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Web Hosting, Web Hosting UK, Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting, Dedicated Server | CWCS
Everyone should know by now that, here at CWCS Managed Hosting, we’re about top notch customer service and delivering great value for money to our customers. Many of our competitors have been using all kinds of smoke and mirrors to over-complicate their packages for managed hosting and dedicated servers.
So, in order to be completely transparent about what our customers actually get for their money when they buy a dedicated server or a managed server from us, we have re-done those sections of our website to show exactly what’s included or otherwise – all you have to do is to contact us via those particular pages and we’ll get in touch and discuss the options with you; it really couldn’t be simpler.
We won’t try and get you to buy a package that makes a salesperson loads of commission but is completely inappropriate for your requirements, we’ll try and get the package as close to what you’re looking for as we can; whether its different backup regimes or security scanning or patching, we’ll try to do what’s reasonable to work with you, rather than getting you to buy something off a price list.
If you are setting up a new website it is only natural to want nothing but the best for your creation. You might be thinking of hiring a professional website design company, perhaps a web writer, and the services of a coder could be needed too.
Whilst using such professional services is always preferred, they cost money, and for some people in these financially constrained times, they are just not an option.
However, should you find yourself needing a site on a shoestring it is still possible to construct a perfectly respectable, ‘DIY’ website. Let’s assume you already have a domain name and a web hosting service, and are ready to put together your site.
First, whilst you shouldn’t need coding expertise, it helps to read up on the basics of website authoring. The internet is packed with free tutorials. Your plan should also include making a rough sketch of the site using pen and paper: this always helps.
There are a variety of free website authoring packages available, starting with CMS’, which enables real-time updating of content without having to go through a publishing routine. You could also consider paid website authoring software. Whichever route you go down, these packages nearly always come with a decent spread of templates to help you get started.
Here are award winning web hosting company CWCS Managed Hosting, we provide a very competitively priced starter package, which is nonetheless generous and feature rich: it includes 2GB of web space, 200 mail boxes, and fantastic technical support.
‘Colocation’ is a word which, at first sight, evokes the world of property, and even the dreaded ‘relocation’.
However, in the world of web hosting, ‘colocation’ might well have very positive associations for you and your business, especially if you are managing a large, complex web site.
‘Colocation’, in web hosting parlance, means that you physically house your web server in a professionally managed data centre, whilst still continuing to run it yourself. You would mostly connect to the server remotely, and, some web site hosting companies also allow on-site visits to the data centre by your IT staff.
There are many advantages with colocation.
As the web has become a more complex, communications force, so demands on websites have grown. Big commercial sites are now expected to handle large amounts of users, sometimes in the range of thousands per week. Moreover, multiple simultaneous retail transactions may be the norm for your site, putting additional pressure on hardware.
Not all companies have the most suitable location for hardware which supports such busy sites. For instance, it is not unheard of for mission-critical servers to be stored in a broom cupboard in the IT manager’s office.
Ideally, your equipment should be housed in a professionally staffed, secure, intrusion proof, weather-proof, air-conditioned, fire resistant environment; such as the one we offer here at CWCS Managed Hosting.
If you go for a colocation hosting solution with CWCS Managed Hosting we will guarantee your equipment five-star accommodation, with a dedicated project manager, whilst you will still have the ability to manage it as you require.
Its unlikely there’s anyone sane out there who had any doubt whatsoever that, in order for your business to survive, succeed and grow, you have to have an effective online presence. We often see companies who’ve clearly figured that they need a website, so they go and set up a website; they don’t develop it, manage it or invest further in it.
We also see companies who figure they need email, so they set up email but then take three or four days to respond to sales enquiries – meanwhile, we’ve placed the business elsewhere with someone who responded quickly and secured our business as a result.
Modern business moves so much more quickly than it used to, which is why we’re about to come to market with several new managed hosting, hosted email and cloud-based services. We’re running at 100mph to get ahead of the market and to ensure that we can offer all the services that our customers want, with great service and offering tremendous value for money – its doubtful we’ll ever be the cheapest in the market for dedicated servers or managed hosting because lots of our competitors don’t even offer telephone support.
We don’t know about you, but if we’re outsourcing some of our key IT infrastructure to another company, we totally want to be able to call them up if there something wrong or if we want some general guidance. We don’t want to be sending a text and hoping it gets there and that it gets acted on, yet some of our competitors honestly do just that.
There can be few things worse for website owners than that breezy phone call from a friend, saying “just thought I’d let you know: your site’s broken”.
‘Broken’ can of-course mean different things to different people, so take a look for yourself as soon as possible.
Here are some scenarios that can come under the heading “broken”.
A single page could be unavailable whilst the rest of the site remains up. This is known as a ‘404′ error. Start by trying to reproduce the problem on another computer. If you and others also get the missing page then this could indicate file corruption on the dedicated server, or at worse deletion by a rogue process.
Sometimes, part of a page can appear garbled or not display properly. This could be related to browser compatibility, and should be taken up with your web developer as soon as possible. If you yourself are the developer, then you will need to work on debugging the issue methodically, and perhaps consulting with other developers on forums.
The most serious problem is when a whole site becomes unavailable to all users, i.e. when a site ‘goes down’. This is an urgent issue for your web hosting company, and they would need to investigate their hosting server and diagnose the problem.
Here at CWCS Managed Hosting, we have we have a dedicated, expert technical support team, passionate about giving the best possible website hosting service to our clients. Should your site develop technical problems of any kind we should be your first port of call.
