There is a belief in the UK that London forms a core of connectivity, meaning that colocation centres must be located there to take advantage of this perceived highest-speed connection. Furthermore, if an organisation chooses Colocation then the decisions on who provides the service and how an organisation arranges its network can become almost immaterial.

The reality is, we have to base all of our decisions on rational probability and weigh up the pros and cons – there are always advantages and disadvantages to any location, the key is to ensure you are clued-up on the facts and examine what your business needs are.

A recent article by Telstra it has identified that the increasing rise in data centre facilities outside  London is extremely advantageous for customers. The reality is that it all comes down to one fundamental question: do I operate my IT and telecoms in London or elsewhere?  Of course there are many valid arguments for both, however, the latest Financial Services Authority (FSA) guidelines state that financial services companies must have a back-up facility over 40km from their primary facility, making towns outside of London extremely attractive as they can then be more than 40km from Docklands to meet FSA guidelines. Any large metropolitan area, and particularly London as the capital city, will always be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than remote countryside destinations.

With ever-faster network connections, data communication to and from these centres can be measured in milliseconds, making London’s perceived increased connectivity immaterial in most cases. At the same time, with limitation on space and available power, London can only support a limited number of such centres meaning that the location can command a premium price. Unless a business is based in London, and is in an industry where near-instantaneous communication is essential- such as finance, it tends to be a more cost-effective solution to use a colocation centre outside of London.

There are many positives when looking into a DataCentre outside London, but perhaps cost can be considered as rather important since choosing a data centre outside of London  will have an impact on the price you pay, particularly if you need a lot of electrical power and cooling.  Of course also one could consider it will be a lower risk as housing your equipment outside London is also thought by many to be a lower risk option in terms of terrorist attacks as well as the fact that many newer Data Centres in remote locations are purpose-built rather than conversions of existing buildings.

Netcetera attributes much of its success to the fact that its state-of-the-art Data Centre is based in the Isle of Man – away from the disadvantages that many of its competitors and their clients have faced. The company’s strategic location is a powerful draw for businesses when considering outsourcing their data.  Every company will have its own requirements when it comes to selecting the location of its data centre but some needs are common for almost all users. Reliability, security and support that enables them to focus on their core business, are all key elements that feature highly on the list of priorities for any company but in today, the cost of attached to the data centre location will also grow in importance. This isn’t about a price war however, rather, a consideration of high-end Cloud-based services that put Netcetera at an advantage.

For more information about how Netcetera can help you, contact our friendly Sales Team

If you are looking for a Hosting package and want the control of a Dedicated Server, but with the affordability of Shared Hosting, then VPS may be the answer. VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, and has become the preferred hosting solution for small to medium sized businesses.

It effectively provides a solution which successfully balances the limitations of shared hosting and the flexibility of dedicated server hosting. The reason it has become so popular is that it provides control which is at a similar level to a Dedicated server, but at a price which is far more affordable and similar to that of shared hosting.

VPS Compared to a Dedicated Server

• It is burstable and therefore you only take the available resources you need, as and when you require them
• It has the functionality of a Dedicated Server at a far lower cost.
• Backup is made easy as you can simply manage your own backups via your control Panel
• Managing your VPS is made easy by allowing you to access your user friendly control panel for simple and easy upgrade of your VPS at any time.
• You have the flexibility to increase your service plan as and when you require more resources when you grow.

VPS Compared to Shared Hosting

• Security is provided in that your file system is not accessible or viewable by any other customer, therefore providing you with the assurance that all your files and information are private and secure.
• You have control over the Server, as with either administrative or root access, you can modify server configuration files, install applications or modify system software.
• As you are fully isolated from other users and actions on the server, no other customer can slow down or affect the service that you receive.
• The performance of your resources will be guaranteed based on your plan, nothing else on the server will affect the performance of your VPS.

Netcetera offers a wide range of Virtual Servers which start from as little as £14.99/pm and include FREE setup.  To find out more about how Netcetera’s wide range of solutions can help you, contact our Sales Team today.

Shared Hosting has emerged as the much preferred choice for millions of individuals and small businesses wanting to successfully host their website with minimum hassle.

