When purchasing web hosting, as with all products and services in this world, it really is a matter of you get what you pay for. It is important to pay close attention to the features and services that /aren’t/ on offer rather than what are as it is very common practice for a business to put great emphasis on what they are providing and thus over shadow the lack of important features.

Your standard free hosting will essentially provide a facility allowing for site content to be accessible over the internet and probably the allowance of mail boxes. Generally this will be accessible as a subdomain of their site i.e yourdomain.hostsdomain.co.uk. Limitations in bandwidth, space and also file compatibility are very common attributes associated with free hosting, not to mention a very limited amount of technical support, so if you are wanting more than a site comprised of static pages, finding a service that meets requirements that is also free may be a pressing task indeed.

Free hosting is also unfortunately not provided out of pure generosity, a webhost will be providing for one of two reasons generally; Either to promote their paid products and services or to utilize the visitors of your site by adding either their own or third party advertisements.

All in all, free web hosting does as it describes by providing a home for your site but there are non monetary costs that are invariably bundled within this deal whether it be the lack of required features, poor bandwidth or the inclusion of third party banners and pop-ups just to mention but a few of the downsides.

The latest version of Wordpress is now available as a one-click install in our Supreme Control Panel v6.0 for the following Linux Hosting plans – Linux Professional, Linux Business and Linux Reseller Hosting solutions. Wordpress is a blog publication application, making it easy to have your very own blog on your web site.

There are many reasons why you might want to get a dedicated server over shared or Virtual hosting. In this article we shall go through a few of them.

Performance

With a dedicated server you are not sharing server resources with other users who’s domains could literally be doing anything. On many shared servers if one customers script is badly written or is over used it can cause a slow down or loss of service for all users on that server. With a dedicated server you get to isolate your sites from any others you have no control over.
Your requirements may be expanding and outgrowing the shared environment, you may want more control / performance. If you are running a PHP/MySQL driven site and are getting a few hundred users visiting your domains a day then consider getting a dedicated server to really allow you to optimise your server to suit your sites.

Even if on the face of it a shared or virtual server offers a higher spec or more memory, a dedicated server will almost always out perform its shared equivalent.

Control

If you want software that is not supported on our shared environment – you can install / compile any software of your choosing on a dedicated server. This enables you to have much more flexibility and choice in what you install. Many shared servers will limit what you can use, especially if it is resource hungry. With a growing array of software available, your sites might need the step up to a dedicated to fully exploit the latest technologies.

Security

You are able to fully manage the security on a dedicated server including passwords and firewalls, this will help keep your data secure and protect you from brute force attacks and other hacking attempts which are common place on the internet today. With a dedicated server you can know with a high degree of certainty exactly what is on your server, what the risks are and where you have secured yourself.

So you’re confused about the different operating systems?

Dedicated servers are the root of all webhosting setups, sometimes consisting of multiple servers all working together to process a web application or website.

Linux dedicated servers are common in complex setups as there are no licensing costs. Multiple dedicated servers running Linux would not only be more cost effective but also very reliable in server setups.

However, Windows dedicated server setups also have advantages over the Linux operating system. Windows is not community driven, this would mean for many users that the cost may be higher but the reassurance of support and regular updates would make a Windows dedicated server much more preferable.

Generally speaking, many users started out using a Windows operating system, learning Linux commands and switching from using Windows to Linux could require some time to get to grips with. Windows features the remote desktop utility, which makes it a strong competitor to Linux on usability. The graphic user interfaces throughout the Windows operating system could allow difficult tasks to be achieved more easily.

It’s best to start thinking about intended use of the dedicated server when deciding which operating system. You then could decide which technologies and scripting languages you want use, and the availability of them across the different operating systems. This will help guide you towards a Linux or Windows Dedicated server during the planning stages.

It’s not always an easy decision to make, other factors you may want to consider before signing a server contract could be:

• Are the servers Admins trained and confident with the intended operating system?
• Will the operating system work well with complex setups without compromising on performance and stability.
• Are there any concerns in terms of updates and security?
• How long is the license period? Is there an easy option to upgrade?
• Will the operating system fall within tight budgets?

So what is the better setup? Windows or Linux dedicated servers?

The answer to this question is simple… It depends on the consumer’s requirements and individual preference.

Contact us, and we will help you make the decision!

The entire ethos behind our technical support team is to ensure that you, as the client, get the most out of the package we provide. When looking to invest in webhosting, knowing to what extent support is offered can sometimes be as crucial as the product or service offered. Below are a few factors that should be looked at when choosing a support solution that meets you;

What support is offered?
It is important to investigate how your service is supported whether it be statically such as via knowledge base articles or if there is a more dynamic solution whereby there is an individual or team of individuals that are there to investigate your issues.

Articles are only useful if you know the right question, sometimes it is
essential to communicate the symptoms. If our knowledge base articles (support.cwcs.co.uk) do not answer your queries, we are contactable by telephone or email.

Response times
When time is a major factor, sometimes support needs to break from the constraints of normal office hours, especially when offering products that are remote to the paying customer. Our support system runs around the clock, if there is an emergency there will always be someone ready to listen. During office hours we strive to meet our own deadlines in replying to a support request of under two hours.

Webhosting is a multi dimensional industry, which is why it is important to have a team that have the knowledge and tenacity to analyse and solve issues that can cross many plains of expertise whether it be hardware, software or network related.

Right now, many directors and shareholders are aware of recent changes that have occurred affecting the day-to-day operation of millions of local businesses. Two words are being used to describe this current era and that’s… Credit crunch.

Information on the suspected causes of the credit crunch have been documented by wikipedia

Change is sometimes worrying and often avoided to maintain a smooth operation and keep workload low during this delicate time. Although it’s important to keep costs low and take advantage of offers for premium services at lower costs.

