How do Mirrored Servers work?

For Mirrored servers architecture, we set-up 2 similar configuration servers in 2 different racks out of which one server is the master server and other is the slave server. After the implementation of mirroring, if for any reason, the master server fails, the slave server can immediately take its place without any downtime. We implement Mirroring Solution using FAM and RSYNC modules.

Failover Process : Failover is a process in which the slave server stands in for master server in case the master server goes down. With the help of Failover, user and application requests that are directed to the failed master server are routed to the slave server.

Restoration process involves copying replicated data from the slave server to its original location which is the master server. Data restoration process only requires selection of the source, target, and the appropriate replication set. Individual file selection or remembering the exact data location on the source is not required since that information is already maintained.

Restoration process comes into contention in case the data on the master server is lost due to a disk crash or when the most up-to-date data exists on the slave server due to failover. Because of the continued updates on the slave server, when the master server is ready to come back online, the two servers will no longer contain the same data. Restoration is the process of copying the up-to-date data from the slave server back to the master server when it comes back online.

We setup mirroring architecture on both the servers at no additional cost which effectively means you will only need to pay the applicable fees for the two servers. For Mirrored Servers you will have to consider two Dedicated Servers of similar configuration.

For more information about server mirroring, please contact our sales department.

Q. Do you have any solutions for load balancing?

Ans: Yes, We have solution for load balancing. We offer load balanced Web Servers or Apache Servers and SQL Servers. We have expertise in setup and management of Load Balanced Servers as we are hosting couple of high specification load balanced servers from few years. Load balanced servers are fully configurable to your requirements. Load balanced servers not only ensures high performance but also ensures redundancy. Load Balancing also allows scalability wherein servers can be added or removed from the cluster without any downtime as and when needed. It also allows to upgrade software or the OS on one server at a time while the cluster continues to function and serve content. You can have servers with different hardware and software specifications clustered together.

Please take a look at our Dual Core and Quad Core Intel Xeon web servers for your load balanced system requirements http://www.webhosting.uk.com/load-balancing-servers.php

Contact us through our Live Chat or call today to discuss a load balanced solution with WebHosting UK on 0808-262-0855, or request a quote online.

Q. Do you provide Custom Branded Dedicated Servers?

Ans: Yes. Webhosting UK provides Custom Branded Dedicated Servers. These servers are servers with custom IP whois information in the IP whois look up. Custom branded dedicated servers is mainly a concept designed for medium and large web hosting providers.

For example: A reseller hosting provider uses private nameservers to hide his actual hosting provider’s details from his clients and to portray that he himself is the web hosting provider. Similarly medium and large webhosting providers prefer dedicated servers with custom whois information to not let their customers know, or easily find out, where their services are located. Such Dedicated Servers with “custom” whois information in the IP whois are called custom branded dedicated servers. With custom branded dedicated servers your customers won’t know that you get the hosting service from us. We remain completely in the background and management of the server hardware and software will be taken care of by us.

We can not offer Custom branded dedicated servers with the standard number of IP address we provide on a server. It’s not possible to rename IP whois information of few IP’s. This service is not available with Semi-Dedicated or Virtual Private Servers or Shared hosting. Customer who wants to opt for custom branded dedicated server will need to buy complete IP subnet.

Contact us through 24×7 Live Chat or call today to discuss custom branded dedicated server solution with WebHosting UK on 0808-262-0855, or request a quote online.

What is a dedicated server ?

A Dedicated Server is where one customer rents or leases one or more dedicated servers for their own use. A Dedicated Server is dedicated only to a single user and it is setup according to the users preference. With Dedicated Server hosting you don’t need to share your server RAM, hard disk space, bandwidth or a connection to the router. With Dedicated server you get your own hosting server for your website instead of having to share a server with others, which could accommodate several websites. In a dedicated server hosting environment, the client decides which Internet services - mail, Web, FTP, etc. fits their needs the best. A client can put hundreds or thousands of websites on a single dedicated server. The user has complete control of every single process the dedicated server will perform from choosing an operating system to accepting or installing 3rd party software for security, e-mail or whatever the user would need a 3rd party for.

The benefit of using dedicated server hosting is that your website performance will not be affected by high traffic websites that would have been sharing your servers bandwidth. Dedicated hosting is extremely flexible, and often fits the needs of the more sophisticated users. Dedicated servers can be used to manage emails and domains and a dedicated server can be used by a company so that employees can share and access files from wherever they can get internet access. Usually a dedicated server is used by the companies or individuals who run very high traffic sites and need a large amount of bandwidth and consistent performance.

What are the benefit of Dedicated Server Hosting?

1. You do not have to purchase or maintain your own equipment.
2. Better website performance b’coz you are not sharing the server resources such as processor power, memory and hard disk space with other web sites on the same server.
3. No chance of your website being affected by another website on the same box, as in shared hosting environment.
4. As nobody else has access to the dedicated server you can be sure of having a much greater degree of security.
5. If you need to install customize or third party software/applications or configure the server to your own particular needs then often a dedicated server is the solution.
6. Dedicated Server has its own unique IP address.
7. You can upgrade the server resources like Memory, Disk Space, Bandwidth or Processors as the need arises.