Shared Web Hosting is a great way to start as it allows you to keep the costs very low and is ideal for personal use, hobbies or small businesses. In the case of Shared Hosting your server space and other resources are shared with other users. To do this, the Hosting company gives each user a partition of the hard drive.

The provider is generally responsible for managing servers, installing server software, security updates, technical support, and other aspects of the service. Your site will usually be on a server with hundreds of other web sites. That may sound like a lot, but it works out extremely well because most sites don’t generate enough traffic or use enough resources for it to become a problem.

Shared hosting will allow you to host multiple websites, depending on the plan you purchase. This will be done simply by adding secondary Domains through your hosting control panel.

Now that you know what Shared Hosting is, how do you choose who to host with?  There are a number of factors that should be considered when making your decision.

Price – It is important to consider if the hosting company offers a good price or a discount for annual payments. Netcetera hosting solutions start from as a little as £2.99/pm and for annual payments, there is one month FREE.

Multiple hosting packages – Shared Hosting service providers should offer a number of packages with different features to choose from. Netcetera offers three different hosting packages, Developer, One, and Reseller.

Features – You should find a number of features bundled in various packages. Some features which are included in Netcetera’s shared hosting are: Support for an array of programming languages like JAVA, PHP, PERL, Python, Multiple Email Accounts, MySQL databases,  ASP.NET, ASP.MVC, Webmatrix and much more.

Trial Period – This is a key factor because as it allows the user to “test drive” the hosting solution prior to purchasing. Netcetera offers a 30 day Trial Period!

Technical support – This is one of the most important factors when making your decision.  It is vital that there is availability of technical support from Dedicated technicians, with a specialized department to handle any server issues, troubleshooting, installation issue etc. Netcetera has 24/7 Technical Support via ticket/email/chat/telephone with a one hour response time!

If you are looking at hosting your new website, please visit http://www.netcetera.co.uk/hosting/ or contact our Sales Team for any assistance or information.

What happens if you don’t renew your Domain Name on its expiry date?

• Your customers won’t be able to find you anymore and this of course means that they will not have access to the information that you provide about your company online.
• The brand that you have worked so hard to build up will be undermined.
• Your search engine ranking will need to be built up again and undoubtedly this will mean losing customers.
• You will need to change all your email addresses.  You will have no further contact with your clients, no email orders or requests and potentially could lose contact with these clients, and of course friends.
• All your online services, like internet banking, online shopping, social networking etc, which use your email address as a log-in will need to be changed.

So as you can see, there could is a huge impact on your business if you don’t renew your Domain Name, however, perhaps the most important point to remember, is that if you don’t renew it, anyone else can register it , and they can do it within seconds of it being made available.  As soon as this happens, they can receive all your hard earned website traffic, search engine rankings etc that have become associated with your Domain name.

Recently, a very well known children’s gaming site, Club Penguin which is owned by Disney forgot to renew their domain name.  The site was down for several days and surely caused them many headaches.   The site was launched in 2005 and bought by the Walt Disney Corporation in 2007 for $350 million.  It is an online world of mini games and chat rooms and they claim to have 12 million members.  So, as you can see, even huge corporations can forget these details, surely they won’t do it again!

Normally there is a grace period of 30 days or more in same cases, to allow the Domain Name Owner to pay for the registration, before anyone can register your domain name.

Here at Netcetera, as a reminder, we send you an email with an attached invoice 14 days before the expiry date. You will also be able to check all your Domain Names which are ready to expire by logging into your client area and, they can be found under the header called “Upcoming Domain Renewals”.

Your domain name will be renewed automatically if we have your payment details on file, but in case we don’t have any up to date details, the payment will be rejected and your domain won’t be renewed.

Please make sure that your payment details and email address are up to date to avoid any problems with your domain name.

Your domain name is valuable – make sure you look after it.

If you have any questions please contact our Sales Team

Microsoft have recently announced their latest development in technology, called Webmatrix.  They have taken web development one step further and developed a new lightweight web development tool which integrates all their previous web development tools like Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, and makes it even easier for people to get started with web development using ASP.NET.  It provides core coding and database support, as well as integrating with an open source web gallery.  It includes support to easily publish or deploy sites and applications to Web Hosting providers.

