One of the most important considerations when running a reseller hosting company is the billing software. There are many different types available to the general consumer at many different prices, some are even free. Those that are free are usually packaged with a reseller hosting account or within the control panel software.

There are many billing programs available for a price. A few examples of best quality reseller billing software include:

• WHMautopilot
• Clientexec
• Modernbill
• Account Lab Plus
• phpCoin
• WHMCS

WHMautopilot and Clientexec are generally offered packaged with reseller hosting plans. WHMautopilot is an excellent billing program for beginners. It has the basic tools and is easy to use making it a top choice for novice reseller businesses. While Clientexec does offer more advanced features, it’s a popular program due to the simplicity for everyday management.

Modernbill is generally used with larger reselling businesses. One primary downside is that Modernbill tends to be expensive. It offers many advanced features including fraud protection, automatic account creation and compatibility with major control panels like cPanel and Plesk. On the other hand, Account Lab Plus offers many basic features and is fairly inexpensive.

PhpCoin is a free script that is another helpful program for those new to the reseller business. It offers the basic billing options. Conversely, WHMCS offers many features including fraud protection, automatic suspension and built in support tickets which are extremely important in the billing department. Also, WHMCS is easy to use, affordable and easy to setup. That way, it’s easy for both reseller beginners as well as experienced users.

Billing software is a vital aspect of the reseller business. When first starting the company, free software with basic features is an acceptable method for conducting business as there are a limited number of clients. Once the company expands, the needs of the business change. With more customers, more features will need to be utilized especially the detection of fraudulent charges and the protection of important billing information.

The security of billing software bundled with many features makes for a well-rounded and well-trusted software program. The above list is some of the highest quality billing programs currently available. Depending on the stage of business, they offer everything a client needs to accommodate their users. As billing software becomes more advanced, the technology will allow for more automated procedures.

The software control panel industry has developed into big business. There are many control panel software companies available that sell to hosting companies. One downside is these companies do not sell control panel software directly to customers. For individual customers to purchase a hosting control panel, they must buy through a reseller.

Larger hosting companies tend to get control panel discounts than small business or even individual buyers. There are a few reasons that major control panel software providers only sell through licensed retailers including:

• Small number of customers
• Excellent marketing strategy
• International exposure
• Focus on software development

By having a smaller number of customers (the resellers), the major control panel providers can save money on sales, accounts and billing teams. Those companies that would like to deal directly with the software developer can purchase monthly or yearly licenses. Others must consult with another company such as a reseller. Overall, the costs of maintaining many small monthly payments can be high and it’s difficult to manage.

This method significantly decreases costs thus leading to lower prices for all customers. Consequently those corporations receive lower pricing because of the volume of licenses purchased. This relates directly to economies of scale meaning the more you buy, the less each individual unit costs.

From a marketing perspective, control panel software companies can have other smaller companies complete all the marketing and advertising for them. They sell the product and receive a small percentage of the sale while the software provider again saves money on marketing, advertising and sales. This also leaves the firm time to focus on the large volume buyers.

Furthermore, since there are many companies across the globe marketing and selling the software, this gives international exposure to the parent organization. Also, there’s no need to deal with different languages and cultures since there’s a local company in many countries that are marketing to their population.

The final reason is the control panel provider can focus on software development. Since there’s a plethora of companies selling their software, this eliminates the need for putting effort into the other segments of an organization; it’s already completed by competing smaller companies.

The sales, marketing and advertising methods of control panel software providers is ingenious. It uses a reseller to take these functions out of the company thus saving a great deal of money. These reseller companies all compete against each other utilizing the provider’s software. For individuals requiring control panel software, they must pay full price due to economy of scale. This is standard practice in all supply-chains.

While you might not have heard about Hosting Controller, it is still a very powerful control panel software that is steadily building a healthy fan base. The hosting Controller software is designed to benefit both the end-user and the web host by providing simplification of daily administrative tasks.    This control panel is also very suitable for those using clustered hosting. Because it’s centralized interface makes managing several servers at once very easy. Hosting Controller also carries support for Sharepoint and MS Exchange, while most of it’s competitors in the control panel market do not. Aside from its compatibility with the aforementioned softwares, Hosting Controller also offers the following key features.

Performance

Most of the problems associated with web hosting stem from high traffic and memory consuming applications. Eventually these problems slow down servers and cause downtime for websites. Hosting Controller provides  a software based load balancer that guarantees optimal performance for your website and server.  This load balancer has the ability to optimize the use of your server space and capabilities.

