Posts Tagged ‘Windows Dedicated server hosting’

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Keeping dedicated server safe

April 7th, 2011

Dedicated server саn bе аn vital раrt οf business growth.  Yουr information іѕ easily accessible tο аll people wһο һаνе tһе rіgһt tο view аחd υѕе іt.

Tһеrе аrе different operating logic scale, depending οח уουr needs. Fοr example,Windows operating logic optimization, networking аחd collaboration, wһісһ mау bе wһу tһеу аrе tһе mοѕt well lονеd.

Bυt, wһаt wіll happen іf уουr server below attacks? All уουr information wіƖƖ bе lost οr relentlessly hυrt, wһісһ іח turn саח affect tһе performance οf уουr business operations. Many people dο חοt take preventive measures tο try tο keep tһеіr dedicated server security guard wаѕ attacked. Tһе following іѕ tο keep уουr information reliable ѕοmе οf tһе tips.

1. Mаkе sure уουr software іѕ up tο date аחd patched

2. Disable a service tһаt уου dο חοt υѕе. Tһе space саח חοt bе wasted

3. Fixed audits οf уουr logic log, search fοr suspicious activity οr errors

4. Mаkе a firewall саח check IP addresses within tһе specified time

5. Complexity οf уουr password, change tһеm еνеrу 3 months

6. SCHEDULE [fοr Windows] consistent anti-virus аחd [fοr Linux] check rkhunter

7. Back up аll data regularly, bυt bе careful חοt tο save tһе backup οח tһе server

8. Oחlу installed οח tһе server authenticated аחd certified applications

9. Track security alerts frοm Technological Cyber іח case tһеу apply tο уουr systems/programs

10. Apply аll οf tһе above tο аחу οtһеr hardware used tο log іחtο уουr server аחd аחу server fοr уουr application development

11. Regularly audit your system logs, searching for suspicious or erroneous activity.

Tһаt’s іt. If уου give a close attention tο tһе above matters, уου саח increase tһе safety οf уουr server significantly.

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Posted in Dedicated Servers, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, MS SQL Dedicated Server, MySQL Server

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Starting reseller hosting business.

April 5th, 2011

The world of reseller hosting may be a little confusing to some. Though with the right tips in hand anybody can be a reseller hosting success. In a nut shell, reseller hosting is a form of web site hosting where the account owner has the ability to use their allotted space and bandwidth to host their own or a third parties’ web site.  The account owner can sell the allotted space and bandwidth to the third party in question, and (in most cases) make a profit.

To help you get started in the world of reseller web hosting, here are a few tips you may look into or follow:

1. Act as a referral partner for the parent company.  This is a safe and easy option for reseller hosting, since it doesn’t involve you having to run customer accounts.  Instead, you earn commission for every customer you refer to the parent company who then signs up.  The downside to this option is that you need to have an online marketing presence, through a review website or ad campaign

2. Start small.  One of the great advantages of reseller hosting is that you only need a computer and an internet connection to get started – you don’t need to invest lots of money or get to grips with complicated technical applications.  For that reason, you should start by concentrating on reselling web space.  This is simple and straightforward, and a good way to earn whilst building a client base and gaining experience.

3. For the same reason, it’s also a good idea to start with shared hosting, since this is the simplest form of web hosting that you can resell.   As your business expands, you can look at offering more advanced reseller services, such as dedicated and co-located hosting, domain name registration and merchant accounts.

4. Work towards getting your own server.  This will give you a greater share of the profits over time.  However, it also involves greater responsibility for maintenance, back-up and repair, so you should only consider this option when you are confident that you can handle these technical requirements.

5. Don’t neglect your marketing and sales strategy.  Your reseller business won’t make money if nobody can find you.  So be very clear on who your target customers are, and how you can reach them.  This means constructing a well-optimized home site for your reseller hosting business, and running a well-targeted ad campaign.

6. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help, guidance and customer feedback.  There is plenty of free advice available on the web to help you decide on the approach that will best suit your purposes.  Remember, you may need to try several approaches before you find the reseller hosting strategy that works for you.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, Reseller hosting

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Server security tips.

