[Off-Topic] Ubersmith

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1

Hi Everyone,

I know this is a bit off topic. And I am completely open to someone giving me a link to a list that might be better to talk about Ubersmith. However I also know that Many of you might have some feedback about Ubersmith as well. :wink:

Basically, My company has been looking for some possible new software to run our company on vs custom build software along with several different software pages. We came across Ubersmith are and checking it out now. On the surface it looks like it could combine some of our current app into a nice single point application. But I would LOVE to get some feedback on what people think about it. And/or if there is something similar that I should be looking into. Looking for something Enterprise like. NOT WHMCS!

Off-list replies are more then welcome.

Thank you in advance.

2

I know that E-Solutions, at 400 N Tampa, was running Uber before they
got bought out by Knology (now WOW); I don't know if they still are.

They were pretty happy with it, I gather, though like everything it
has some pinch points.

Cheers,
-- jra

3

I used it, when I was hosting with Voxel and I thought it was pretty cool. I think Ubersmith was developed at Voxel and then spun off, is that correct?
What do you want to do with it?
James

4

Hi James,

Looking at the online billing / payment aspect, Along with some of its other feature. IP tracking Service tracking. Billing for cloudstack and integration with it along with Xenserver. The integrated ticketing system looks Cool too. Overall looking for a tool to manged customers and for customers to manage there servers / infrastructure along with billing of servers.

Probably more as well but those are some highlights.

Sincerely,

Mark Keymer
CFO/COO
Vivio Technologies

5

It depends on the size you plan on growing to. The software is good but their pricing doesn't scale well.

We've been using it since 04 but are migrating away from it at this point.

Aaron

6

Aaron,

Would you mind sharing what you are migrating to?

Matt

7

We rolled our own. A friend is migrating to WHMCS from Ubersmith.

Aaron

8

I would be standoffish, due to Ubersmith alleged recent history of price
increases. Admittedly... I am very skeptical about the concept of
datacenter management or billing software providers charging a big
monthly fee, plus extra per-client and extra per managed-device.

That doesn't mean it's always a bad idea; it's just really annoying.

If smart phones were sold like Enterprise software....

"Customer: How much for this smart phone?"

"Sales clerk: How many people do you plan to call with it?"

"Customer: Uh, 5 or 6 friends and family members."

"Sales clerk: I see... well that will be $300 plus $25 per contact, so
the total comes to $450. In 5 years the newer model will be $499 for
you."

"Customer: Wait... I also need to receive calls from 3 important business
clients"

"Sales clerk: In that case, the same smart phone costs $2500, plus an
extra $100/month license fee for each business contact, and a 30% annual
maintenance -- if you fail to renew before the end of the 12 months, it
will deactivate and it will be full price to turn it back on."

9

I'm also a bit leary of them now, considering they are owned by internap
after the voxel acquisition. I like their software and used it for years.
It just seems like they're trying to compete in the market of zuora and
others when they are something completely different.

I'm also surprised there have been no competitors to ubersmith in the data
center space.

Matt

10

We have used Ubersmith here ata Data102 for several years (since
august 2009? I think?) and have been very pleased with it. As a
datacenter operator, it provides a truckload of tools and (perhaps the
most important thing about it) integrates it all together pretty
seamlessly. For a simple example - it can do all the general snmp
graphing of a switchport, turn it on/off based on billing paramters,
attach a device to a switchport, and come billing time, calculate and
bill the 95th%. Very, very easily. It also handles monitoring metered
power strips, can deal with switched PDUs, and allows all of that to
be managed by the customer as well (yay for remote reboots through a
decent UI!). Lots of other handy integrations (xen, vmware,
cloudstack, onapp, pmacct, puppet, cdp, more!). And it all integrates
pretty well with ticketing & customer accout management.

It's new pricing structure is very off-putting. It used to be
flat-rate, per-device, which was agreeable - somebody wants a managed
server, add $1. No problem. Now, it is very much FUPayMe -- separate
pricing for this feature, for this feature, "normal" devices and
"advanced" devices. It's a ~50% hike from our current rate. As a small
shop (~10k sqft, 15 employees), it's pretty brutal. I can't imagine
what they're charging larger, more integrated places.

Since the acquisition by Internap we have seen everything go downhill:
quarterly updates turned into year-long waits; features & requests
pretty much ignored; support seems more management-y; documentation
has not been updated; they don't update their website pretty much at
all; the order & sales manager appear to be completely disregarded and
perma-beta; no updates at all to the 2.5.x codetrain; and 3.0 is now
hidden behind the pay-more wall, after an 18 month wait. Maybe all of
these are unlocked once we pay?

We have been looking for alternatives since October or so, and the
WHMCS Datacenter add-on looks OK, and Hostbill might be an option. We
are loathe to go down the never-ending roll-our-own path, as it would
take a lot of time to recreate what we have already enjoyed. We would
*LOVE* to try out NocWorx, but they are not accepting new customers
(and haven't for a year+).

Tough spot for us. Any input would be awesome.

Randal