Self Hosting
1.) What are the minimum specs I need to run a local self hosted erpnext system? like cores ram storage type(ssd,hdd). Im thinking of NUC but not sure which one is good or if its an ok idea at all
2.) is it slow to use windows instead of linux as os?
3.) whats my option of backing up when self hosting?
4.) how big do the files or the db get normally? how big if with attachment and how big without attachment
5.) if say my main drive is full already is there a easy way to transfer or upgrade to a new drive?
Reseller
1.) I tried signing up for a reseller plan(inputted name company name email and country) but it gave me an error when i hit submit
"Not Found
You seem to have hit a broken link. This page does not exist. "
2.) if i will be a reseller will i have to worry about implementing the clients features or am i just the middle man that will bridge the communication between the client and the developer?
First of all, it makes a difference as to whether you are hosting in your own server closet on a bare metal box or whether you are hosting on your own rented VPS server. My experience using a physical metal box server was grueling at best.
When you are first starting out you absolutely WILL make mistakes and will need to be able to reload or re-install the system possibly several times until you get it the way you want it. To this end, using a metal box server on in your closet becomes tedious. There will likely be times that you have to re-install the operating system in order to get a clean system to stat over again. Regardless, if you want to take this approach, you should have the following:
50 to 100gb of hard drive
4gb of memory
and a multi-core processor
The smarter way to learn about using the system is to rent a VPS server from any of your favorite vendors (minus Amazon AWS as they appear to be having problems lately). I got my start using the free trial period at Google Cloud Platform. You can see my write-up on that here:
Here I use a minimum of 2 cores, 3.75gb of memory, and 10gb hard drive space. For larger operational testing I bumped this up to 20gb of disk space. After the trial period (which lasted about 7 months for me) the cost was about $25 per month. Regardless, it was the best way to learn how to setup and configure ERPNext in a very short amount of time.
The GCP service has it’s limits as well, but it was instrumental in my being able to get past all of the common startup mistakes we all seem to make. This is because I could spin up a fresh server in about 2 minutes and start all over again if I wanted. It was also much faster to run the install script to a cloud server than it was to go through my router here to my desk.
Using the bare metal box method it would take me about 6 hours to completely reload an operating system and re-install ERPNext so I could try something out. If it failed I would be staring down the long process of restarting everything again.
Using the cloud server method I could easily make any mistake I might have wanted to try then delete the server and have another complete one spun up in less than 10 minutes. This process made the learning curve ramp up quickly.
Umm… to my knowledge, there is no version of windows you can use to install ERPNext. It is meant to run on Linux. You may be able to make a virtual machine on a windows box and then install in in the VM, but this would significantly increase the hardware specs you would need to get things running. Besides, you would still be looking at using Linux, so why not just go straight to that at the beginning. The beauty of using a cloud service to spin up servers is that you can even learn linux syntax as you go without fear of screwing up.
If you are self hosting on box in your closet, it will need to have a way to make image backups to external media. You might also be able to get it to backup to a Dropbox account but it will be subject to the limits of your bandwidth and the reliability of your internet connection.
If you self-host on a rented (or free trial) VPS host, you can also backup to Dropbox without any speed issues, or you can use the backup services available from your VPS provider. When I was learning on GCP (Google Cloud Platform) it was easy to just make a complete image of the server and save it in the account. I could then spin up a saved image in a matter of 90 seconds if I needed it.
Ok, this one is really subjective. I have an example that might be helpful. I have a client that runs a retail and wholesale operation. They have about 150 to 200 sales invoices per day. They have a SKU list of about 10,000 items in their database and over the course of one year, their mysql database grew to about 1.4 gigabytes.
However, I also have other operating that do less sales and have smaller operations that only get up to about 600 megabytes over the same year. So again, it is very subjective.
If you are using a metal box at your desk, it would be a tedious task to image the drive and then restore it to a larger drive.
If you are using GCP you just make and image of your server and save it. then spin up a new server using that image but bump the drive space up to what ever you want and you are in business again. Total time about 30 min.
If you are using a commercial VPS service, then you can usually do it with a simple mouse click to expand your server.
IMPORTANT NOTE - If you are going to do this as a production server on a commercial VPS hosting service, make sure you get a KVM type VPS host account. It is the only type that allows for swap space (which is required by ERPNext) and it is the only type that can be upgraded on-the-fly with a simple click on an upgrade button in your account.
Resellers are only available by going through the erpnext/frappe hosting service. They are always active in reworking their site and the provided services. The reseller service is also always subject to change as the folks at frappe are constantly working on it to make it better.
However, if you want to run a business implementing ERPNext for your own client base, you do not need to use the erpnext/frappe cloud service. In fact you may find some of their practices may not align with you or your clients expectations. You sould by all means research the forums about the pros and cons. However, you can certainly start up clients yourself on a VPS server and manage it for them as a service. I and many others do this currently.
Both methods of setting up clients have their pros and cons. It all depends on how much control you want to have over the client experience, how much time you want to invest, and whether you have the skill set to make it all work.
When using the erpnext/frappe cloud reseller services, you are merely the middle-man that helps them setup the account. The frappe cloud service handles everything after that. They do all the updates and upgrades as well as handle service issues or problems.
If you want to see how that works for you, then just open an account with them and let them setup your first ERPNext server. Use that server to learn everything about the system. It will also give you the opportunity to use their service ticket system to see if you think it is satisfactory for your intended clients.
Why do this you may ask…
Well, you must understand that the erpnext/frappe cloud service in in India and the time zone differences may or may not work well for your clients when they need help. So I recommend paying for the service and using the server to learn everything you need ot learn in order to then be a reseller of the system. BTW… if you use their cloud service, they also take care of the backups for you.
Back when I started to learn the system, I chose to use the GCP cloud service so I could learn everything about installing and setting up the system and I bought their “Self-Hosted service contract” to make use of their service ticket system without being on their servers. It was a great learning experience and one that I recommend. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to self host on a box or VPS or whether you choose to just use their cloud service for your learning experience. Either way you need to at least be part of their service program to evaluate everything. Either way will be helpful in your total understanding of your options.
So, this was quite the lengthy answer, but ultimately I think I covered everything.