April 1st, 2011

There are few tricks and tips that one should take care of with their servers. Here are some useful tips that can help you:

SO now you have a new server, what to do with it? The sky is the limit! Or is it? Naturally, and logically, there are restrictions. But a little extra attention for some details goes a long way… Let’s go over some of them.

Security: This is important, and cannot be stressed out enough. THEY ARE OUT THERE. Sounds dramatically? It is! If you want to keep the bad guys away start spending quality time on the firewall before activating services such as MySQL or Postgresql. I am not exaggerating. In the first night my server was active (I hadn’t even discovered these forums yet) I got 16 logon attempts from a total of 3 different IP addresses. Where the heck they came from is beyond me, but this is common behavior (this isn’t a surprise for me; been here, seen this before). They are out there! Trust me on this.

By default you might feel safe, no icky things in your logs, everything seems in order… Yes and no. Go Daddy charges you for used up space, and doesn’t risk default processes gobbling up your disk space without you knowing it. I think this is a very fair business policy, but it comes with a price. Namely that you’re probably left in the dark about your security. Do you have a “/var/log/secure” file telling you details on login attempts, failed login attempts and such?

If the answer is no then this is most likely because you do not have the “syslog” package installed (“sysklogd.i386″ to be exact). Want it? Then do (as root): “yum install sysklogd.i386″. And wham, in no time you’ll see what’s happening on your box. Careful: This comes at a price. Not a big one, but those log files do take up disk space no matter how you put it. Fortunately not all is lost.

If you installed that MC program mentioned earlier now is a good time to use it. Go to the /etc/logrotate.d directory. Here you’ll find a file called “syslog”. Press ‘F3′ to view it. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything in there. What counts here is the first line. Notice stuff like “/var/log/messages” and “/var/log/secure”?

As the name suggests this is a configuration file telling a program on your server called “Log rotate” to actually rotate the files being mentioned in the config files which you find in that “/etc/logrotate.d” directory. So what does this mean? That every day (assuming default behavior) the system will archive your logfile and tell the main system to start using a new one. So, for example, let’s focus on “/var/log/secure”. A very important file in my opinion. If you wait a while (and I suggest not doing this behind your computer, but getting some sleep too) you’ll eventually notice 2 ‘secure’ files. One called ‘secure’, the other called ‘secure.1.gz’. What is this? Simple.. The first (’1′) of the compressed (‘gz’ stands for ‘gzip’ which is a compression program on Linux) logs. Still didn’t get MC? Shame on you! If you are on the console you can still easily view this file, just use something like: “zless /var/log/secure.1.gz” (you need to be root). ‘Space’ goes to the next page and ‘q’ quits. Using MC you simply press ‘F3′.

To conclude a personal comment: Go Daddy, I really hope you’ll consider using some ‘preview’ option. It really makes life easier (I know I could ‘edit’ my post, but still… “A good preparation goes a long way”).

Creation of Backup – Regular backups are necessary as we do not know when a failure can occur. It is a good practice to take backups of all documents, images and database and make sure it is stored in the right place.

To perform regular kernel security updates and keep all software’s up-to-date and secure.

Easy script installations such as Fantastico or Softacolous can be useful in daily installation requirements and keeps you safe from unwanted server errors and bugs.

Control Panels can make your life easier when you are about to manage their sites.

Frequent update of passwords is important to increase security of your dedicated servers.

Monitoring is a good habit which helps you to understand your dedicated server better. This mainly can be through monitoring software or a remote panel offered by your hosting provider.

Use only that is required. You should leave more space for your CPU, RAM and disks to deliver better.

Maintenance should be taken seriously as this increases your dedicated server lifespan and mainly include software updates, software upgrades, migrations, service checks, security monitoring.

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Posted in Dedicated Servers, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, MS SQL Dedicated Server

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Ram for dedicated server.