Simple Installations

Even though most web hosting services offer support for many third-party applications, the installation process involved with these applications can be difficult at times. With the integrated installation utility, Hosting Controller makes the process of installing new applications quick and simple. Some of the more notable softwares that are automatically included with Hosting Controller are: phpBB, WordPress, osCommerce, Gallery, Post Nuke, Web Calender, Joomla and Mambo.

Cluster Management

Maintaining multiple servers can be a complex process that is very time consuming. Improper server management due to an incapable control panel can result in server downtime that can directly affect your online business. Hosting controller let’s you manage multiple servers from a single effective administrative interface. Therefore you no longer have to log into each servers administration module separately, which in itself can take up a lot of precious time. In fact, Hosting Controller was specifically designed for clustered hosting.

Compatibility

Unlike most control panels, Hosting Controller is compatible with both the Windows and Linux operating systems. Although it is compatible with both of these operating systems, it is important to note that the master server must run on the Windows operating system. Hosting controller also has the capability to work seamlessly with both IIS and Apache servers simultaneously within a singular interface.

Even the above features do not begin to describe the efficacy of Hosting Controller. In fact, this software is one of the few notable administrative alternatives to Plesk and cPanel.

There are thousands of pieces of software, applications and programs that web hosting providers use to measure numerous statistics for their customers. As these companies continue to expand and add users, their software needs must be met to ensure quality, accuracy and keep proper records.

One piece of software that assists with bandwidth monitoring is SQL Bandwidth Meter created by Hosts Tools. This tool allows web hosting providers to monitor, count and report bandwidth used by each customer. Although there are many of these programs available, this software differentiates itself by providing bandwidth control on a per user basis.

This means that the web hosting provider has the ability to see the amount of data used (both uploaded and downloaded) by every single SQL user. This is beneficial for the provider to be able to bill customers for bandwidth usage. Another benefit is the ability to observe which customers are using the SQL level intensively.

Hosts Tools offers a free trial with no time limit to monitor traffic from many server clients (between one and eight IP addresses). To unlock the full version and be able to monitor more clients, simply upgrade the copy and they’ll create a license key bound to that specific IP address.

Once the software is functional, SQL bandwidth meter offers the ability to create a log file measuring several pieces of data including:

• Hour – The software collects and saves the data once per day so it will be outputted between 0 and 23
• SQL Login – This provides an SQL user name of the monitored server connection
• Total packets out – Measures the total data (in packets) sent by a specific SQL connection within the hour
• Total packets in – Measures the total data (in packets) received by a specific SQL connection within the hour timeframe

To analyze this data or generate a report, there are two options available: using Microsoft LogParser software or Microsoft Excel and Access. The LogParser software is a better choice since it’s a little more automated than the other options.

These are the types of available tools that help create efficient hosting services as well as streamline potential errors. Although most web hosting providers utilize some type of bandwidth measuring software, this differentiates due to the ability to monitor bandwidth on a per user basis. Also, the reporting statistics are simple but detailed which makes them easy to read for non-techies.

The software industry is very diverse, offering solutions to just about every digital problem in existence. Learning how to use a very complex piece of software is enough to drive anyone crazy, and the sad part is – many people do not even know how to run their software. This is especially true for software that needs to be run on web server.

Almost any software that requires constant access to the internet can be hosted on an Apache server and run using your hosting account. This not only saves your computer system resources, thus speeding up your computer, it also expedites the overall efficiency of the software itself.

Installing the Software on Your Server

Installing software onto a web server is relatively simple if you know what you are doing. You can even run several software at once on the same web server. The problem occurs when you realize that not all software can be installed in the same way. That’s when you encounter various terms such as PHP, MySQl, and more. Although the installation process differs depending upon the software or script, in general you will need to use an FTP client for every installation.

Uploading Software to Web Server

The first step in uploading the software to the web server is to download a good FTP client. I would recommend FileZilla because it is free, popular, reliable, and easy to use. Once you have FTP client installed you can then navigate to the software files on the hard driver side of the FTP client (the left side). Right click on it and then press upload. It is important to note that you need to read the README file of your software to see where you need to install the software on your web server. Most software will do just fine if they are installed in the route folder of web server.

Running the Software

Once again this process differs depending upon the software you are running and what it is intended to do. A basic script can be run simply by visiting the web page that the script was installed to. For example, if you installed a very simple script that generates random names, you would simply visit the page that the script is installed on and click the generate button. Of course this is a basic example, however the concept remains the same for any script or software that you install or use on a web server.  The program is accessed the same way a web page would be accessed, this means it is important for you to know which directory the software is installed in.

Conclusion

Not all software can be run on a web server, however if you have extra server resources available and you are trying to run a powerful piece of software on a constant basis, then you should definitely consider running any demanding software remotely using your web server, this is especially true if you are already paying a lot for a dedicated or VPS server.