HELM Control Panel for Windows Servers... NOT!!

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by ProductivePC, Aug 7, 2006.

  1. #1
    I put a report out here about 9 months ago about how much HELM Control Panel SUCKS but we were stuck using it.

    This is a continuation of that report.

    We had the creators install this control panel onto our server.
    This was a brand new server with nothing else on it. This is a high end server, not a cheap crappy POS.

    To start off with, it had a whole bunch of errors and I could not access it half of the areas within HELM. Well recently, within the last 6 months we started seeing a traffic drop and a whole bunch of HTTP Errors. We figured this was Google making the change as they have removed our backlinks along with 5 million other websites and removed our PR along with the same sites.

    Our Server team was having a hell of a time discovering why the server was getting worse and worse. They kept blaming our ASP code on our website. I kept arguing with them telling them it was not the code that was causing our issues. Not only were we experiencing HTTP Errors, we were also experiencing 505 Server Errors on over 90% of our webpages. The file responsible for this was a w3wp.exe file for the application pool. At times this file would just use gobs and gobs of memory. 1.5Gigs of memory was the most I saw it at. With only 2 Gigs on the server, this was a problem.

    Out of sheer curiosity, after months of troubleshooting this issue and tens of thousands of dollars in lost sales later, I decided to stop the helm processes. Within 30 seconds, w3wp.exe went from 900MB at that time to 230MB. WOW!

    We have since totally removed HELM and W3WP.exe is holding steady at 90MB, right where it should be. No more errors on the site.... no more HTTP Errors, everything works perfectly!

    Reporting to people... Stay AWAY from HELM!!! Don't waste your money on it!

    Hsphere is a much better product IF you can find someone that is capable of installing it on a Linux Box to Control your Windows Box (If that is what you have)

    In 9 months of experience with HELM... My opinion stands. If you HAVE to use a Windows OS, like us and you are looking for a control panel then please understand that HELM is a bad investment because:

    HELM SUCKS!!
     
    ProductivePC, Aug 7, 2006 IP