OnApp Cloud FAQs

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Questions & answers

About OnApp Cloud software

Technology

Storage

Installation & deployment

Pricing

Using OnApp - common technical questions

WHMCS module

About OnApp software

What is OnApp Cloud?

OnApp Cloud is a software tool for hosting providers. It enables hosts, and other service providers, to set up and manage public and private clouds on their existing infrastructure, using commodity hardware. They can then launch cloud-based services to their clients, with easy deployment of virtual machines running different operating systems (and their applications) on the same hardware at the same time; bill per hour for the cloud resources used; and easily scale resources to meet the changing demands of their users and/or customers.
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What can hosts do with OnApp Cloud?

With OnApp Cloud, hosts can set up private or public clouds in minutes, using libraries of pre-configured, customizable virtual machine templates; host multiple virtual machines with different operating systems in complete isolation from each other; customize virtual machines, resources, templates, users, billing and more, through an intuitive control panel; migrate virtual machines near-instantly to maximize use of server resources, and minimize downtime for users; and scale to match demand and minimize cost: save energy and make best use of available hardware. See how OnApp works for more information.
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Is there a white label version? Can I rebrand OnApp?

Absolutely. While you can use OnApp in its standard configuration, look and feel, it is designed to allow you to customize it to suit your own brand identity, look and feel. You can skin the control panel through the UI itself, or by customizing html, css and other files. You can also use existing integrations to customer/billing portals (like WHMCS, Ubersmith and HostBill) and manage OnApp services that way; or, with the OnApp API, you can build a completely new front-end to your OnApp cloud, or integrate OnApp with some other control panel or front end.
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Does OnApp Cloud do billing?

OnApp Cloud does not invoice your customers: however, it does manage the whole process of setting prices for cloud resources, calculating billing information, and exporting it to your billing engine. OnApp Cloud has been integrated successfully with WHMCS, HostBill and Ubersmith through our open API, and if you use a different package (or an in-house system) we'll work with you to build integration for it.
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What cloud resources can you bill for in OnApp?

CPU cores, CPU share, disk space (primary/secondary/backup), IOPS, RAM, IPs, port speed and data. You can set limits along with prices, free and max resources, prices for VMs powered on and off, and prices for different performance/availability zones in your cloud. Together with OnApp's granular user permissions system, this lets you create cloud hosting services tailored for the precise needs of your customers - and your business.
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What do OnApp version numbers mean?

OnApp Cloud has major, minor and bug fix releases. A major release will have significant changes to functionality. A minor release will add minor features and improvements, and may include fixes for significant bugs in a major release. A bug fix release involves bug fixes and optimizations for a minor release.

These are represented by the first, second and third numerals in the product's version number. In OnApp Cloud 2.3.1, for example, 2 would be the major release, 3 the minor release, and 1 the bug fix release of the software.

You can check which version of OnApp Cloud you're running in your OnApp Control Panel. Go to onapp.host/version, where "onapp.host" is the hostname of your OnApp installation.
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Technology

How many servers do we need/what are the hardware requirements?

See our hardware requirements page for an example of a small cloud or proof of concept. We’re happy to advise you on requirements for a full cloud deployment – contact us.
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What virtualization technology do you use?

OnApp Cloud supports Xen, KVM and VMware hypervisors. Others will be added in future releases.
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Why do hypervisors require three NICs?

Having three NICs makes the cloud network more stable and easier to scale. There is less chatter internally and, therefore, less opportunity for failure because of bottlenecks between the SANs and the management network. From a cost perspective this helps maintain performance without additional hardware investment, too.
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What Operating Systems can I run with OnApp Cloud?

The OnApp Control Panel and hypervisor servers run CentOS (see the hardware requirements page for details). For virtual machines running in OnApp clouds, we support a broad range of operating systems: see the list of OnApp templates for details.
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What are OnApp templates?

OnApp templates are fully pre-configured operating system images that are used to build virtual machines. Using templates can result in a significant reduction in the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with cloud management. You can rapidly provision new virtual machines by using libraries of pre-configured templates, or create your own templates for future deployment of virtual machines.
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Can I create my own templates?