The best news about this, is that it is FREE! It is downloadable, quick to install and is only 15MB!

WebMatrix is a task-focused tool that has been designed to make it really easy to get started with web development. It minimizes the number of concepts and skills that someone needs to learn in order to get simple things done, as well as including and integrating all the components necessary to build Web sites quickly and efficiently.

Of course, once you have created a website, it will need to be hosted! Netcetera provide the perfect hosting solution for this, with prices starting from as little as £2.99/pm, including loads of web space, databases and much more. The price also includes FREE migration from your current host.  As always with Netcetera, you will receive 24/7 unlimited email /ticket/chat/telephone support (UK BASED) and guaranteed 1 hour ticket response.

Find out more information at http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/ or feel free to contact our friendly and helpful sales team.

• Is Server Location important for increasing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your website?
• Are you planning on launching a website in a foreign country or, having a website in multiple languages targeting different countries?

If these are questions that you have asked yourself, then it is important to consider Server Location and Domain Name Extension.

What is the Server Location? This is the location of the server where your website will be hosted. For example if you choose to host with Netcetera, your website will be hosted in the UK.

What is the Domain Name Extension? Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses, the most common ones are .com, . net, .co.uk etc.

If you’re serious about localising your website and targeting local customers, you may consider Hosting country-specific Domains on servers (Server Location) within the target countries. This makes maintaining your web infrastructure more complex, but there are considerable SEO benefits. For example, having a www.yourcompany.it (Local Domain) domain hosted on an Italian server will help you to achieve better rankings in the Italian version of Google.

Having country-specific domains is particularly important if you are targeting a country whose language uses a non-Latin script, like Chinese or Russian.

Another important point to consider is that if your competitor has similar site hosted in Italy (similar page rank etc), he is likely to be shown higher in google.it results and you are likely to be shown higher in google.com results. Naturally you would much rather have the higher ranking in google.it.

Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, but registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and Web Hosting that provides a local IP address is also important. Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same.

For any information about purchasing Domain Names in other countries, please visit http://www.netcetera.co.uk/domains/ or contact our Sales Team.

Netcetera have reduced the price for registering .IM domain names to only £4.98 for the first year instead of £40.00!

What make .IM Domains a fantastic alternative? Have a look below and see for yourself.

• NEW Google Apps integration
• FREE Parking
• FREE DNS Hosting
• FREE Web and Email forwarding
• Advanced Control Panel
• Unlimited Technical Support

Netcetera prides themselves on their fast, secure domain registration service with no compromise on features and absolutely no hidden costs.

Also, for just £2.99/pm you can also add an affordable hosting package with a ton of web space, databases and much more , these are great solutions for bloggers and small businesses!

The promotion ends 31 May 2011, so don’ t waste any time to take up this fantastic offer!!

Find out more at http://www.netcetera.co.uk/promotions/domains or feel free to contact our helpful sales team.

You have decided you want a website but now you don’t know where to start. There are three important things to consider.

1. First step is to secure your domain name. This is how people will find your website on the internet. This is a unique name that will be registered in your personal or business name for a certain period. The minimum period for all Domain Names is normally one year. An example of this is www.myname.com. Use this handy Domain Name Search Tool to find out if your ideal name is available.
2. You then need to build the website. An agency could build it for you or you can do it yourself by purchasing an easy-to-use SiteBuilder package on the internet.
3. Finally you need a Web Hosting Company to host your website online so that people on the internet will be able to find it.

If you enjoy this post, please keep following us because every few days we will be publishing some tips and suggestions about Web Hosting, Domain names, websites and much more.

Find out more at www.netcetera.co.uk or feel free to get in touch with a web hosting expert.

Modern businesses rely heavily upon an integrated approach to commerce; this includes a huge commitment to online presence.  In fact if you look around, you will be unlikely to find a modern company that doesn’t have a Dedicated website.  A website which is we’ll constructed and user friendly can really benefit the sales and public perception of a company.