Web hosting contributes to businesses monthly outgoing costs. Whether it’s a dedicated server, colocation or a small hosting package for the company website. There may be an opportunity to reduce costs and even improve the service and reliability of your hosting setup.

A competitive market place ensures the lowest price is offered for the highest quality of service and support. Managed hosting ensures the company website is nurtured and responsibility is left to the hosting provider allowing time to focus on more crucial parts of the business operation.
Feeling stable and reassured with your hosting arrangements will help you to pull through this vulnerable time. Choosing a suitable hosting provider should not be solely decided on cost, a long-term provider offering opportunities to easily scale across hosting packages will accommodate for your businesses future growth.

CWCS Managed Hosting truly understands what’s expected from a professional Managed Hosting provider. We will work closely with your company to review your existing hosting setup and advise how you could benefit from changing providers. Contact us directly to see what we can do for you…

We’re in this together…

An often overlooked point to consider when choosing a web hosting provider is the physical location of the server. Research has shown that the average website user will lose patience with a site if the pages consistently take longer than 8 seconds to load. The proliferation of broadband has helped greatly but -something about eliminating the need to cross countries/continents and keep the data transfer local will offer better speeds.

The time for a packet of data to travel half-way round the world then back again is approximately 0.2 seconds.

There are 2 main identifiers that most search engines use to determine the target market for you site. These are the TLD (like .com or .co.uk) and the country that the website is physically hosted in. Ideally both of these identifiers will help the search engines to determine this, but one of the two is usually sufficient.

If your website is a .com site for the UK market, but you chose to host this outside of the UK, then it makes it harder for a user to find your website, as the main identifiers that a search engine uses aren’t telling them that.

Another big reason for this is that roughly 14% of searchers use the “pages from the UK” option when searching with Google. The only way for Google to know to put your website in this restricted part of the engine is if you are identified as a UK website.

Browsing the Internet is a daily task for many, with millions of website hits every single second of each day. The importance of websites can sometimes be truly underestimated.

Cheap web hosting providers are using sales techniques to grab the attention of buyers, undercutting quality web hosting providers by offering initial attractive deals. Avoid being trapped by these cheap web hosting providers by researching the company and questioning deals, which appear just too good to be true.

Like with many products and services, the after sales support and relationship with the web hosting provider is critical. Cheap web hosting providers may let you down after the initial sale, which could lead to disaster in the long run. Rather than focusing on just the features of a web hosting package, try to see past the initial sweeteners by focusing more on the actual reputation and after sale support the company offers.

Quality should never be compromised with cost in relation to finding a suitable web hosting provider. In actual fact the cost of a website disaster or time used on nursing a website could have a bigger impact on your business than it would to spend that little bit more for a quality service.

Avoid cheap web hosting providers and invest comparatively. Sit back and allow your provider to worry about maintaining your websites. Leave your business in the hands of a trusted company with many years experience… See CWCS’s answer to Cheap Web Hosting

To the average person, colocation isn’t an everyday term used when discussing web hosting. It may be familiar to some, but considered a grey area to many.

Colocation is effectively moving a web server or a number of hosting servers into a data centre environment. The hosting company would usually provide the connectivity, power and space. The data centre infrastructure provides redundancy, security, and reassurance to the company and is therefore a popular web hosting solution.

Whilst considering and discussing colocation, you may hear various terms and phrases you don’t understand.

Not to worry… read on and be prepared for the technical colocation jargon…

1U

1U is the minimum size for a rack-mounted server; the size refers to the height of the server. Different specifications and brands of servers come in different sizes.

UPS

UPS stands for uninterrupted power supplies; backup power is essential in a data centre environment to ensure your co-located servers are not affected in the event of a power outage.

FM200

Fire suppression system used in a data centre environment. The waterless system is capable of extinguishing a fire in less than 10 seconds.

Cluster

A server cluster consists of multiple servers operating a single task. Different server cluster setups are common in complex hosting setups.

Full rack/half rack

A rack is the container for multiple servers and devices, a full rack can hold up to 42U.

BGP

BGP is routing technique; it is often used in a data centre environment to switch connectivity across multiple Internet providers to create an effective fail-over system.

NIC

Network Interface card is a hardware device common in most servers, its required to connect your servers to the network to serve as a web server.

CAT 5

The common type of cable used when connecting standard devices or servers.

VPN

Virtual private network is a revolutionary way of using the Internet to connect devices containing sensitive data using encryption techniques.

SAN/NAS

Two similar types of storage devices often used as a central storage point in complex hosting setups. Transfers speeds are usually one advantage of using a specific storage device.

With ever increasing broadband bandwidth speeds it is becoming increasingly tempting to host web services in-house rather then laying out for the expense of web hosting with a specialised web hosting company, especially when you can acquire the hardware easily and cheaply to do the job.

However, many of the costs of hosting are hidden and aren’t simply the cost of the internet line and the server itself. Take into account for example the power consumption. Having a server and network equipment on 24/7, especially dedicated servers with large storage capacities, can increase your costs dramatically now electricity prices are increasing well above inflation. The cost of the software licensing and the specialist skills required to install and maintain it can sometimes be far higher than all the other costs put together.

Finally you need to take into account the cost of keeping a server up 24/7 which is something many companies find to be business critical. Redundant power supplies, air cooling, internet connectivity and disks can double the cost of your non-human costs.

Using a web hosting provider will make much better value for money as the cost of backup systems, human resources, software and hardware costs are almost always included in the costs quoted for the packages on offer and due to economies of scale the costs will be much cheaper than going for it alone.