Q. Why choose Webhosting UK Linux/Windows dedicated servers ?

Ans: All Webhosting UK Linux/Windows Dedicated Servers are fully managed and monitored round the clock. We use only branded Chassis from Dell and we use latest state of the art Intel CPU’s for our web servers. As far as our network connectivity is concerned, we have 2 x 10 Gbps uplinks for our Datacenter. We have connectivity from all leading ISP’s in Europe as we are directly connected with London hub of all the ISP’s. All servers have 100 Mbps Nic card and they are connected to 1 Gbps switch.

Dedicated Server management includes security monitoring, installing, compiling and maintaining the standard server application/software package, latest security updates, Spam filter, virus-protection and technical support to ensure that it performs and run in a safe and secure manner 24×7x365. Servers deployed at the Data Center includes hardware replacement guarantee. In case of any hardware failure, the hardware is immediately replaced.

Call today to discuss dedicated server solution with WebHosting UK on 0808-262-0855, or request a quote online.

FAQs on UK Dedicated servers offered by Webhosting.uk.com

1. Where are your servers located ?
Ans: All our servers are located in world-class Blue Square Datacenter based in Maidenhead which is 20 Miles West of London, UK.

2. What Brand of servers/Chassis do you use for the Servers ?
Ans: We use only branded Chassis from Dell and we use latest state of the art Intel CPU’s for our servers.

3. Which ISPs do you use for network connectivity of your Datacenter / Servers ?
Ans: Our network transit connections are currently to Level 3, Tiscali, and Deutsche Telekom. We also peer with approximately 150 ISPs at the peering points LINX, XChangePoint, and LoNAP.

4. What is the Datacenter Connectivity and uplink for each dedicated server ?
Ans: We have a total of 20,000mbits of network connectivity for all our Servers. We have 2 x 10 Gbps links for our datacenter. Each Server in our datacenter is setup on 100 Mbps, fully-switched port on an edge switch. Each edge switch is then in turn plugged into two separate aggregation switches at 1gbit, with failover redundancy allowing either 1gbit link to fail.

5. What are the RAM specifications ?
Ans: Our Servers are equipped with DDR2 ECC SDRAM.

6. What types of Hard drives (HDD) do you use and what is the speed of your drives ?
Ans: We use SATA drives on our servers as advertised on our website, all of our SATA hard drives have a speed of 7500 rpm. We also provide SAS drives on some of our high configuration servers. SAS drives have a speed of 10,000 rpm. You can contact our Sales Department through our helpdesk to get more information on the available configurations.

7. How many websites can I host on a dedicated server ?
Ans: There is no such limit you can host unlimited number of websites on your dedicated server however it is sensible not to overload a server with more websites than it can cope with. This is dependent on the specification of your server and the type of websites that you want to host on it. WebHosting UK entry level server will comfortably host around 500 average websites.

8. What Operating systems do you Support ?
Ans: We Support Debian 4.1, CentOS 4.5, CentOS 5, Fedora Core 8, Fedora Core 9 and RHEL 5.x Linux Flavors on our Dedicated Linux Servers while for Windows Servers we offer Windows 2003 Standard, Windows 2003 Enterprise, Windows 2008 Datacenter and Windows 2008 Web edition only.

9. What is your uptime Guarantee for Dedicated Servers ?
Ans: We offer 100% network and power uptime guarantee on all our dedicated servers.

10. What control panels do you support on your Dedicated servers ?
Ans: We offer cPanel/WHM & Plesk Control panel options on our Dedicated Linux servers for additional pricing whilst on Windows we offer Plesk control panel options. You can install any other control panel as per your requirements but we won’t support those control panels. As a part of our managed service we will provide support for OS related problems only if the control panel is not purchased through Webhosting.UK.com .

11. Do you include a backup service with the dedicated server hosting plans ?
Ans: We offer 20 GB remote backup space free of cost with all our dedicated servers. Once you sign up for the dedicated server, you will need to contact our support dept. on setup of your server to allow our system admins to login and setup the backup scripts.

12. Do you provide RAID 0 or RAID 1 with your servers ?
Ans: We do offer RAID 0 or RAID 1 hardware configuration with our servers . Both these RAID configurations need 2 Identical hard drives. RAID 0 doesn’t help in case of Hard Disk Drive failure, RAID 1 mirrors data on 2 identical drives which allows you to swap drives incase of failure of one server hard drive. In the event of a Hard Disk Drive failure on RAID 0, data will be lost. More information on RAID can be obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

13. Do you offer Load Balanced Servers ?
Ans: Yes. We do offer Load Balanced servers on Linux as well as on Windows platforms. We can setup a load balanced cluster using Cisco Load Balancing routers or by using windows load balancing feature which is inbuilt within the windows OS.

