle tasks such as patch management.

 

 

Cloud Services, Control Panels, Hosting, Parallels Summit 2012, Plesk Panel, Shared Hosting, SMB

Summit 2012: Parallels Road Map Track 2

 

There was a plethora of great content at Summit 2012 this year, and it was impossible to attend it all.  Fortunately, we have all of our talks on YouTube!  For this series of posts, we have consolidated the talks by tracks at Parallels Summit.

  

Chart Your Future: Parallels Roadmap – Find out where Parallels innovation is headed for 2012 and beyond.


Parallels Panel Roadmap


Craig Bartholomew, VP, Hosting Control Panels and Shared Hosting, Parallels


Be the first to know what we have planned for the next generation of Parallels Plesk Panel to help your hosting business save money on server costs, reduce labor cost, increase efficiency and sell more servers.

 

 

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

Accelerating mobile adoption: Convincing small businesses they need more than a Facebook page


Roy Joseph, President, UNITY Mobile


This session will address the growing need and challenges for SMBs to have an internet presence beyond the browser. This includes a presence on Facebook as well as the ability to deliver a good customer experience across mobile devices. Come find out how SMBs can easily add these capabilities, and how service providers can profit and differentiate offering these services and solutions.

 

 

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

The evolution of IT hosting services: What’s next?


Lance Crosby, CEO, SoftLayer Technologies


Understanding how cloud, dedicated and managed web hosting services will evolve and change is crucial to staying competitive. As one of the world’s largest privately owned hosting companies, SoftLayer will speak to industry leading trends which highlight the need for businesses of all sizes to adopt solutions that offer control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management. The presentation will also discuss how SoftLayer is working with Parallels to deliver the next generation of IaaS solutions.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

Differentiate and grow your hosting business with Parallels Business Automation Standard


Alex Goncharov, Sr. Director, PBAS Product Marketing, Parallels

 

Join a PBAS expert for insider tips on how to accelerate your business. Alex will also provide a view into how we’ll be enhancing the capabilities of PBAS in the coming years.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here.

 

 

Opportunities with Google Apps


Jeff Ragusa, SMB Channel Programs Lead, Google


In this session you will learn how to extend your portfolio with Google Apps – Google’s business suite of messaging and productivity applications. Bring these powerful web applications to your clients allowing them to work efficiently from anywhere on any device. By leveraging Google’s channel program you can deepen and strengthen your customer relationships and grow your cloud services practice without disrupting your existing business.

 

 

 

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

Compliance: Understanding the legal and regulatory issues


Christian Dawson, COO, ServInt

David Snead, Attorney at Law


Compliance is becoming an even more important issue because governments are increasing the level of regulation related to intellectual property protection, privacy and protecting children. You need to understand the regulatory framework in order to build a secure cloud. This session will present the existing framework of security laws plus pending and anticipated legislation. Attendees will be given a framework to analyze their current compliance with these laws, and insights into whether certain important proposed legislative initiatives are likely to be adopted and what it will mean if they are.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

Cloud Services, Hosting, Marketing, Parallels Summit 2012, Shared Hosting, Small Businesses, SMB

Summit 2012: Practice Best Practices Track 2

 

There was a plethora of great content at Summit 2012 this year, and it was impossible to attend it all.  Fortunately, we have all of our talks on YouTube!  For this series of posts, we have consolidated the talks by tracks at Parallels Summit. 

 

Practice Best Practices: This track focused Summit Attendees on how to best use Parallels Products to drive business growth, and efficiently provide the Parallels products to customers.  Additionally, this track emphasised how to best capitalize on the growing SMB cloud market.

 

Panel: Building a secure cloud for customers – demystified


Alex Danyluk, Sr. Director SaaS & ISV Alliances, Parallels (moderator)


Panelists:

  • • Rick Norman, Director of Professional Services, CoalFire
  • • Sean Leach, Vice President, Strategy and Technology, Verisign
  • • Brett Matesen, Director of Business Development, Kaspersky
  • • Dreas van Donselaar, CTO, SpamExperts

 

The cloud promise is that all data, applications, and services are accessible from any device over the internet, but this has tremendous security implications at every layer from the network to the servers to the systems and end-point devices. Listen to a panel of experts discuss the trends in keeping the cloud secure, what matters to customers, and what security issues need to be top of mind for you in 2012.