February 10th, 2011

How much RAM do I need for my dedicated server? This question pop ups often in various webmaster forums by webmasters starting a new website or moving an existing one from the shared hosting account to the virtual private server or dedicated server. It is hard to give straight answer because there are too many factors to take into account – so it is very case specific. The amount of RAM that you need is directly tied to what you are planning to host. As a general rule of thumb, you can never have too much RAM, but you can certainly have not enough RAM. It is recommended to monitor processes to see which consume too much memory and to optimize every part of your setup for better performance. Before your site is alive and working, it’s tough to make a determination about the minimum amount of RAM you need – but you must start somewhere, so let’s check some factors that will give you a good “jumping off point”:

  1. Traffic – The number of hits, page views and unique visits are the main variable to take into account. Obviously, if there is going to be a lot of traffic through your website, you’ll need more RAM; inversely, less traffic requires less RAM.
  2. Operating system – To run Windows Server you’ll need at least 512MB RAM, with recommended 1GB for Windows Server 2003 and recommended 2GB for Windows Server 2008. For Linux based server, 64MB RAM will be enough, or even less depending on a choice of a distro.
  3. Static or dynamic site? Scripts and databases are memory hogs. If you use PHP or other scripting language and SQL databases then you need more RAM. How you use them and the size and the number of the databases will largely influence amount of RAM needed for site to function.
  4. Content management systems – usage of Drupal, WordPress, Joomla and other CMSs will result in need for more RAM. There might be slight differences in memory usage between various CMSs, but the main factor here is how many and which additional plugins/modules are installed and used. The other important factor is the number of logged in/authenticated users in any given time – their hits consume much more memory than those of anonymous users.
  5. Do you use control panel? Controls panels can be resource hog too, some of them less some of them more. Check this control panel’s comparison table for more info.
  6. What other applications run on the server – email clients, antivirus, firewall, email spam protection will also make a difference in the amount of RAM you require.
  7. Caching – if a large part of your site is set to be cached by proxy servers and browsers – that will significantly improve performance and decrease ram usage. Some static content that doesn’t change too often should be always cached. (such as images, css, and js). On Apache server you can use .htaccess to control caching.

So, with all this in mind lets start a “guessing game”, how much RAM do I need? Setup example:

  1. Linux OS
  2. Apache web server
  3. SQL database like MySQL or PostgreSQL
  4. Scripting Language like PHP
  5. Content management system like Drupal, Joomla or WordPress
  6. Firewall
  7. Antivirus software like ClamAV
  8. Email server and web mail client like Open Webmail or Squirrelmail
  9. FTP server with SSH supported like Proftpd
  10. “Light” control panel like Webmin or DirectAdmin

If you have no traffic or very low traffic on a setup like this, you’ll probably be fine with 512MB RAM. If you have 200 000 monthly visits and 500 000 page views you’ll need at least 1GB RAM. If you have more than 1 000 000 monthly visits and more than 2 000 000 page views you’ll need to upgrade to 4GB or more.

Take this advice only as a starting point; as I already said this was a “guessing game”. The actual amount of memory that will be required by your website will vary on your site setup, optimization of every piece of software on your server and number of logged in users. If you plan to have more than one site on a server, things will get even more complicated. Feel free to post question in comments about estimated RAM consumption for any particular setup and we will try to answer it. Some more tips:

  • It is easy to upgrade RAM, so you can start your project with lower and buy more when needed.
  • Before going live you can use load testing tools like LoadImpact or similar to examine system behavior under working load.
  • Optimize Apache, SQL, PHP, CMS for better performance
    • Optimizing Apache
    • Optimizing PHP
    • Optimizing MySQL
    • Optimizing Drupal
    • Optimizing WordPress
    • Optimizing Joomla
  • Set up caching for better performance

For more visit: www.version-next.com

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Posted in Dedicated Servers, Managed dedicated server, MS SQL Dedicated Server

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Dedicated Web Hosting.

January 31st, 2011

It is extremely important to recognize the concept of web hosting, even if you don’t know anything about it. When you visit a website, you will see a web page that is downloaded from a web server on your own web browser. Generally the website is composed of many web pages and web sites in turn are composed of graphic images and text. These web pages are stored on web servers so that they can be available to web users. It is good to have an understanding web hosting basics that will allow you to make the right decision when you purchase hosting plan. Often times, You May find everything from a dedicated web hosting provider, and the situation may require you to go to the custom server.

