I(Adarsh Sojitra) am creating a post on this blog after a very long time. The last time I posted on the blog, I didn't have a team to help me build this thing.
Since last one and a half year I think, I worked a lot on learning SaaS business and building a team. The majority of the time went into training employees and also going through huge changes.
The first paid version of ServerAvatar had server-based pricing. It means that you can recharge your wallet and get credits in your account that you can use to manage your servers. It was an elegant process with clear pricing.
A Bad Move!
Since I decided to launch plans instead of server-based pricing, I was struggling to get new customers to try the product. I tried different pricing with different tiers but I still didn't see any improvements.
It is because the current Plans and Pricing is not so elegant in terms of resources available to use. For example, what is the meaning of Unlimited Servers and Unlimited Applications? Some people think we provide infrastructure as a service.
We also wanted to apply the Fair usage policy. But it didn't work out as fair usage policy should include a list of things someone can't do and list of things that they can do. But it still didn't cover all the cases so this idea too was not a good one.
Finally, After trying everything, I think it's best if we move back to server based pricing. It means that you can recharge your account to pay for managing your servers. But the charge is for each server for each month.
We will discuss this topic in detail in the same article. First, I want to let you know that the newer version of ServerAvatar is on the way. It is being built right now by the team of 7 people working for ServerAvatar full-time!
ServerAvatar never got a proper version number because I like everything perfect and I was unable to understand the version numbers with changes in code. But we all call it ServerAvatar Six which is basically the version number. Six because It is the 6th time We are building it from scratch. I made first 5 versions alone, including the one you are using right now. The 6th one is awesome because it got too much time from us.
ServerAvatar Six
ServerAvatar Six is the most powerful version of ServerAvatar built till now! I will let you know everything about it including screenshots in the same article.
So, Let's come back to the server-based pricing first, then we will also see what is coming up in the new ServerAvatar Six.
The Server-Based Pricing
While going through this pricing mess, I was also creating a team that can help me build it the way I want, FAST! Right now, I am still investing my time in training my team to develop stuff fast and secure.
So, Now this change is finally possible! We are coming up with server-based pricing. It simply means that you will get credits that you use to manage servers. You can recharge your account by purchasing credits.
For example, If you want to manage 1 server for 1 year, you can recharge that amount to your account and we will let you know once it is about to expire. It is simple, and it does not create grey areas on billing side.
It means that you can manage as many servers as you want without worrying about the fair usage policy. We are also planning to give discounts on mass server management (Will cover this one too!).
Finally, we have the pricing ready for you! These prices are Tax Inclusive. So, Here is what you will pay for managing a single server every month.
Newbie
$2.36/Server/Month
Pro
$4.72/Server/Month
With this change, You don't have to pay $12.99 just to manage single server with a pro plan. If you are just getting started, You can use the Newbie plan which is affordable for newcomers too, considering that you can manage multiple websites on a single VPS.
Faster and more Efficient Performance
Until now, we were unable to take advantage of different programming languages to solve some problems. The method we are using in the current version of ServerAvatar is very secure, but it is slow. Why? It is because it takes time to connect to the server via SSH to get some information or to execute some commands.
So, I got an idea to use an HTTP connection instead. We worked out a demo and as expected, the HTTP connections were faster. It allowed us to fetch, format and display data on the screen faster.
If you are a regular ServerAvatar user, you know that when you hit the refresh on Memory usage, Disk usage or Server Load, it takes around 3-4 seconds to show data. But, in the ServerAvatar Six, it only takes around 1 second.
So, you can expect all the requests to be processed 2-3 seconds faster than it is now. More than that, some big tasks that may require a few different connections are 2 times faster than the current version.
All the servers using current version will be updated automatically without any downtimes.
Teams
Yes! You can now share your servers with other ServerAvatar users. The concept is simple, When you register, you get a personal team. In this team, you can manage all your personal servers.
But, you can also create new teams for different projects. You can add other ServerAvatar users to that team so that they can manage servers inside that team.