14. Do you offer MS Exchange Server ?
Ans: Yes. We do offer fully managed MS Exchange Server. We provide both MS Exchange 2003 and MS Exchange 2007 servers.

15. Do you offer Mirrored Servers ?
Ans: Yes. We do offer fully managed mirrored servers. We setup mirroring architecture on both the servers at no additional cost which effectively means you will only need to pay the applicable fees for the two servers. For Mirrored Servers you will have to consider two Dedicated Servers of similar configuration.

16. Do you offer unmetered dedicated servers ?
Ans: Yes. We provide unmetered bandwidth connection options with our Linux/Windows dedicated servers. dedicated servers. We offer 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps Unmetered bandwidth connection with the dedicated server.

17. Where are your Support staff based ?
Ans: Our support staff are based in three locations. Some staff members are based in the datacenter and the rest of the staff members are based in our offices in London and Durham.

18. Is there any money back guarantee on Dedicated Servers ?
Ans: We offer 30 day money back guarantee only in case of hardware failure or if the hardware is not as per the advertised specifications. We don’t offer any refunds for software related problems as you should communicate with our support team or the accounts person in charge of your account to get those sorted.

Q. What does Webhosting UK dedicated server management include?

Ans: All our Linux/Windows dedicated servers are fully managed and come with full administrative access to give you complete control, as well as the ability to customize the server as per your needs. The key to our clients’ online business success is smooth and seamless functioning of their web server. Dedicated servers require constant monitoring, care and maintenance which is taken care of by our experienced System Administrators. They ensure that your web server is always available, has the latest security updates installed and technical issues if any are resolved as soon as possible.

Webhosting UK Linux/Windows Dedicated Server management responsibilities include but are not limited to the following tasks:

• SSH Security and Configuration
• Optimization and Hardening
• Firewall Configuration
• Server Monitoring Process
• Linux Server Security
• Apache Tweaks
• Environmental security
• Security Audit
• Securing Binaries
• Firewall Configuration
• DNS recursion restriction
• Email scanning for viruses and spam
• RDP security
• Windows Server Security
• Scripting mail components
• Scripting Languages
• Image Upload components
• System Security
• Server Migration
• 3rd Party Software Installation
• WHM/CPanel and Plesk control panel Technical Issues
• Initial Server Setup
• Backend Server Software Upgrades
• Database administration
• Application monitoring and updates
• Intrusion detection
• Performance tuning

Please visit our fully managed dedicated server information pages to view our complete list of functions which are performed by our seasoned System Administrators to maintain your managed Linux/Windows dedicated server round the clock to ensure that it performs in a safe and secure manner 24×7x365.

Dedicated Server Management Overview:

Linux Server Management
Windows Server Management

Q. Do you provide unmetered bandwidth connection on Dedicated Servers ?

Ans: We provide unmetered bandwidth connection options with our Linux/Windows dedicated servers. We offer 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps Unmetered bandwidth connection with the dedicated server. Unmetered Dedicated Servers will have full duplex dedicated bandwidth connection it will not be shared. If you buy a 10 Mbit port, you are guaranteed to be able to use 10 Mbit whenever you need it!

Webhosting UK Unmetered Network is fully redundant, traffic will fallback to the High Quality Network if needed.

Unmetered bandwidth options:

1. 10 Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - dedicated, unshared 10Mbit full duplex connection.
2. 100Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - dedicated, unshared 100Mbit full duplex connection.
3. 1000Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - dedicated, unshared 1000Mbit full duplex connection.

Unmetered bandwidth pricing:

1. 10 Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - £ 20.00 per month
2. 100Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - £ 799.00 per month
3. 1000Mbit Unmetered bandwidth - £ 4000.00 per month

Q. What is a ‘RAID’ server ? Why should I opt for RAID Servers ?

Ans: RAID stands for ‘Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks’. It is a technique for using multiple hard disk drives to provide fault tolerance. Normally, WebHosting UK use high quality hardware to configure dedicated server systems with 2 hard drives to use RAID 1 disk mirroring. RAID server mirroring guarantees optimal data integrity and instant access to your data. All data is written to both hard drives simultaneously. With RAID 1, if one of the drives fails the server can continue to run normally with just the remaining dedicated web server hard drive. We can then schedule a mutually convenient time to replace the failed dedicated server hard drive, meaning minimal downtime for your server. Without RAID, a single hard drive failure could result in few days downtime in the worst case scenario that it was necessary to reinstall the operating system from scratch. The advantage of this type of RAID server configuration is that recovery takes less time, resources and tools - assuming that the mirrors functioning correctly when the failure occurred. Please note that on a RAID 1 system, the storage capacity is effectively halved i.e. a pair of 160 GB hard drives will give you 160 GB of storage space, not 320 GB. If you have more advanced requirements, we are also able to do custom RAID 5 systems with 3 or more hard drives.

Contact us through our Live Chat or call today to discuss raid dedicated server hosting solution with WebHosting UK on 0808-262-0855, or request a quote online.