If someone wants to have its own website, it is the first time will have to have a host of services that will host Web sites on the web server. Web hosting provider that was well established, it can host many web sites, to thousands of items, for example, Version Next Technologies is a Web hosting company that is very popular and seats up hundreds of thousand pages. While the host of a large number of web sites, web hosting providers require a huge number of web servers to store Web pages. After that, all those web servers are connected to the Internet and are kept in a ‘data center’. Since web servers must work properly all the time, data centers are fully confident that it gives them 24 / 7 environment and protected from fire, virus detection, redundant power backup, HV AC temperature control, computer data backup, and full of opportunities for recovery in case of some fail.

Your website will need about 10 MB (for a small web site) to 250 MB (for large sites) on the server hard disk. Web-based records will enable you to manage your domain name, e-mail and FTP services, password protect directories, and much more.

There are some disadvantages to a dedicated hosting arrangement. You have to pay high monthly fees in exchange for their freedom and an exclusive web hosting. You will also have good technical know-how to run the server properly and resolve any technical problems that occur. It could be time-consuming, but if you hire someone to do it for you, you’ll have to pay for their services. This would mean that you now have the maintenance costs on the amount you have already, that will not be the case in a shared web hosting.

If a dedicated hosting plan is something you don’t like and want to go for a custom dedicated server, then keep in mind the following:

Data storage – this means the area of your website will need the server’s hard drive.It May ranges from a small town with 10 megabytes of storage for large business sites that require 250 MB or more.

Data transfer or bandwidth, which refers to the amount of data transmitted over electronic networks as a response to the demands of visitors. It depends on the size of your website and the flow of traffic to your site.

You would need a web based control panel too with the help of which you can manage your domain name, e-mail, FTP services, as well as password protection and much more.

When you decide to custom dedicated servers, You May want to include a private CGI-bin, which will allow you to run your own PERL scripts and executable s. With a custom dedicated server, it is also possible to get SSI (Server Side Includes) that you insert a file in your HTML pages on the server side.

For more visit: www.version-next.com

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Posted in About Web Hosting, eCommerce Web Hosting, Reliable web hosting, Reseller hosting, RVSkin web Hosting

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Why managed Dedicated Server Hosting is helpful For Companies.

January 24th, 2011

If you have decided to get hold of dedicated server on lease from a reputed firm that renders web based solutions,your next duty is managing it. This engage a variety of tasks, which contain administering the server, dealing with the OS and any concern that come up related to the same. All of it is very technical and time consuming, but web hosting firms take care of it by providing high quality server management services. Availing fully managed dedicated servers is very cost effective and provides you the time to focus on running an organization rather than worrying about technicalities of servers.

Since firms that lease dedicated servers to organizations hold expertise in all technical aspects of the servers, they carry out the administrative activities on your behalf,while you rest back. The fee levied by the hosting firm is quite nominal, it is quite cost effective and helps in more ways than one. Such web hosting firms examine the hardware as well as the software of the server in a skillful manner, something a beginner can never achieve This way, the server delivers better performance than it would in case of unmanaged service.

Due to the expertise of the hosting firms in executing the administration of dedicated server they become more stable and reliable and operate exceptionally well over long durations without any glitches. These also attain the feature of greater security due to the familiarity of the specialists with the servers and their details. Furthermore, if you are not satisfied with the dedicated servers management by such firms due to some customary problem, they provide 24×7 support as part of their hosting package.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Managed dedicated server

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Resellers: thoughts toward sell more web hosting.

January 12th, 2011

1. Clearly define your audience:
this is one of those bits of advice that’s sounds blindingly obvious, but so few people actually do. We’ve seen big companies that couldn’t tell you who their core target audience is, or you’d get a different answer depending on who you spoke to. Ask yourself these questions…
• Who is our ideal customer?
• What do they want?
• Why should they choose me?
• Where do they go?
• How do I let them know I exist?

