Virtualizor Offers an Integrated Control Panel That Automates Virtual Private Server Management

TL; DR: Companies deploy virtual machines in various ways and on many different architectures. Virtualizor delivers an integrated control panel that streamlines the management of one or more server instances through a single interface. The platform supports complex business deployments and even hosting resellers by offering separate control panels for each server. Virtualizor continues to refine its products while also planning expansions into WordPress plugins and visual web designers.

Since the early 2010s, tech-focused companies have increasingly migrated to cloud-based infrastructure, with non-tech businesses a bit behind the adoption gap. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated that cloud adoption. Virtual private servers grew in popularity because of their generally lower costs and because they don’t require in-house staff to manage them.

In 2009, Softaculous launched its Auto Installer to help businesses manage applications through the cloud and allow hosts to better satisfy the application needs of their clients. Soon after, Softaculous, founded by Pulkit Gupta, branched into virtual machines with Virtualizor.

“We saw virtualization take off, so in 2010 we developed a hosting control panel that helped users create virtual machines,” he said.

Pulkit, who is also Virtualizor’s Lead Developer, said he realized that the first wave of VM control panels left a bit to be desired and products needed to be more robust.

“We had our learning curve, but we also wanted to take up the technical challenge,” he said.

Today, Virtualizor is a polished product and delivers two types of control panels — one at a global level that supports individual server provisioning, and another at an individual server level.

That structure serves a dual purpose. The global admin perspective is great for SMBs and hosting resellers, while the individual control panels fully empower business units or reseller customers on a per-machine basis.

Virtual machines run on a variety of architectures. Virtualizor supports OpenVZ, XenServer, Linux KVM, Proxmox, and OpenVZ 7, among many others. The platform includes one-click access to a mix of server operating systems, including Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE Linux, and the Webuzo control panel. Webuzo is part of the Virtualizor family of products.

Companies that double-down on cloud technology often find value in running several, or even dozens, of individual virtual private servers. In this scenario, considerations, including security auditing, inventory, and internal networking take center stage, and Virtualizor can manage all of those administrative tasks from a single browser window.

Virtualizor, as a platform, promotes high reliability. It delivers features including VPS cloning, automated backups, domain forwarding, real-time statistics, and one-click applications, among many others.

“We help in the automation process, making it easy for our customers to onboard new customers of their own,” Pulkit said. “Virtualization is all about automation.”

Automation works very well for SMBs that must segregate data within the company for financial or regulatory reasons. In that use case, an IT administrator may oversee the entire cluster of VMs, but department leaders or other authorized users manage individual servers.

For example, a company could isolate its CRM platform on one VM, its human resources data on a different VM, and its public-facing website on another. Depending on the configuration, a CRM analyst couldn’t access HR data and vice versa.

Cloud-first businesses face an additional challenge related to hardware sourcing. A public-cloud approach, common with SMBs, outsources the hardware to an external cloud-computing provider — including AWS or Azure.

A private-cloud approach, which is more common with larger businesses, may see a cloud-computing cluster within the company’s datacenter. Virtualizor supports clustering, so no matter where a business houses its hardware, the control panel manages the entire server ecosystem.

Virtualizor delivers a robust control panel for individual VPS owners running multiple VM instances. However, that same logic model applies to hosting resellers who wish to upgrade the customer experience beyond a typical shared hosting model.

A VPS reseller that contracts with a major cloud-computing provider can install Virtualizor to manage its own customers. Only the reseller sees the 50,000-foot view of the servers, and customers see only their own VPS.

“Our differentiating factor is integration into billing centers and the various virtualization technologies, providing a universal feature set across these platforms,” Pulkit said. “Virtualizor is a well-integrated product.”

Virtualizor integrates an hourly billing module into the control panel to make reselling viable. The feature supports setup pricing and extra resource utilization, as well. It integrates with three different payment gateways, including PayPal or delayed payment through WHMCS invoicing out of the box.

Additional specialty tools customize the interface for customers. Its recipe feature, for example, customizes Bash scripts. At the same time, the backup-plan system sets specific criteria about end-user backups and restorations and the maximum system resources that these activities are allowed to consume.

Virtualizor allows administrators to set user-selectable provisioning plans that specify disk space parameters, bandwidth, network speed, CPU utilization, IPs and subnets, and related options.

“We’ve tried to give more features before our competitors, and we keep the pricing of our products very economical,” Pulkit said.

Although early VPS control panels were a bit clunky, the technology has advanced significantly over the last decade. Today, Virtualizor has elevated the user experience into something more useful and effective for executing complex administrative tasks. The maturation of this technology dovetails with the drive toward cloud-first computing, which has been hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virtualizor drives value for both individual VPS users and administrators of virtual private server reseller platforms. Its chief value lies in the total integration of the VPS experience. Technical function automation and billing integration help manage costs and optimize resources.

Virtualizor is part of a family of solutions that includes Softaculous. The company’s significant upcoming development work complements its control-panel products.

“We’re making some WordPress plugins,” Pulkit said. “We’ve also developed our own website builder, which we’re turning into a one-click solution for companies trying to compete with existing builders.”

Small businesses just beginning a journey to cloud-based computing may not have the resources to manage the nuts and bolts of a cluster of virtual machines. Although managing server clusters does require expertise in systems and network administration, Virtualizor’s integrated control panel streamlines the process so administrators can focus on priorities other than manual configuration and troubleshooting.

“We try to simplify the user interface and the user experience,” Pulkit said. “It’s important that we touch as many people as we can with our products.”