: Please suggest Alternative to Microsoft HMC, an Automated Hosting Managment Solution for all Microsoft Products? I am not really sure whether this is the right forum to put up this. But here

Posted in: #Automation #Cloud #Management #Microsoft #WebHosting

I am not really sure whether this is the right forum to put up this. But here it goes.

I am a Hosting Controller and Automated Hosting Management solution provider for Microsoft Products and Services (Exchange, SharePoint, CRM, Unified Messaging etc).

Currently I am using Microsoft HMC 4.0 as my main Hosting Solution along with some other solutions for Automated hosting management of Websites, 3rd Party Mail Service Providers, DNS Service Providers and Scripted Solution (Perl, Python, Cold-fusion support). Microsoft will end support for HMC soon enough and i am not really ready to upgrade to MCCS due to various issues discussed in the very same article.

I need an All-In-One Hosting Automation and Management solution for Microsoft Services that must essentially support the following services:

Long term business Support (HMC 4.5 is the last version of this solution. Microsoft will support HMC 3.5 through July 12, 2011, and will support HMC 4.x through December 12, 2011.)
Product Support for Latest Features (Exchange 2010, Sharepoint 2010, CRM 2011, OCS 2010 (Lync 2010), Blackberry 4 and 5)
All-IN-One Support for all Products and Services(Spending on individual solutions is wastage of money for me)
Legacy Microsoft Support (Exchange 2007, CRM 4.0, Sharepoint WSS 3.0)
Self Service sort of Control Panel (For Clients and Resellers)
Automatic Billing System (Must be part of the complete solution)
Migration of Exchange 2007 Existing Customers to Exchange 2010.

The bullets from 1 to 7 are my business's stringent requirements. Paying for multiple solutions is costly both in terms of management and support as well as licensing. I have been using a separate billing system solution that is not tightly integrated with HMC and i have to face issues from time to time due to it. I need to have a tightly integrated billing system with my hosting management solution.

I need to provide my clients with a proper central control panel/dashboard/portal from where clients, resellers and myself can manage each product's provisioning and associated services, manage subscriptions and billing. I need long term support for the solution. I also have a strong requirement of upgrading (migrating) some of my existing users/organizations/mailboxes etc of Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010.

Please suggest an All-In-One Automated Hosting management solution that meets the above requirements at the moment. I have been looking a couple of hosting panels that support Microsoft products and meet most of the above requirements. But i cant just go for any one of any without seeking help from the community.