Life is so much easier once you have a clearly defined target market. You know what type of product to create, how much to charge for it, how to position your brand and where to advertise your services. Make the product fit the customer, not the customer fit the product.

2. Be creative with your marketing budget:
You can’t compete with the large web hosting company’s marketing budgets; it’s a simple as that. They spend £1m+ per year and if you try to go toe to toe with them, you’ll probably go bust. I’ve seen it happen a couple of times over the years I’ve been working in the industry. For example, the most competitive keywords advertising on Google are off limits to all but the biggest spenders with the average cost per click for “web hosting” currently running at £8. Some ideas you could pursue include:

• A lot of web hosts haven’t really got their head around social media. They have twitter accounts and pages on Facebook, but I’d argue 85% of them are poorly thought out or token efforts. That’s a gap for you to fill.

• Online press releases are great ways to announce news to a large audience, establish authority and build quality incoming links. At only £100 per release through a distribution service, this is great value for money.

• I personally would not go near the most competitive keywords through Google AdWords if I was on a limited budget but I would still use the Google Display Network. Put together a tight list of target sites and advertise your service there using graphical banners.

3. Assemble your customers:
Excellent customer support and product performance will lead to customers spreading the word without much encouragement. However, you can be more proactive than that and get even more customers to refer you to other people who are looking for web hosting. A refer a friend program with a financial incentive is a tried and tested way of getting customers to refer people. This can be in the shape of cash, credit or vouchers. Review sites are a big part of a customer’s journey. Unfortunately the reviews being left on these sites tend to be from customers who have had a bad experience, certainly much more than those who are happy. Companies are becoming wise to this and starting to counter the negativity by asking their customers to review them, and there is no reason why you can’t do the same.

4. Get to the know the web hosting industry:
You are not competing in a vacuum and the more you know about the industry you are operating in, the more successful you will be. Who are your competitors, where do people go to research web hosts and who are the major web hosting news outlets with the most authority? If you can answer all those questions, you can relax. If not, here are some links to get you started…

5. Sell the core products:
Shared hosting, domain names, dedicated servers email solutions are the bedrock of non-managed web hosting companies. They also offer huge cross sell and up sell opportunities. For example:
• Domains: More domains, email, shared web hosting, domain privacy
• Shared web hosting: Dedicated servers, Hosted Exchange, search engine submission, SSL certificates, higher spec hosting
• Dedicated servers: Server back up, higher spec servers, cpanel, MS SQL, Hosted Exchange, SS certificates

6. Get visitors to trust you:
If you are asking a customer to essentially look after their web site and make sure it is secure and always accessible, there has to be an element of trust on the part of the customer. The challenge is to make them trust you enough to hand over their money. You can reduce the level of perceived risk through an attractive and modern website. Nothing screams “Stay away” more than a website that looks like it escaped from the 90’s.

Beyond being sexy to look at, all but the most carefree of people like to know they are part of a group, it makes them feel more comfortable. Positive customer reviews and testimonials go a long way to relaxing potential customers. If you can source them, case studies are a great way of showing visitors their peers are already your customers.

For more blogs visit www.version-next.com

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Reseller hosting, Shared Hosting

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Public Clouds vs. Private Clouds.

December 13th, 2010

“The Cloud” is the latest tech buzzword, and although the term has been around for quite a while, it is starting to gain attention among the general public, particularly due to some oft-aired commercials by Microsoft. The business world is not immune to the hype, and some terminology you might have come across when making technology decisions are “public clouds” and “private clouds”.

The idea of a public cloud is the basic concept you already know, if you are at all familiar with cloud computing. Services, applications, or even entire operating systems are hosted and managed remotely by a third party, providing you, the customer, with access. Examples include Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365, both of which provide software as a service (SaaS).

The term “private cloud” refers to all of the above, minus the third party. Essentially, you are hosting your own “cloud”. If you are sitting at home thinking this is a complete contradiction, you’re right. While the idea behind the term is probably genuine, as it intends to replicate software and platforms served over the cloud in a closed on-premise environment, the term has no real technical value for people in IT departments. These are just dedicated servers wearing different clothes.