 

 

 

Customer Support: Parallels lessons


Kellie Green, VP, Global Support, Parallels


Support can be a key differentiator in a service provider business. Parallels has made major strides in enhancing its Support capabilities in the last year and this session will provide you with our learnings. Pick up new ideas about optimizing your support experience and hear more about the changes planned in Parallels Support this year.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

Panel: Best practices for growing a hosting business – being on the right side of the growth curve


Liam Eagle, Editor in Chief, Web Host Industry Review (moderator)

 

Panelists:

  • • Steven Canale, Vice President of Sales, SoftLayer Technologies
  • • Joy Nemitz, CMO, Apptix
  • • Roy Joseph, President, UNITY Mobile
  • • Craig Ball, Director of Sales, Infratel
  • • Jon McCarrick, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Parallels Automation, Parallels
  • • Igor Seletskiy, Founder and CEO, CloudLinux

 

While the hosting industry is experiencing double digit year-over-year growth, leaders in this sector are growing much faster than the industry average. This panel of experts will talk about what is working (and not working) and why.

 

 

 

You’re thinking mobile, but you might not be thinking big enough


Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows


Thinking about how to capitalize on the remarkable growth of mobile this year? Make sure you are thinking big enough. That might require a shift in how you define yourself, from a product focus to a relationship focus. You will likely find that your relationships are your real advantage and that your customers will buy much bigger products from you than you realize.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

Grow your business: Parallels partner resources


Scott Fallon, Sr. Director, Partner Marketing, Parallels


Leverage the resources Parallels offers to support your operational, marketing and sales efforts. We’ll talk about new and enhanced benefits offered through the Parallels Partner Program, technical support resources, working with Parallels Sales and more. And we’ll take your feedback on what partner benefits and tools you’d like to see added in the coming year.

 

 

You can download a PDF copy of this presentation here. 

 

 

Alta disponibilidad, Empresa, Seguridad, The Cloud, Virtualizados

Los datos están realmente seguros en un servicio Cloud?

Muchos usuarios ven el cloud como algo infalible, donde sus datos nunca van a desaparecer y su servicio siempre va a estar en línea, pero realmente es cierto?

En contra de muchas opiniones, el termino «servicios cloud»  no esta relacionado en absoluto con el término garantía de servicio, la calidad y garantía de servicio, no depende del nombre del mismo, depende directamente de la calidad, conocimiento e inversión del proveedor que lo ofrece.

Continúe leyendo Los datos están realmente seguros en un servicio Cloud? →

Alta disponibilidad, Empresa, Hosting, Virtualizados

Alta disponibilidad, permanencia en línea, el cliente está dispuesto a pagarla?

A la hora de contratar un servicio de hosting, probablemente el factor que más influye en la compra es la garantía de disponibilidad, normalmente todos los proveedores garantizan entre el 99% y el 99.99% de permanencia en línea, incluso algunos se arriesgan a ofrecer el 100%, el problema real no es lo que ellos puedan garantizar o no, es lo que realmente te van a poder dar, todos los proveedores intentarán que sea del 100%, al fin y al cabo, es lo que más les conviene…

Entre los compradores y vendedores de hosting hay dos mundos bien diferenciados, el que utiliza el pensamiento mágico y el que utiliza el pensamiento lógico, como interpretan cada uno lo de «yo te garantizo el 99.99%» y la realidad puede ser totalmente diferente, el razonamiento de los que utilizan el pensamiento mágico es: Que bien, como me lo garantizan no me tengo que preocupar de nada, es una empresa buena, puedo confiar en ellos. Los que utilizamos el pénsamiento lógico pensamos: Me ofrecen un 99.99% perfecto, pero ¿y si no cumplen por el motivo que sea que? ¿Me regalan un mes de conexión? muy bien, pero realmente que he ganado con eso? si el problema lo he tenido igual y los sitios han estado fuera de línea? Continúe leyendo Alta disponibilidad, permanencia en línea, el cliente está dispuesto a pagarla? →

Email, FAQ, spam

Controlando el spam, el primer paso lo tienen que dar los proveedores del servicio de correo.

El spam, ¿un problema con solución?El principal origen del spam es la falta de rigidez de los proveedores de servicios de correo para controlar la autentificación en los envíos y de las exigencias de los mismos clientes para no perder los correos que les envían, implementar una solución sencilla y barata de antispam es una acción que debe ser compartida entre los usuarios, aceptando las reglas de juego, y los proveedores de hosting, cumpliendo las normas básicas establecidas de como configurar un servidor de correo.

El problema aparece cuando los clientes exigen el no tener spam en sus cuentas, pero no aceptan que no recibirán correos dirigidos a su empresa desde servidores mal configurados. Continúe leyendo Controlando el spam, el primer paso lo tienen que dar los proveedores del servicio de correo. →

Alta disponibilidad, Servidores dedicados, Servidores HSaaS, Servidores VPS, Virtualizados

Alta disponibilidad, Virtualización de hardware o Virtualización de Sistema Operativo?

