Advantages of Using the Plesk Control Panel

The Plesk Control Panel is an application that manages most aspects of a web hosting environment.

The Benefits of Using the Plesk Control Panel

Plesk interfaces with
• IIS and web services
• Email services
• FTP services
• The database servers
• DNS services
It also
• Manages client accounts
• Manages domains
• Sets up and manages the file structure
• Sets account limits
• Sets user permissions
While many of our customers are more than qualified to manage their domains directly through IIS, this becomes very difficult to support. There are multiple ways certain tasks can be performed via IIS configurations. Plesk performs that same task in just one way. It is much easier to provide support when things are done consistently.

For these reasons, we ask our dedicated server customers to do everything they possibly can through Plesk. Set up email accounts through Plesk which applies those changes in SmarterMail. If you create accounts directly through SmarterMail, when Plesk runs its nightly tasks, it will note that there are email accounts that it knows nothing about and will delete them.

Create your clients (if needed) and domains in Plesk. It will set up the necessary folder structure, apply limits and set user permissions appropriately.

Generate and apply SSL certificates through Plesk. Create portal aliases and subdomains through Plesk. The list goes on and on.

The Few Tasks We Commonly Perform Directly in IIS
• Recycle an App Pool – While this can be done through Plesk or through the Control Suite, nothing is as fool-proof as going directly to the source.
• Creating or modifying wildcard mappings
• Creating or modifying handler mappings
• Switching from integrated to classic pipeline mode or vice-versa

In summary, do manage your dedicated server as much as possible through Plesk. Plesk and the Control Suite can make managing your server much, much easier.