While one could argue that the main difference between a “private cloud” and regularly used business software is that the “private cloud” software is not installed on local computers, but this concept of using web-based applications in an intranet is nothing new and predates the term “cloud computing” all together. The important lesson to be learned when shopping for dedicated servers or web-based services is to read between the lines and not get caught up in empty terminology.

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Posted in Cloud Computing, Dedicated Servers

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Dedicated Server and Dedicated Hosting?

November 11th, 2010

Due to the previously high cost of dedicated hosting, public knowledge of what exactly a dedicated hosting service entailed was no really available. This is rapidly changing, as companies flock to fast dedicated servers as an essential element of their business model, but there are still a good number of people looking for clear and easy answers when it comes to small business web hosting. We’ll try to provide you a information on dedicated servers and small business web hosting services.

What exactly is dedicated web server hosting?

Dedicated server hosting for small businesses is very popular. If you have the staff that is available to maintain your fast dedicated small business hosting server, we step out of the way, meaning that you will have the power to fully administer your fast dedicated server, with no outside appearance, from anywhere in the world.  We provide the space for your server, and a multi-homed, redundant backbone large enough to serve even the largest, most media intensive sites. We provide server security. Security from power outages, security from network downtime, and security from physical intrusion, while allowing you to run your dedicated server the way you want to, with no outside interference.

With these options, we’re always onsite and ready to react, whether you need a hardware upgrade, or a little bit of help exploring an issue your techs are curious about. Our team has one goal, to make sure you are beyond satisfied with your experience. A dedicated server is easy to start and maintain, and you will not be the least bit disappointed in the first class service provides.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Hosting, Reliable web hosting

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Why use a Linux Dedicated Server?

November 3rd, 2010

As you may already know, linux is the most widely used operating system on the market. The basic concept behind linux when it was created in 1991 is to offer great software absolutely free and open source. Linux was created under the GNU GPL license which is open source and therefore people can use its code and change it for their own needs. Since then, linux has gained a lot of popularity and today it is used of many linux dedicated servers.

The most popular factor when a business is considering a dedicated server is cost. Most linux operating systems are completely free, which enables gogax to offer cheap dedicated servers. As opposed to a Windows Dedicated Server which requires licensing fees for the operating system, people will tend to prefer linux for that matter.
Another factor is how reliable and secure the linux operating system has grown to become. We have seen some linux servers running for over 4 years without a single reboot needed. If we compare that to windows servers, they often need reboots after os updates, software installation and other tasks performed on the server. For a personal user this is no big deal, but if online presence is crucial to your business or online store, a reboot can mean loss of business. Many people will argue whether linux or windows is more secure and stable. With time, we personally have found that linux is more stable and can run as a web server for years without any intervention. Unfortunately, it is not the case for Windows servers today.
Linux has some great functions on dedicated servers. It does http web server (apache), php programming language, mysql database and many other features. Those are included in a default setup of the linux operating system. All these elements together offer very stable and secure performance. The best part of it all, many developers have made great free software that runs on linux operating systems. Those are all freely available on a linux dedicated server.
Security: One of the main reasons that people like Linux is that it’s more secure than Windows. The main reason for this is that Linux hasn’t been around as long, and there aren’t as many viruses built to get into it yet. This means that your website information can be somewhat safer on a Linux host.
Cost: Because it’s open source software, Linux hosting solutions are cheaper than Windows hosting options. Although most shared server options are really affordable right now, Linux often presents even more affordable options.
Scaling: If you’re going to start your website small and work it up to a larger site without changing servers, Linux hosting is definitely a good option. This type of service has very efficient scalability, and it’s really easy to keep your website going on the same platform without making any major changes.
Options: Because Linux is one of the most popular hosting options on the Internet, there are literally tons of options with it. You can find hundreds of hosting companies, many of which offer excellent services and extras to their packages.
So why not use a linux dedicated server.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Linux Server Tips

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