Today, Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney has announced he is joining forces with Hewlett Packard to digitise his entire catalogue of music, artwork, photographs and videos from the Beatles, the wings and his career as a solo artist.
All his work will be hosted on a ‘private cloud’ created by HP and managed by Sir Paul and his company.
‘Private Cloud’ or ‘Cloud Computing’ is the terminology used to describe the shift from computer storage on a physical machine to the web.
Up until now, HP have delivered cloud solutions work enterprise groups and government, but this is the first time that cloud capabilities have been used for an entertainment artist in this way.
Lynn Anderson, vice president of HP’s influencer marketing group said, “It is a sign of the times and Sir Paul is a perfect example of how cloud, social media and mobile computing can come together to deliver a unique fan experience. It allows Sir Paul to build a more personal connection between himself and his fan base without any intermediaries getting in the way and is an example of him setting a brand new trend in the music industry.”
Cloud computing has many benefits for not only artists but businesses big and small, as cloud solutions increase storage, add flexibility and mobility and reduce the cost for organisations who currently have physical infrastructures in place.
CWCS Managed Hosting will be introducing a range of cloud computing services on HP servers in the near future, so please come back to the site regularly for updates and see how our cloud solutions can benefit your business.
Now that normality has returned, all the kids are back at school, Freshers’ week is behind us, we find ourselves in the traditionally busiest period of the year for IT services companies, of which we are one. For saying that, statistically, the country has only just about managed to extricate itself from a deep, dark, depressing recession, we have noticed a significant rise this month in the amount of new enquiries from new customers for new services.
Not only that, but our existing customers are now also contacting us for upgrades and additional services too, so the world has most certainly awoken in the last couple of weeks, which we are enjoying, for sure.
Nowadays, even the smallest of companies can benefit financially and operationally by outsourcing their IT to a data centre or a managed hosting company. Why would you want to go to the considerable trouble and expense of building, licensing and managing your own Exchange server, when you can either buy a dedicated server running the latest, most secure build of Windows Server 2008 from us, on a pay monthly plan or (coming real soon !) buy sufficient Hosted Exchange 2010 mailboxes from us and we’ll just look after everything for you ?
Buying a simple service like your email in an outsourced way saves you capital, it saves you hassle, it saves you the pain of ensuring you’re up to date with security and it also means you have use Blackberries and the like, all without having to have any technical people in your company at all.
The internet can be entertaining, educational, a social hub, and – for many businesses – a lucrative marketplace. However, it can also perilous, with spyware, viruses, phishing scams, identity theft, and other cyber crime posing constant threats.
Whilst no-one can expect 100% protection from security threats, it is possible to achieve the best possible protection. Such optimal protection is best achieved by taking a multi-pronged approach.
The first step is to ensure that high-quality security for your site itself is provided by your web hosting company. Make sure that a robust, industry-standard firewall is protecting the server which hosts your site, as well as current antivirus software. You can find this out with a phone call to customer services or perhaps technical support, if you are already signed up.
Next, configure the email boxes (‘pop 3′ mailboxes) that come with your account to make use of the antivirus and anti-spam services on offer. This ensures that, should you be checking your emails in a client on a home or work PC, there is already one robust protection layer in place.
Next, make sure you regularly and frequently change the password for access to your site Control Panel, in order to minimise hacking risks.
You should also check that any developers or designers working for you have fully up to date security software on their hardware.
We at CWCS, a long-established web hosting company, do our part by providing robust security software on our servers, and regular backups for your site.
As your website changes and develops over time, your web hosting requirements are likely to change in tandem with it.
Let’s take a fictional case study of a family-run business selling eco-cleaning products.
In the early days, a two or three page promotional site, perhaps with contact details, plus some basic product information with a few enticing images, makes a perfectly satisfactory starting point. The starter plan hosting package we offer here at CWCS Managed Hosting would be more than sufficient for this kind of site.
Two years down the line, things might well change considerably for our case study website. It could have developed a lucrative e-commerce section, and the number of unique users per week might have increased from hundreds to thousands. The site now requires potentially unlimited bandwidth and more hard disk space to remain viable and competitive. For such a site a dedicated server soon becomes a very real option.
A dedicated server is a single server entirely set aside for your company’s website or sites. Dedicated servers can be managed by you, or your IT department, but many site owners choose a dedicated server with “managed hosting”. Here, the web hosting company takes all the server administration duties off your hands, including applying updates, as well as checking for smooth running and optimal performance.
Here at CWCS, should you opt for a dedicated server we can provide a high quality managed hosting service, including terrific technical support and an assigned project manager for every client.
Technical people the world over have always engaged in what are known as “Holy Wars” over their respective platforms of choice – linux vs Windows, Dell vs HP, exim vs vi and so on. Here at CWCS, however, we’ve taken the decision that we’re going to be entirely platform agnostic, with the exception of the hardware we deploy our dedicated servers on, where we stick religiously to HP equipment only.
We do not do so for evangelical reasons but more for pragmatic ones – we find the HP kit to be so much more reliable per £ spent on it than anything else we’ve tried, which is pretty important when you’re in the managed hosting market. Our customers are intelligent enough not to be seduced by clearly misleading SLAs from other dedicated server companies and have chosen us because we’ve concentrated on making sure our network, data centres and physical infrastructure just doesn’t go down in the first place.
We’ve also just gone through the process of Microsoft certification, which we’ve completed in under three months, which we’re immensely proud of having achieved. We’ve also signed up as RedHat Ready Partners, so we’re practising what we preach.
(Apologies for the religious theme, it seemed appropriate what with the state visit to the UK of Pope Benedict)
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