You can easily update the team from the main navigation bar. Here is the screenshot for you. You can easily detect the option to change the team.
This screenshot is a few days old. Green is not going to be the primary color of the panel. And there are many changes that are not visible in this screenshot.
Server sharing was a much requested feature. So, we built it but we also made it more efficient. Teams are the best way of sharing servers. We hope you will enjoy this feature!
Admin-side Monitoring Panel
Monitoring is important for us. We do not want our customers to face downtimes. So, we made a panel that will monitor everything that is going on.
As now the connectivity of ServerAvatar and your server is strong and fast, we can monitor different things on the server to help you optimize the server as per your application's requirements.
The next thing under the monitoring section will be the updated monitoring panel on the User side. It means that you will be able to see, in more detail, what is going on with the server resources and usage. It should be available on the user side as soon as I am satisfied with the efficiency of the panel.
This part is not going to be long, it is because there is nothing more to say about this panel other than it will help us improve the overall up-time by a huge factor.
Public API
We have public API as well as API documentation ready since a few months. But if a user is using API, it means he is using it to manage many servers. Sometimes hundreds of servers and more than 500 applications on a single account.
But with the pricing update, we solved this issue. And with the next launch, we will also launch the public API that you can use to access ServerAvatar programmatically. With the help of API, you can create applications based on ServerAvatar and Cloud servers. You can sell that service to make profits.
You will be able to access API endpoints using your API keys. You can manage keys directly from your account. We will also monitor requests coming to our API from your API keys to improve our API.
Updated User Interface
We updated the whole user interface. Now it is easier to use than the current version. You can navigate through the application without jumping on brakes.
Just like the dashboard and everything behind the login screen, we also updated the guest section containing homepage and all other pages including blog and knowledge base in a single WordPress application.
It means that you can access blog articles, tutorials and other pages in the same interface and the same design.
We haven't updated the majority of the layout, just the design. So, if you are already familiar with the user interface, you won't face any problems with new user interface.
So, that's all about the new ServerAvatar Six for now. We will keep updating the information on this page regarding the launch and the product. We are also planning to release a public roadmap so that current customers as well as the people who want to use it can understand what we are building right now and how long it will take to develop it.
Some Important Screenshots
Right click and hit Open image in new tab option to see the image in the full screen. These images are not so high quality, I am uploading whatever I have.
We are still working on the user interface a lot! So you will see some more improvements when you will use the new panel.
Now, Let's discuss the question I know I will face a lot!
What happens to the current servers and customers?
If you are already using ServerAvatar to manage your servers, You won't face a single issue in this migration process. We have built the code to transfer all the current servers to the new version with no delay or downtime.
It is an easy process, so it is not a problem at all! But, I get more questions regarding the billing part.
So, If you are already using a Newbie plan, You will be able to continue managing servers the same way you are managing right now. There will be no change for you in the billing section. Same thing for Pro plan users. You will continue getting services at the rates you agreed when you started using ServerAvatar.
We value our first few hundred customers. So, we updated our application to support current customers as well as the new customers who will pay on a per-server basis.
Now, The most exciting part!
ServerAvatar Six Launch Date
All the versions except the first one was delayed because we were unable to develop the system on time. Mostly, we failed to develop some features and do testing on time.
It was because I was alone in development and testing process. This time, we started developing the new version since very long time and we don't think we will delay the launch this time. So, Here is the final launch date!
26th January 2020
We are so excited to launch the newer version of ServerAvatar with all the featured I mentioned above. You will love the new user interface, speed and efficiency.
Conclusion: So, that's all you need to know about ServerAvatar Six and everything it is coming with. We are working very hard on developing the best product for you. It is a great opportunity for each and everyone of us. And we are happy to serve you one of the best server management systems in the market.
We will keep updating this article with new information regarding the new version. So, subscribe to notifications as it will let you know fast if something is updated on ServerAvatar.