There are a great many points to cover off and issues to consider when building a website, one of which how it is going to be hosted, essentially where will it ‘live’.  If you are a small start up business or a small on going concern then it will probably not be within your capabilities, financially, to have dedicated web hosting, like many other businesses you will have to share a server.  This can have some drawbacks; there can be issues surrounding the other websites, which also use the same server.  Search engines are fickle beasts and rely upon a degree of transparency and legitimacy in order to trust your site.  One of the reasons that a site can be ‘sandboxed’ is due to negative associations on a server level, rather than there being anything wrong with the content or behaviour of the website.

Sandboxing is the process whereby you can loose your ranked position in a web search; SEO plays an important part in this and pulling oneself out of the ‘sandbox’ requires a degree of caution and care.  Much like a game of chess, the website mustn’t be seen to be trying too hard to escape, rather remaining still and waiting for an opportunity to establish a link to a trusted site.  The more of these strong links the better, and over time the website will regain its old position.

Moving away from the potential pitfalls of shared servers, those companies that can afford it and require it will strongly benefit from dedicated web hosting.  Dedicated web hosting is a type of Internet Hosting where the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than Shared Hosting, as organisations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.

Depending upon the size of the company and its offering to the consumer and its clients, the level of dedicated web hosting needs to satisfy all of these requirements.  In general a dedicated web hosting package will contain benefits similar to the following:

• CPU: Dual core processor, 2.2 Ghz
• RAM: 1GB which is upgradeable to 8GB
• Storage: 160GB SATA
• Unmetered bandwidth – allowing for multiple media platforms to be running simultaneously

As well as these features you can also expect the following guarantees:

• 99.9% Network uptime
• 1 UK IP address
• No Long term contracts
• No Set up fees

There are of course a huge a variety of dedicated web hosting options; it all depends on the requirements of the company in question.  This is where a period of consultancy is necessary, the majority of dedicated web hosting suppliers will have a support team and Sales Team that will be more than happy to talk you through the options and help you make the right choice for your company.

Dedicated web hosting is the preferred method of Hosting for the modern business.  There are of course a variety of other options, such as Shared Hosting, which one can choose from, it all depends on the level of investment the company decides is necessary to support their online presence.  In the ideal world all businesses, regardless of their size will have the option to choose dedicated web hosting. The main advantages that dedicated web hosting has over shared hosting is that the company in question has complete control over the server, they can choose to upgrade, downgrade and manipulate the server to suit their business and online needs.

The importance of an online presence is clear to see in the modern business age, however with the sheer volume of websites currently live across the World Wide Web, the quality of the output needs to be of the highest order.  Imagine using the Internet to look for a service or product, the amount of time you spend on a site or page within that site is called ‘dwell time’.  Website designers toil endlessly to secure the longest dwell time they possibly can.  The main way to achieve this is to allow the user complete control of the site, the media that is used to sell the products and services should be set up so that the consumer can access it instantly.  Dwell time is the gold dust of web developers, and has been recorded in the past at an average of only two seconds.

This clearly indicates how important it is to the company to have an excellent website. Dedicated web hosting can really assist with this; the main reason is that the server is theirs to play with. They are not sharing the server with anyone else and as such there are no limitations.  The bandwidth is unmetered; this allows those who choose to take advantage of dedicated web hosting the opportunity to stream a variety of multimedia platforms without the worry of delays.  Instant information, a direct route from consumer to product, subtlety can be interwoven into a site, but the main purpose is shorten the amount of time it takes for the consumer to reach the product once they get onto the site.

The suppliers of dedicated web hosting servers are easily found by an online search, the menus allow the user quick access to the product description and in some cases there is a live chat function so that even the most simple of questions can be answered in real time, by a trained professional.  Choosing a dedicated web hosting supplier needs to be well thought through, compare the costs and the packages and above all work out what will be the most beneficial for your company, perhaps you can opt for the a shared server in the meantime whilst you develop your online presence, however once you look to expand and your website grows, slowly evolving into a multi-layered operation, then the need for dedicated web hosting will become more apparent.