I've been looking at helm over plesk for windows recently due to the multiple server support helm has. It appears that if I want to manage more than one plesk box I at least need one linux box as the "master" server.
My main question is how easy is it to add other servers to helm with specific functions? For instance if I had helm 2 servers and then wanted to add a 3rd server as a secondary DNS server how easy is it?
I’m just about to trail the demo out this week but would be interested in some opinions from people who have used it on a wider scale.
Once helm's master server is setup (not the easiest task for a newb) then it's pretty easy to add remotes thereafter, I believe there is a requirement now that they must be located on the same ip range due to performance issues, afaik the remotes require no software to be installed apart from allowing the appropriate services/ports opened to allow the master to control it.
I've got the demo so ill have a good play with Helm. It can't be as bad as plesk surely? :P
When you state that Helm likes to be on the same IP range are you talking of local IP ranges or External IP ranges? I assume you mean local. I would have like to have 2 servers in different data centres running off one Helm system.
Helm needs all the servers it's controlling to be in the same place (i.e. local network/subnet) as it uses Windows Networking (WMI, ADSI, File Sharing and Remote Registry etc). At present you can't control servers cross-DCs but Helm 4 has a new system for controlling remotes which will alow this.
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Andrew Taylor
Hey Presto! Internet Services www.heypresto.co.uk
I know absolutely nothing about Helm, so I may be completely wrong here, but could you achieve this using some sort of VPN link such as OpenVPN (possibily with ethernet bridging), to make all the windows networking things work?
You can, but Helm can't deal with that at present, it seems to fail more often than not. It has been tried many times.
Helm 4 will have a remote application that does the work on the server, called by the control server using an encrypted/compressed data channel, so it doesn't matter where your servers are.
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Andrew Taylor
Hey Presto! Internet Services www.heypresto.co.uk
afaik the remotes require no software to be installed apart from allowing the appropriate services/ports opened to allow the master to control it.
It does require the Remote application on each remote server so that teh Control Server can query it and verify the license.
If you are leasing the Helm License from a DC as part of server rental then a full copy of Helm on remote machine will work fine as a Remote still.
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Mick Beeby
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I've got a basic helm server up with all the bits and bobs. Will try and break it or something soon and give myself a challenge .
I must admit that i do prefer plesk's layout in terms of email accounts and general ease of account navigation. Helm just seems to be rock solid and I love the snapins for adding other servers.
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