Preview of the fifth generation of ISPsystem products

As some may have already noticed, our company recently introduced a new version of the IPmanager management tool and their distribution, IPmanager, which is based on the new software platform COREmanager .

About what it is, and what is useful to expect from it in the future, we want to tell you now.

What is COREmanager?

In a general sense, COREmanager is a framework for building automation tools and control panels. He is charged with the processing of such common for all panels of the moments as:

• cross platform web server
• framework for building graphical interfaces, reports
• work with database
• event and planning system
• installation and configuration of the remaining panels (all panels can now be installed using the graphical user interface - just a couple of mouse clicks)
• a set of libraries for interacting with external panels (extended API)

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The rest of the panels will act as complementary modules for COREmanager , carrying in themselves only the business logic necessary for solving their tasks.

This will allow developers to concentrate the efforts of individual panels solely on improving the immediate functionality of these panels, without being distracted by the support of “serving” functionality.

What new will appear with the transition to COREmanager?

New enhanced API. A new interaction structure for our products was invented not only for the purpose of more correct division of labor of our developers, but also in order to open our customers the opportunity to independently develop control panels based on COREmanager. Now, if you, for example, do not need all the functionality of ISPmanager, but only some of it, or else you want to use it in another way, you can implement it all yourself in your own control panel, built on the basis of COREmanager.

Affordable platform. COREmanager will be free and freely available to all comers, customers and developers. Solutions based on COREmanager by third-party developers can be formed as separate products and distributed both for free and for a fee.

New licensing policy. In the 5th generation of ISPsystem products, a new licensing scheme will be applied. Now you can activate the product license in two different ways:

• Automatically - does not require user intervention, but imposes a number of restrictions on the server configuration. It must have a static external IP address. The panel should be available at this address from the Internet. This scheme is suitable for most users.
• Manually - this licensing method will be useful to those who want to use the ISPsystem products in the intranet when the server with the panel is not accessible from the Internet. When activated in this way, the user will need to obtain a special activation key from the seller’s license and use it to activate the installed panel.

Cross-platform. Yes, COREmanager, which means other products, will work not only on Linux and FreeBSD, but also on Windows Server. It will also allow removing part of the load, not related to the direct functionality, from the developers of the control panels.

Graphic installer. The fifth generation ISPsystem control panels can be installed via the web interface with a couple of mouse clicks. All installation instructions will be described in your native language. The end user will no longer need to execute incomprehensible commands in the console in order to install, in addition to ISPmanager, for example, IPmanager.

Informativeness. We completely rewrote the system of error messages that are reported to users in the process. Now they are more informative and always contain instructions for further action. This will avoid delays in solving some problems when using the product without interacting with the technical support service.

Multithreading In addition, now you will not have to wait until the actions of another user are completed. COREmanager allows you to perform various operations simultaneously. But, as you know, “Big power imposes a great responsibility” - it will be necessary to use the opened possibilities very carefully, so as not to cause detrimental collisions when working with data.

Performance. We also thoroughly worked on the performance of our products. All operations will now be performed in much less time while reducing the amount of resources used.

The bottom line

In connection with global changes, we are preparing an updated product line, where we have rethought and adapted products to current trends. In general, it can be said that the work on the fifth generation of our panels is primarily aimed at unification, modularity and portability. Developers of end products, such as ISPmanager, BILLmanager and others, will no longer need to spend time on maintaining “serving” functionality and they will be able to concentrate exclusively on working on the functionality of the control panels themselves. This will improve the quality of the products, reduce the time costs of adding new features and increase the frequency of new releases.

We will also finally solve a problem that did not allow using our products in various internal networks that do not have access to the Internet or are behind NAT.

I hope you will appreciate all the innovations, and they will make your work on managing various servers and services even more convenient and enjoyable!