@Ladylinux Thank you for expressing your concern. I forwarded it to the team in charge.
According to the team, WebPros Cloud is an idea that was born out of partner feedback. Various Web Hosts and even some Registrars had stated the need for premium level infrastructure across geographies - that could allow them to compete with some of the competition they face in the market.
WebPros Cloud is an infrastructure platform that allows hosts, registrars, etc to go to market faster and with fewer technical burdens.
Our partners always remain the customer-facing figure/brand, and the center of our efforts. We don’t sell directly or market to your end users. You own the billing relationship and the customer. We stay behind the scenes, operating the software, hardware and global availability in the background.
We’re not offering VPS, shared, or dedicated servers to the market at large either. Instead, we're providing a managed infrastructure layer that runs our own software - specifically for hosting companies who want to simplify their hosting operations and/or want to offer a cloud variant to their customers.
WebPros Cloud is offered exclusively through a wholesale model - not as a retail or direct-to-end-user solution. We’re not selling hosting or domains to individuals or SMBs. We’re offering a platform for providers to build on.
This is built for providers who want to launch or scale faster without managing servers themselves. It’s also useful for providers entering new markets or simplifying parts of their stack.
@Sebahat.hadzhi
I have to be brutally honest.
This is
an accident going to happen and
a reoccurrence of similar attempts from the past -
attempts that failed miserably.
On the hand, there is the concept of WebPros Cloud.
In essence, this concept is already alive in the form of many predefined images that can be installed on VMs in many clouds.
However, these cloud based VMs with Plesk images are
not affordable in the sense that
they are too expensive in comparison to a barebone dedicated server with a Plesk instance with a Plesk license.
Stated differently, if Plesk is introducing WebPros Cloud, then the same drawbacks of those cloud based VMs will simply reoccur.
It simply is not a viable solution for any of the Plesk customers - most of them will stay or, in the long run, revert to a Plesk instance on a dedicated server.
On the other hand, there is the design infrastructure - a hot topic and (unresolved) issue for years now.
The scalability of Plesk is poor, very poor.
There have been attempts in the past to introduce (not so good) extensions that promised "multiple server management" or "remote server management".
All of these extensions have failed, the "multiple server management" has even been scrapped by Plesk.
Stated differently, as long as scalability remains poor, then the added value of a cloud based solution like WebPros Cloud will be suboptimal or even poor.
It simply does not make sense to invest in cloud based solutions, if there are no advantages that would normally be associated with cloud based solutions.
Moreover, Plesk - apparently - forgets about their own reluctance to deviate from the current "one-license-per-one-server" business model.
Any cloud based solution with an "one-license-per-one-server" business model simply means an
exponential growth in costs.
Additional costs for license owners, due to the significant extra (overhead) costs of both managed servers and cloud based servers.
Additional costs for Plesk / WebPros, due to a lack of scalability and the maintenance and costs associated with cloud based servers.
Both types of additional costs will create an ongoing spiral of price increases of WebPros Cloud - not an ideal situation!
In fact,
it can be expected that WebPros Cloud
can only become profitable for both Plesk / WebPros and Plesk customers,
if and only if some old (and hence cheaper) dedicated servers are used with some kind of virtualization technology.
This is
not the same as "cloud based" - not at all!
If WebPros would actually provide real cloud based solutions, then the costs per VM would be significant (read: hundreds of euros per month) and additional costs will have to be made in order to get sufficient bandwidth, storage and so on (read: thousands to tenthousands of euros per month).
Stated differently, if WebPros would actually provide real cloud based solutions at actual costs of 200 to 1000 euro per month (or more), then most Plesk customers would be better off by getting some dedicated servers and some Plesk licenses.
Any actual cloud based solution below 200 euro per month would not be possible - the cloud based Plesk instance would be destined to fail in most use-case scenario's and the price can also not be lower, taking into account the Plesk license prices and the "one-license-per-one-server" business model.
Stated differently, if WebPros is not running on (not so cloud based) dedicated servers with virtualization technology, then Plesk customers would be exactly at a break-even point with the alternative : running a dedicated server of their own, with a Plesk instance and a valid Plesk license.
In conclusion,
the offering of WebPros Cloud is not a smart move.
Plesk has been evolved to a control panel that does not require a lot of maintenance, so added value in managed hosting is not really present.
Plesk has not evolved away from the "one-license-per-one-server" business model, so added value cannot be created by reduced license costs.
Plesk has not evolved towards a platform that is truely scalable, so added value from any cloud is simply not present!
Plesk, with the offering of WebPros Cloud, will evolve towards a more expensive solution that exactly does the same.
Plesk, with the offering of WebPros Cloud, will evolve towards a more expensive solution that will remain limited with limitations resulting from the "one-license-per-one-server" business model and from the fact that Plesk is not yet cloud or server scalable.
To be honest, I am surprised by this offering, let me explain.
In the past, I was able within a testing environment to remove the limitations of the "one-license-per-one-server" business model by running a cloud based cluster of VMs, networks, fileshares and database clusters ... with one Plesk license.
There was no interest at all from Plesk and it was explicitly stated that Plesk would stick to the "one-license-per-one-server" business model.
This lack of interest has been translated into actions, in the sense that little or no effort has been undertaken to make Plesk cloud or server scalable.
If I am not mistaken, these actions are still not taken, implying that WebPros Cloud will not run on a truely cloud based environment.
However, if these actions were taken and Plesk can run in a truely cloud based environment or in a server cluster ........
why not share and sell that?
In my humble opinion,
it is infinitely better to sell a good extension allowing Plesk implementation in the cloud or on a server cluster.
Sure, Plesk has the freedom of choice ....... but so do Plesk customers!
In my humble opinion, Plesk will not get the number of WebPros Cloud users that will make the WebPros Cloud project economically viable.
By all means, please do try it, since it can be expected that the old-skool hosting providers with dedicated servers or the ability to get discounts on cloud based Plesk implementations will - finally - be able to compete in terms of pricing : they will simply be cheaper.
By all means, please do try it, since
there is no proof that WebPros Cloud will be better or not, with the exception of the proof provided by the profit or loss realized with WebPros Cloud.
At this moment, it seems to be the case that WebPros Cloud is a choice that will not be reverted.
There is no evidence
yet what will be the best : default Plesk or managed Plesk via WebPros Cloud.
As for me, I only know for fact that some limitations of Plesk, like the "one-license-per-one-server" business model, can be worked around and that the costs of cloud based solutions are prohibitive and will remain prohibitive to move towards the cloud.
Really, I am open to any concept involving cloud based multi-server Plesk implementations, but I honestly think that WebPros Cloud is not a good move.
In essence, it is
aiming for the right objective, but following the wrong path in full knowledge that the path can never lead to the objective intended.
Kind regards.....
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