Starting a VPS hosting service

G

Gilfoyle

New member
Hi all, I own a MSP company and am looking to expanding into the VPS hosting service side. For any of you that do this currently, what hypervisor do you use? Also, what VPS management software do you use? I have looked at a few out there, but want to make sure I pick the right one. I will have several hosts in the VPS cluster. We are mainly a VMware shop for all of our virtual servers. But not sure VMware will be the best in this use case. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to ask any questions to better help a recommendation. Thanks!
 
For VPS Hosting, consider using a hypervisor like Proxmox or Hyper-V. These are reliable choices for managing virtual servers. As for VPS Management Software, options like Virtulalizor or Souls VM are user-friendly and efficient. Given your VMware background, explore if its fits your VPS needs but these alternatives may provide more tailored solutions for hosting services. It's essential to test and evaluate which combination aligns best with your requirements before making a decision.
 
There are Virtualizor. They have introduced new major changes like hourly billing and scaling. A new player came in the industry virtfusion, check there plans too.
 
We have been using VMWare and Vcenter for several years to create and manage our virtual servers, and we have not encountered any issues with them. However, the choice of hypervisor depends on the segment of your customers. If you intend to provide additional features to your users, it is recommended to explore control panels such as Virtualizor. These platforms offer a wider range of comprehensive features in this field.
 
@Gilfoyle I would advise you against it. The hosting business and the VPS services in particular have low profit margins. You'd end up losing a lot of time managing the underlying VPS infrastructure, something you cannot charge for, instead of managing your client's installations, servers, and infrastructure.
 
It would make sense if you have a lot of clients and want to reduce costs.. ( So you have several sysadmins mantaining the servers 24/7 ).

However, without the client volume, its best not to do so, as it would only increase cost and maybe even reduce performance/uptime.
 
In my honest opinion start off in a small environment 1 to 2 servers. If you can handle it then go ahead with expansion. Though you would a some staff to maintain and up keep those devices. If you have the budget and you are able to get the ROI in a acceptable amount of time and make money.
 
I know a lot of people like to recommend Virtualizor or SolusVM. Honestly I have been using the VirtFusion panel and enjoy using it a lot.

Could be a great way to start a VPS Provider.

virtfusion.com

Virtualization Management Software for the Hosting Industry - VirtFusion

VirtFusion is a powerful and feature-rich virtualization control panel that allows you to manage rock-solid KVM virtual machines.
virtfusion.com virtfusion.com

Check it out here, there pricing isn't that bad either. You pay by how many hypervisors you have.
 
We have been using Virtfusion for almost a year now and never had any issues with it. It runs really well if setup is done correctly. Proxmox is another alternative.
 
To be honest, I would not recommend Proxmox. Or at least, you will need a paid licence of it (we've got that in my company). Proxmox can be very buggy sometimes. Try something like Hyper-V, you will not be disappointed.

Otherwise, when someone got the idea of creating a VPS hosting service, there are always the same softs used: WHMCS for the website (with a crappy template seen everywhere), Stripe/Paypal for the payement gateway, and Proxmox as the hypervisor (because there is a easy module that is sold for WHMCS that can manages very easily a Proxmox hypervisor).

You will need a lot of technical stuff in order to create your service. You will also preferably needs to contacts ARIN/RIPE in order to becomes LIR and got at least a /24. Then you will need to find a datacenter and a transit provider, etc etc.

The hard thing will be the DDoS attacks. On my side, I paid a lot in order to have a DDoS-protected incoming transit. It starts at 100-200$/mo (with like 100Mbps at 95th percentile) and can easily rise to 500-1000$/mo.
Sometimes, some hosting providers can be totally took down just by one attack (it affects all the customers). If you cannot pay a DDoS-protected provider, you will need at least to do RTBH.
 
+1 on VirtFusion. We don't offer VPS services at the moment but it's something we are planning on in the future. We've tested a few different VPS control panels now and so far, VirtFusion has come out on top - their end user UI is definitely the best I've seen.
 
SharedGrid said:
+1 on VirtFusion. We don't offer VPS services at the moment but it's something we are planning on in the future. We've tested a few different VPS control panels now and so far, VirtFusion has come out on top - their end user UI is definitely the best I've seen.
Click to expand...
How many customers are on each server?
 
Develosmuth said:
How many customers are on each server?
Click to expand...

It depends, the packages vary in CPU and memory so it is entirely depending on which packages are bought by customers. We have a 1:1 ratio so if we have 24 X 1CPU/1GB orders then that node is marked as full to avoid overloading the node, as the Ryzen 9 7900 CPU has 24 threads available.
 
We worked for a company that initially used SolusVM. Later, new nodes were purchased and launched using Virtualizor.

Based on our experience, Virtualizor proved to be the superior choice due to its ease of management, dynamic features, and enhanced functionality.

In our new hosting company, we plan to explore Virtfusion for selling VPS servers in the future. Maybe this option will be more appropriate for us compared to Virtualizor.
 
Virtualizor is a popular and reliable choice, although their support isn't the best... So you should roughly have knowledge on basic Linux such as networking and storage drive management.
 
Ensure to see what's actually included in that cheap web page hosting plan. Be sure you know what you're getting for your money so you can plan your web hosting operating cost wisely.
 
Before doing anything I will suggest getting information about being protected from DDoS , especially Bandwidth amplification, you can do this by talking to your current Carriers for inline protection or some sort of auto null route /32 or remotely doing this by BGP GRE tunneling.
If you have a serious bandwidth attack and you didn't discuss or have a contract about this with your current carrier and hurt their other clients, the carrier will take your BGP down or IP announcement. Even if you hire remote Gre tunnel DDoS protection, there will be a bit of impact when you swap /24 from not being protected to being protected.

On the server side, we have been using Proxmox cluster HA with network Storage with 0 issues.
 
Each business have different web hosting requirements.
Ask the hosting provider regarding the kinds of hosting environments they provide?

Also, ask them regarding their policies in case you want to scale up or down.
 
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