Ashoat Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Hey everyone, Sorry about disappearing for like four months. Heh. I suppose I'm back now. This should sufficiently explain my absence. Right, onto more relevant news. HelioHost has been running into some major financial issues as of late. Why? A few months ago, the number of accounts on Stevie hit a critical mass. With more than 17,000 accounts, he was hosting more accounts than even the heaviest loaded cPanel test servers. The issue with this was that Apache now had to process an absolutely huge configuration file every restart. It took almost a minute to start up. cPanel needs to restart Apache for every new account it creates, which meant that HelioHost had about a minute-long downtime every ten minutes. This was not acceptable.I decided to close signups for the immediate future to at least keep the current accounts stable. However, this caused yet more problems, this time of a financial nature. With signups closed, HelioHost was taken off all the major free hosting directories, which comprised about 90% of our traffic. Since HelioHost is financed exclusively off of ad revenue generated by our home page, we are now making about 10% of what we used to make. That is not enough to sustain this service. Options at this point: Try to prune enough existing accounts to reopen signups. Possibilities to achieve this goal: Reinstate account auto-deletion script (was taken off due to some problems with the script).Shorten inactivity period required for deletion from three months to one month.Force all existing account holders to request that their account be preserved. Kill all accounts that are not requested to be kept within a month.Try to convert Stevie into eight or more virtual servers. With eight servers, each would host 1/8 the accounts that Stevie does (meaning each would restart eight times faster), and would receive 1/8 the new signups (meaning each would have to restart eight times less often). This would mean a 0.16% downtime for most accounts, instead of the current 10% downtime as a result of opening new signups. Problems with this idea: Converting Stevie into a virtual server host would be dangerous and difficult. If I screw something up, accounts could be lost.I would have to ship Stevie over to my house again, which would take about $50 for both ways and would cause about a week-long downtime. The biggest problem is that eight cPanel VPS licenses would cost about three times as much as the current single standard license. We don't have the funds for this, as a result.Try to secure financial support of a non-profit nature. Possibilities to achieve this goal: Try to get somebody to donate a new server. A new server would be able to handle new signups, and as such we could reopen signups. However, a new server would require more cPanel licensing fees and probably more colocation fees. We could also apply point #2 to the new server, but this would require even more licensing fees. Ideal places to ask for free servers: datacenters, hosting companies.Try to get somebody to give us free colocation. Colocation is now taking more money than any other single cost for HelioHost. The best option would be to have colocation in the Seattle area, because this would mean I would be able to service the server more directly. Ideal places to ask for free colocation: datacenters, organizations with datacenters.Try to get somebody to donate cPanel licenses. cPanel licenses are a major cost to HelioHost, especially if want to try point #2. I have asked cPanel for free licenses, but they are not willing to provide us with them because we may be hosting commercial sites. Ideal places to ask for free cPanel licenses: cPanel executives, cPanel license resellers.Try to secure financial support of a for-profit nature. Possibilities to achieve this goal: Place more intrusive ads on the HelioHost home page.Place more intrusive ads on users' cPanel pages.Ask users to complete surveys when signing up, the profit from which would go to HelioHost.Ask users to join a mailing list when signing up, which would solicit them with offers and advertising. The profits would go to HelioHost. What are your guys' opinions? Which options make the most sense? Which are the most viable? Let me know what you think. Thanks, djbob
Byron Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 Glad your back djbob! I definetly think getting rid of dead accounts is the first place to start so that you can reopen signups again. All of these ideas below sound great to me if not all of them. Try to prune enough existing accounts to reopen signups. Reinstate account auto-deletion script (was taken off due to some problems with the script).Shorten inactivity period required for deletion from three months to one month.Force all existing account holders to request that their account be preserved. Kill all accounts that are not requested to be kept within a month. I can go along with this if it keeps the ads off of my pages. Place more intrusive ads on the HelioHost home page.Place more intrusive ads on users' cPanel pages.Ask users to complete surveys when signing up, the profit from which would go to HelioHost.Ask users to join a mailing list when signing up, which would solicit them with offers and advertising. The profits would go to HelioHost. Whatever it takes to keep heliohost going and keep it the great free service that it is, I'm all for it. Cheers, Byron
Wizard Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Geez, almost sounds like the US economy. I agree with byron. For the short term, all dead weight should be tossed. Then we can worry about long term. Heliohost should worry about getting stable, then staying afloat, then profitability. Also, you should offer the 'with ads' plan again. That seems to jerk up some revenue. Just make the benefits a little smaller till we get back on our feet.
