Sphera Anyone?

[ghpickjr]

Does anyone have any experience with Sphera, we've been with them for 9 months with mixed opinions. I don't see much on HostHideout regarding their system.

:p:

Mindfly Hosting (among other things)
www.mindfly.com

[jbiz718]

Well the only major company that I know of using sphera is Jumpline.

I have heard mixed reviews about the product.

[dynamicnet]

Greetings:

We tried to help one of our managed service customers implement Sphera.

Sphera support was not there. Sphera customer service was not there; and most of the time the sales person was not there.

In the end, the client ditched them; and we felt bad because we actually recommended them.

We've been working with H-Sphere for close to a year now, and just love the product and the people behind it.

H-Sphere can be found at http://www.psoft.net/

Thank you.

[beley]

I'd like some opinions, I just got a call from them trying to get me to switch. I've never even looked at them before.

[servnetix]

Sphera is well designed for the High end hosting providers. They have changed their business model several times in the past few years and the price to acquire a server is out of reach for most start ups.

About the solution, Sphera is a very flexible product that allows you to integrate 3rd party solutions using thier API. This is nice feature if you have a programer on hand.

The API was a very flexible and allowed us to integrate ALL the feature of Sphera into ServNetix there by making it 100% automated.

[jbiz718]

I actually got done getting pricing from them, and well it was just too much money.

[dww_jerome]

Whatever you do - don't do Sphera. The principle behind it is nice enough but the implementation is way below standards severely affecting security and stability. That and the pricing plus the complete absence of support was enough for us. We provide some services to a company who uses Sphera but all I hear from them is horror stories .. if they had the budget they'd probably switch to Virtuozzo.

[ghpickjr]

Well, I just got my quote for support from Sphera for next year and they only want $7,500 bucks. It seems they are pricing small hosts out of the market...which is frustrating as they didn't have any problem selling me the software when they knew my size. I do like the ability to mix Linux and Windows via one interface but the software, especially Windows has been very buggy.

So, I need to decide if I stay or go. Is anyone using HSPComplete, it looks pretty good, just not sure if it supports Windows accounts.

I am also looking at Ensim and H-Sphere...

Thanks!

[dynamicnet]

Greetings:

This is our 3rd year on H-Sphere from http://www.psoft.net/

While there has been some small bumps and grinds, it is the best system we've used since June 1995.

Positive Software support is extremely good; the documentation extensive and well written (granted there are some sections with gaps that are being fixed), and the support community friendly.

Most resellers will sell H-Sphere licenses for at least $4.00 each (that's a one time only fee); and that means a small provider can start with H-Sphere with a single server and a $200 investment.

Thank you.

[ghpickjr]

Well,

Sphera documentation and support is weak :yikes:. It's good to here the Psoft is on the ball.

Is anyone using HSPComplete, I'd love to hear about your experiences with it.

[alex042]

HSPComplete is fairly expensive as most other software by sw-soft. You'd probably see more usage if it were available through datacenters as Plesk is. But since Plesk supports Windows, I would suspect HSPComplete would also since It's basically an extension of it.

[ghpickjr]

Compared to Sphera, HSPComplete seems to be an excellent value. The application looks far more developed and feature rich. For what my next year support and maintanence is going to cost at Sphera, I can buy a couple of new servers, HSPComplete, a few control panels, and more....

[Andrew]

Most resellers will sell H-Sphere licenses for at least $4.00 each (that's a one time only fee); and that means a small provider can start with H-Sphere with a single server and a $200 investment.


A startup using H-Sphere is alot higher then $200 (for a single server setup ) - and of course, H-Sphere really doesnt run too well on a single server - and before you tell me it runs fine, etc, etc - I'll add this - H-Sphere runs fine on a single server setup until you run into a problem - then isolating and debugging the problem is a nightmare and getting support from PSOFT for a single server environment just doesnt happen.

Having said this - Once we grew enough to cluster our H-Sphere environment, then the true benefits of H-Sphere automation and stability have been realized. Additionally, once you have a clustered environment and once the economies of scale work in your favour re: PSOFT premium support, then I must agree, this is simply the best platform available - with the best support and documentation in the industry..

However, it is VERY difficult to start a new hosting business on this platform. Price point and lack of support from the manufacturer for the small guys make this a tough decision. Its really too bad, because I know ALOT of single server providers that have migrated from H-Sphere onto something like CPanel - now that they have grown to a multi-server platform, they could really use the power, integration and stability that H-Sphere clustering offers, but sadly they jumped that ship and now the cost of migrating back is too painful (though, I still recommend they bite the ****** and do it - you know who you are :) )...

Overall, H-Sphere is outstanding and barring a sudden turn of events or change in company philosophy, we will not be migrating from this platform or even examining other options - the H-Sphere value statement in a clustered environment is just too high - however, I think they need to work on developing and assisting startups - this can only benefit them in the long term...


Thanks for reading...

[dynamicnet]

Greetings:

Having been in business since June 1995, we've been managing H-Sphere servers for close to three years now.

We manage customers having one server to customers having 15-servers in their cluster (to date).

We find the single server clusters have just as few problems which are easy to isolate as those with 15-servers.

Positive Software truly supports their product whether you have 50 licenses on a single server cluster or several thousand licenses on a multi-server cluster.

Thank you.

[jphilipson]

Sphera just never took off ... becuase they made claims they could not keep and the support is not there.

H-Sphere - great product. It costs more to start up, but down the road you will glad you paid the money. Makes scalability easy, also adding new services is a breeze, like starting out with linux, adding windows, having dedicated db servers etc.