Yes. You can create your own custom templates from pre-configured Virtual Machines. It’s a simple process: configure a virtual machine as required, back it up, and convert the backup to a template in just a few clicks.
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Does OnApp Cloud support Windows 2008 virtualization mode?

No. Instead, OnApp uses GPL Paravirtualization drivers, which provide front-end drivers for the Xen block and network devices. This gives Windows much higher disk and network performance.
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Does OnApp Cloud support Active Directory Domain Controllers?

At present OnApp does not support Active Directory Domain Controllers.
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Storage

What SANs do you support?

Any SAN that can present a block device: iSCSI, ATAoE, Fiber.
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Does OnApp Cloud support local storage?

Yes, but this isn't how a cloud should really be designed. We can make local storage work for you, but bear in mind that there won't be any failover, because storage would be tied to just one hypervisor.
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How is fibre channel supported?

Fibre SAN is supported as long as the device itself is supported by RHEL5. Hypervisors can create virtual machines on a shared LUN.
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Installation & deployment

How do I get started?

To get started with OnApp Cloud, book a demo of OnApp or contact us to discuss your cloud hosting requirements.
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Is there an installer? Who installs it?

There is currently no installer for OnApp Cloud. All installations are performed by our in-house installation team, free of charge, once your hardware is in place. Our team has unmatched expertise in cloud deployments and will tailor the installation to your specific requirements and network environment: installation, in most cases, takes no longer than a day (and in many cases can be completed in about an hour). If you plan to offer full private clouds to your clients, and need to install and support OnApp in-house, that's something we're happy to work with you on as well.
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Can I deploy OnApp Cloud on Citrix XenServer?

Unfortunately not.
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Do you have an iPhone app?

Yes - there's a full OnApp Cloud app for iPhone and iPad, with extensive cloud and VM management capabilities. Customers with paid licenses can even customize the app with their own branding.  
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I'm not a hosting provider. Can I use OnApp Cloud?

We're happy to talk. OnApp is already used by some clients that are not hosts...
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Pricing

How much does OnApp cost?

OnApp standard licensing is $10 per physical hypervisor CPU core per month, plus $100 per controller server per month. The controller server manages hypervisors and hosts the OnApp Control Panel. One controller would typically manage 50-60 hypervisors. The minimum deployment size is 1 cloud with 40 hypervisor cores ($500/month).Check the OnApp pricing page for more details.
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Do we have any other licensing options for very large-scale deployments?

We’re happy to discuss – contact us.
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Does licensing work on physical or logical cores?

Physical cores only. Hyper-threading is ignored for licensing purposes.
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What’s your pricing on disk space/bandwidth/IPs etc?

We don’t provide those things. OnApp is “cloud enabling" software – it enables hosters to build clouds on existing infrastructure (or almost any off-the-shelf hardware) quickly and easily, and through the OnApp Control Panel provides intuitive control over servers, VMs, users, billing and more.
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Common technical questions

How does CPU priority work?

When a virtual machine is created it is allocated a CPU priority as well as a number of CPU cores. You can think of CPU priority as its "share percentage". This value is used to determine how much CPU resource that VM is given, by multiplying CPU priority by the number of cores allocated to the VM. The result is a minimum number - VMs can burst over it, up to 100% multiplied by the number of cores.

For example, consider a VM which has been allocated the following CPU priority percentages and cores, on a hypervisor with a number of 3GHz CPUs:

  • 100% x 1 core = 3GHz CPU resource available (burstable to 3GHz)
  • 10% x 2 cores = 600MHz resource available (burstable to 6GHz)
  • 5 % x 4 cores = 600MHz resource available (burstable to 12GHz)

By default, OnApp allows overselling of cloud resources. For example, OnApp will allow users to create 5 VMs with 100% CPU priority/1 CPU core on a hypervisor with a 4-core CPU. In this example, OnApp would reduce the guaranteed CPU for each VM.

The CPU Guarantee option in OnApp's Settings/Configuration menu enables or disables this behaviour. With the CPU Guarantee option enabled, OnApp will not create VMs requiring more CPU resource than is available on their hypervisor.
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WHMCS module

Q: What's the difference between WHMCS OnApp and WHMCS OnApp Users modules?