Kyougi Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Another option is just to cut your losses and shut down Helio. You should really configure the server for mass hosting. Having to restart Apache to add new users is unnecessary. Virtual hosts are most optimal way of doing things. Totally documented, too. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/mass.html
roitudo Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Thx for coming back, And I also agree with byron. Edit 1 time @ Apr 2 2009
Kyougi Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Thx for coming back, And I also agree with djbob. Agree about what? You didn't read his post thoroughly. Also, you should offer the 'with ads' plan again. That seems to jerk up some revenue. Just make the benefits a little smaller till we get back on our feet. Ads plans don't help when most people sign up because they want ad-free hosting, and get very little traffic in the first place. Helionet will get more traffic than all of the Heliohost sites put together.
Ashoat Posted April 1, 2009 Author Posted April 1, 2009 Kyougi's right about putting ad on users' accounts. It never made us much money, and nobody will choose an ad-based plan. Another option is just to cut your losses and shut down Helio.Not going to do that. You should really configure the server for mass hosting. Having to restart Apache to add new users is unnecessary. Virtual hosts are most optimal way of doing things. Totally documented, too. http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/mass.htmlI looked into this for about an hour yesterday. It actually seems like a viable solution, except for some security configuration options that might cause some difficulty. I'll look into it some more, and get back to everyone with details.
roitudo Posted April 2, 2009 Posted April 2, 2009 Thx for coming back, And I also agree with djbob. Ups. I meant byron.
ITGaWD Posted April 2, 2009 Posted April 2, 2009 Hello, My idea is to create an area for paid accounts, Where people get more space and databases ,etc. Maybe this will bring in a few more money. After you made some money of his, re-open the free accounts. With the paid accounts you could offer , for example, a free domain if you register for two years. Abit like http://brinkster.com
papukai Posted April 3, 2009 Posted April 3, 2009 [*]The issue with this was that Apache now had to process an absolutely huge configuration file every restart. It took almost a minute to start up. cPanel needs to restart Apache for every new account it creates, which meant that HelioHost had about a minute-long downtime every ten minutes. This was not acceptable. [*]The biggest problem is that eight cPanel VPS licenses would cost about three times as much as the current single standard license. We don't have the funds for this, as a result. [*]Try to get somebody to donate cPanel licenses. cPanel licenses are a major cost to HelioHost, especially if want to try point #2. I have asked cPanel for free licenses, but they are not willing to provide us with them because we may be hosting commercial sites. Ideal places to ask for free cPanel licenses: cPanel executives, cPanel license resellers. [ Why not replace Apache by lighthttpd? It's much more lightweight and faster than Apache. And why not try DirectAdmin? Paid accounts, surveys and mailing lists would be ok.
AverageJoe Posted April 15, 2009 Posted April 15, 2009 Well you could set up one page spammed with ads and everyone go there a bunch This should sufficiently explain my absence. Same here. Except it's going to be even worse when beach season comes around. I think you should cut all the unneeded accounts, put back in the three-month policy, and put ads in cpanel + forums. Maybe get a plugin where they go in-between the posts as well.
Wizard Posted April 15, 2009 Posted April 15, 2009 Well you could set up one page spammed with ads and everyone go there a bunch Methinks this be cheating and djbob would not approve.
Kyougi Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 Hello, My idea is to create an area for paid accounts, Where people get more space and databases ,etc. Maybe this will bring in a few more money. After you made some money of his, re-open the free accounts. With the paid accounts you could offer , for example, a free domain if you register for two years. Abit like http://brinkster.com Not enough people will buy them to make a difference. Why not replace Apache by lighthttpd? It's much more lightweight and faster than Apache. And why not try DirectAdmin? We don't get enough traffic for lighttpd to make a difference. Our problems stemmed from an incorrect setup. People like cPanel. Anyways, it should be fixed.
papukai Posted April 16, 2009 Posted April 16, 2009 We don't get enough traffic for lighttpd to make a difference. Our problems stemmed from an incorrect setup. 17 000 accounts and not enough traffic?
tablecat Posted April 19, 2009 Posted April 19, 2009 Cool, I've been waiting to have my account activated for a long time. Hopefully this gets resolved.
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