Helm… Can it take the hassle out of Web Hosting?
WebHost Automation is making waves in the hosting industry.
I have always noticed that gossip between webhosting owners talking about control panels has never been without its negativity somewhere within the conversation. At the end of last year I heard in the words “Helm” and “new control panel” uttered and first instinct was, per usual, not even slightly phased by the concept of another new control panel. Until, at least, I’ve noticed the out of the ordinary excitement by webhosts around the globe that have adopted the system.
This small observation had prompted me to take a closer look at this new control panel, and see what is prompting such a response.
So what is “Helm”?
At this point I’d say it was a “webhosting control panel”, but that doesn’t seem to describe what Helm offers to the webhost. WebHost Automation, the British based developers of Helm, call it a “control system” rather than a control panel, and I think this really does fit the description a lot better.
Helm is a one stop solution for windows based webhosting businesses whether they are just starting out on their first server, or run massive datacenters. It has an all singing all dancing management interface allowing you to automate much, if not all of your routine tasks.
Installing Helm took just around 10 minutes before it was online and ready to use and from that very moment you will feel that the fun has been put back into server management. There is no longer any need to go searching through endless configuration screens or directly to the command prompt. Helm presents everything in a slick, easy to use interface.
There's a lot more to Helm than you might initially think. Its appearance does seem just like another control panel. However you will soon discover that it is so much more.
As a webhosting server administrator, Helm has really provided something that many hosts have only ever seen on very expensive, bespoke control panels that the larger webhosts could only afford. Its ability to centrally manage multiple servers and the unbelievable ease to add new servers to the system makes it stand out as an exceptionally scalable system. You can simply specify a server and what its role within your network is and Helm will configure itself around it making its flexibility a class of its own.
The icing on the cake for the administrator is the “distribution” Helm offers. I’ve only ever seen one or two bespoke control panels that automatically distribute websites across several servers, now Helm offers this ability to all webhosts, and not only with websites, but with mail, FTP, DNS and all other services it offer. This model means that servers are never under or over utilised since no users are set to use a single machine (unless specifically configured to do so in Helm of course) which brings me onto the resellers capability.
Not only does the reseller have their own customer management system, their own, impressive, invoicing system, hosting plan system, messaging system (I think you get the picture), but the reseller can also have their own server. In fact what I found was Helm can have the reseller’s websites on their own server, but still share the email and DNS servers of their host. I haven’t seen this form of automated managed hosting anywhere else and yet WebHost Automation has made this so seemless.
I can imagine that some webhosts have spent hundred of thousands of pounds on a control system like this, and when I first heard about some of the stuff that Helm did I had the impression that Helm would have a similar price tag, yet this off-the-shelf system is offered at an incredible start up cost of $300 (£180) need I say more, or is it because my jaw was already dropped too low. Only one problem with Helm is that it does not support the Linux platform. I have been informed, however, that this will be addressed in their next version. This just goes to prove that the British developer still has it!
Quality: 5/5 This product is very slick
Functionality: 4/5 Windows 2000 only
Ease of Use: 5/5 Standardised and Simple
Cost: 5/5 Compared to others, this is a bargain
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Overall Rating: 5/5
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View Helm yourself by visiting its website at
http://www.webhostautomation.com