Virtualización en los años 60
Virtualización desde los años 60

La virtualización es uno de los temas más complejos que hoy podemos encontrar en el diseño de plataformas de datos y aplicaciones, cubre prácticamente todas las posibilidades y requerimientos necesarios para crear un centro de datos, sea un gran DataCenter con miles de servidores, un SDC con decenas, o un solo servidor instalado en las oficinas de una empresa.

Es la base del servicio de alta disponibilidad y maneja, de una u otra forma, todos los componentes que forman parte de cada uno de los servidores principales o nodos y  la interoperabilidad de los componentes de los mismos, maneja la memoria, la CPU, las comunicaciones y los accesos a los discos de cada uno de los nodos, esto significa añadir una o varias capas «de control y administración» a cada uno de los componentes que controla y cuando hablamos de alta disponibilidad, también hay que tener en cuenta que una capa adicional en el software significa una nueva fuente de posibles problemas.

Hay varios tipos de virtualización, pero se pueden agrupar globalmente en dos grandes grupos, la virtualización del hardware y la virtualización de Sistema Operativo. Continúe leyendo Alta disponibilidad, Virtualización de hardware o Virtualización de Sistema Operativo? →

Alta disponibilidad, Hosting, Seguridad, Servidores HSaaS, Servidores VPS

La disponibilidad de una plataforma virtual, empieza por el diseño de su red.

Sistema de monitoreo de plataformas de hosting
Monitorización de un nodo

Los incansables buscadores a la caza del VPS para contratar, casi siempre, lo primero preguntan es el «time de ping», la latencia, el ancho de banda y en que centro de datos están los servidores de las VPS que van a adquirir, después recorren innumerables foros especializados, averiguando sobre el centro de datos de ese proveedor, si el ancho de banda es bueno, si tienen mucha capacidad, etc.. pero nunca hacen la pregunta más importante y de la que realmente va a depender la respuesta de su proveedor ante una avería:

¿Cómo esta diseñada la red de datos para los servicios virtualizados que me ofrece?

No la del datacenter, la del proveedor al que le vas a comprar el VPS, ¿y por qué esta pregunta es tan importante?, por que hay dos tipos de proveedores de servidores virtuales y es muy importante que sepas distinguir entre ellos.

Continúe leyendo La disponibilidad de una plataforma virtual, empieza por el diseño de su red. →

Empresa, Hosting, Servidores dedicados

Las conexiones ADSL, ¿Son aptas para utilizarlas con servidores de Internet?

Muchos vendedores de ADSL prometen de todo por vender su servicio, sobre todo, los mal entendidos servicios bussiness, ofecen lineas con IP fijo de 4Mb o muchos más, pero se les olvida decir que son 4Mb de bajada y 512 Kb de subida…

Las líneas ADSL, como speedy bussiness de Telefónica (y afines en otras compañías), no son aptas para mantener un servidor interno en la empresa, sobre todo si es un servicio crítico como el correo. Es muy importante conocer la velocidad asegurada, no ofrecida o «en el mejor de los casos», normalmente suele ser de 1/8 o 1/10, es decir el total ofrecido lo comparte con 8 o 10 conexiones más.

Los sevicios críticos tienen un alto consumo de tráfico puntual, es decir necesitan un gran ancho de banda durante periodos cortos de tiempo, por ejemplo los accesos a la página web y el correo consumen mucho más tráfico en horas de oficina, que es cuando se necesita más fluidez en las comunicaciones, en esas horas, es justo cuando peor va la conexión, debido a que es una hora punta para todo el tráfico en internet. Continúe leyendo Las conexiones ADSL, ¿Son aptas para utilizarlas con servidores de Internet? →

Empresa, Hosting

Una opinión sobre montar empresas de hosting, precios, planes y proveedores…

Negocios en internetCuando nos paseamos por la mayoría de los foros de hosting, las típicas y repetitivas preguntas que siempre encontramos están relacionadas con que proveedor tiene el plan más barato o el que da más por menos precio, ¿Este proveedor es bueno para mi?. Busco hosting para montar una nueva empresa, hostmarciano.com me ofrece tanto y hosthangar9.com lo otro, ¿Cual es mejor?. Voy a empezar una empresa que plan de reseller contrato? eso si que sea ilimitado…

Pero si quieres hacerlo profesionalmente, cuando estás buscando una solución de la que quieres llegar a vivir, lo primero que tienes que hacer es, preguntarte ¿Que presupuesto tengo disponible para el proyecto?, después definir el proyecto en papel, lo más específicamente posible, que necesitas, a quien vas dirigido, donde quieres llegar en los próximos 3 o 5 años y que fortalezas tienes cuando te comparas con los proyectos existentes.

Continúe leyendo Una opinión sobre montar empresas de hosting, precios, planes y proveedores… →