A: The WHMCS OnApp module allows you to create, build, reboot, shut down, start up, unlock, rebuild and delete virtual machines in OnApp directly from WHMCS. All the billing processing takes place through WHMCS, not OnApp itself. To avoid miscommunication between WHMCS and OnApp billing, users of the WHMCS OnApp module cannot log in to OnApp directly using a WHMCS account. That’s why all the management tasks are performed through the WHMCS Customer Store and Admin Area.

The OnApp WHMCS Users module allows you to create, suspend, unsuspend and terminate OnApp users through WHMCS. After a customer buys a product based on the WHMCS Users module, the module creates a user account in OnApp and sends notification with credentials to this account. All the billing tasks are handled via OnApp's Control Panel. The WHMCS Users Module creates invoices in WHMCS based on the resources used and prices set in OnApp.
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Q: What are the system requirements for these modules?

A: The system requirements are the same as for WHMCS: Windows or Linux OS, PHP Version 5.x or later, MySQL Version 4.1.x or later (Strict Mode Disabled), cURL with SSL support, plus (for Unix OS users) the php-xml package.
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Q: How do I install the WHMCS OnApp modules?

A: Installing either module involves downloading, extracting and uploading it to the right location - for details, refer to the relevant documentation for each module.
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Q: How do I localize OnApp WHMCS modules?

A: To localize WHMCS OnApp modules, copy and translate the file {WHMCS root}/modules/servers/onapp/lang/English.txt to the desired language. For more info, refer to http://wiki.whmcs.com/Main_Page.
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Q: How can I create additional resources for WHMCS OnApp products?

A: To add a new resource:

  1. Go to Setup > Configurable Options in your WHMCS Administration Area and click the Edit icon next to the group to which you want to add a resource
  2. On the page that follows, click the Add New Configurable Option button
  3. On the pop-up that opens, set an option name and type. You can choose between drop-down, radio and quantity types
  4. Enter the first sub-option value you want to offer for this option (pricing is set after saving) and click Save

For more info on Additional resources configuration, refer to WHMCS OnApp Module documentation.
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Q: What does Hostname has not been found Module Command Error mean?

A: This problem can occur when customers buy a product without a required Hostname field assigned, and create a Virtual Machine in WHMCS. To avoid this error, set the correct Hostname parameter for the required product in the Client Area > My Virtual Machines menu.
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Q: What does the error There are more or less than one OS template. Can't choose OS template mean?

A: It means that a product consists of more than one OS template and WHMCS can't choose between the OS templates to create a Virtual Machine. In such a situation, a VM can only be created from the Client Area.
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Q: Can WHMCS customers log in to OnApp directly within WHMCS when using WHMCS OnApp module?

A: No. The WHMCS OnApp module provides the same functionality as OnApp. It allows you to create, build, reboot, shut down, start up, unlock, rebuild and delete virtual machines in OnApp directly from WHMCS. All the VM management operations for WHMCS and OnApp customers are the same, but billing processing differs. So, to prevent miscommunication between OnApp and WHMCS billing procedures, customers are not provided with access to OnApp.
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Q: When a WHMCS customer tries to create a Virtual Machine, why does the error Can't create OnApp User. Login has already been taken. Email has already been taken occur?

A: This error can occur when the email address being used to create a VM, through the WHMCS OnApp plug-in, is already present in the OnApp database (e.g. for an active, or even a deleted user). As a workaround, we suggest that you use a different email address so you're able to create the VM. The email address can be changed back after VM creation.
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Q: Can I automate emails for the WHMCS OnApp module, with VM username, password and IP addresses, using the WHMCS automated email functionality?

A: There are two email templates related to OnApp events: Virtual Machine Created (sent when a user creates a VM) and Virtual Machine Deleted (sent when a user deletes a VM). You can automate emails for these two events. Use the following email placeholders within these templates to send VM details:

  • Username {$service_username} (root for linux and administrator for windows)
  • Password {$service_password}
  • Assigned IPs {$service_assigned_ips} (all IP addresses assigned to a VM)
  • Server Hostname {$service_server_hostname} (VM hostname)
  • Config. Options {$service_config_options} (An array of additional resources and OS Templates configuration)

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