New servers coming in - which cp?

[biggles]

I need a bit of advice. The old server plattform have have served me well, but now it's time to switch into new shoes. The old server will be replaced with four new servers (good deal, both on hardware and on hosting). I will probably not need all of them, but it was all or nothing. I will have 4 dual xeon L5520 servers, with 48GB RAM each at my disposal. Today I am running ESX on the server and using it for a few different server purposes (storage, Plesk, backup-appliance etc). There will also be a SAN present, so I don't have to handle strorage on the local servers.

Now to my questions.

1. Which control panel would you use? I have Plesk 8.6 which have served me well. The updates for 9 and 10 has been regarded quite unstable from a few people so I have skipped them. Would you go for Plesk 12 (new investment, my current license is out of support). I have been thinking C-panel, now when they finally have an RPM-based system. they also offer migration help from Plesk. The most important thing is of course ASL support!

2. Would you use VMWare on the server. I have the licenses, but maybe I can run the main hosting server on it's own, dedicated plattform. Pros/cons?

3. Are there any other services you would run on separate servers (mailscanning, MySQL...)?

Any other hints and tips you could share it would be gladly appreciated!

[faris]

Gods. Where to start?

There's nothing significantly wrong with 10.4.4 or 11.09. Seriously.
You will need to wait at least six months before thinking about 12.x
As for which control panel if not Plesk...cpanel is about is good but that's it. There just isn't a good alternative for me. Nothing on the market does what I want in the way that I want. Everything has become far too complex and fragile, or has a user interface that I'd be embarrassed to allow my customers anywhere near. I fail to understand why nobody is filling the very necessary gap in the market. Or maybe they are, but they are too small to be noticed or trusted.

Multiple mail servers (to scan and reject and offer redundancy) is a good idea. Redundancy is built into mail systems. Nothing much to worry about in terms of config.

Same with DNS. Spread across your machines.

[mikeshinn]

1. Which control panel would you use? I have Plesk 8.6 which have served me well. The updates for 9 and 10 has been regarded quite unstable from a few people so I have skipped them. Would you go for Plesk 12 (new investment, my current license is out of support). I have been thinking C-panel, now when they finally have an RPM-based system. they also offer migration help from Plesk. The most important thing is of course ASL support!

I would only use a control panel that uses 100% package management. Anything that doesnt is only going to cause you problems. And definitely dont use something thats compiling everything on your box, thats both a waste and security issue.

2. Would you use VMWare on the server. I have the licenses, but maybe I can run the main hosting server on it's own, dedicated plattform. Pros/cons?

The only con with vmware is just cost. If cost is an issue, I'd use KVM. Its built into every Linux kernel and has some really nice GUIs too.

3. Are there any other services you would run on separate servers (mailscanning, MySQL...)?

I'd break out my architecture like this:

Incoming email spam scanning on its own boxes doing nothing else. I'd get a few modest boxes at different hosting facilities so you can do MX fall back (3 boxes is a solid number, you usually dont need more than that). A cheap $50/month box will do, if you have to use virtual boxes make sure you dont have 3 VMs/VPs doing spam scanning on the same box that will defeat the purpose. For incoming mail, you need HW diversity in case something goes down, and preferably in different data centers.

DBs should always have their own dedicated I/O busses and if you can their own servers. DBs are I/O intensive, and sharing a bus is going to kill performance. Also give your DBs tons of RAM so they can cache as much as possible in memory (which also helps with I/O).

Web frontends are CPU intensive, so whatever tiering you do make sure your web front end isnt CPU bound. You want your presentation layer to be snappy and the CPU is going to be your key limiting factor. Of course make sure whatever your web server is doing that it has enough RAM, but CPU will be the big bottle neck.

[biggles]

Thanks, both faris and mike. Very much appreciated!

One follow up question. What do we really think about the new package based cpanel. Is it working ok? Is it "a control panel that uses 100% package management"?

VMware licenses are already in place, so the cost is not an issue, BTW...

[BruceLee]

just a sidenote from me because this topics are also very unique solvable since everybody is setting up different concepts for the same case based on the unique knowledge, workload, tech env, project goal etc.
I would start with question regarding pro/cons of virtualization itself. what will be the ratio regarding the guests by the meaning of counting the physical systems compared to virtual systems (not hosts!). if it's just 1:1 than the virtualization layer is "stealing" performance but brings nice features too but costs money.
You could go on with many many questions like that. SAN/iScsi storage behind it or not.
iops rate of the SAN since you mentioned it.
current iops load.
does your vmware license cover all things you need?

I would not go with vurtualization in all cases but would try to fit it in if it's possible from technical and financial perspective.

cp:
I always wanted but never did check this solution. so I dont know if its worth testing for you:
http://ispsystem.com/en/

Plesk 9 did a better job than 8 from my point of view. I will go with 11 and 11.5 when its out after a certain time. just because of many usefull stuff that I rely on like spamdyke for example.

[biggles]

Thanks a lot for your input, Brucelee!

I will probably have some server virtualized. I'll probably have to many servers in the beginning, so I'll have one to for lab/testing purposes.

My main issue with Plesk is the lack of support. I really like spamdyke as well, but there might be other solutions out there...

ISPsystems looks good. Not a word on ASL compatibility though...

[BruceLee]

I will probably have some server virtualized. I'll probably have to many servers in the beginning, so I'll have one to for lab/testing purposes.

Yes I agree. If you will have this use case than virtualization is a good way to go/stay.

My main issue with Plesk is the lack of support. I really like spamdyke as well, but there might be other solutions out there...

I feel your pain. It seems like there is no real competitor out there.

ISPsystems looks good. Not a word on ASL compatibility though...

yep. But they recommend using AtomicRepo. So thats a good start. Asking them regarding ASL compatibility might help to clear things up.

[mikeshinn]

One follow up question. What do we really think about the new package based cpanel. Is it working ok? Is it "a control panel that uses 100% package management"?

Not really. Its not all package managed yet, and what is using rpms doesnt seem to take advantage of the OSes package management system. So you still end up with conflicts and unnecessary incompatibilities. cpanel is the #1 most challenging control panel to support because of this.