by Matt Seaton

Our Data Centre’s First Birthday is This Christmas

Netwise Hosting South, our first privately designed, built, owned and operated data centre facility, has now been fully operational for 12 months – and what a fantastic first year we have had here at our South London home.

We have been celebrating our data centre’s first birthday with some fantastic offers that really push the boundaries of high-value hosting services here in the UK’s capital city.

Celebratory Offers

The first of these offers is our ULTIMATE99 promotional code, which reduces our applauded Ultimate Dedicated Server platform down to just £99 / month. This server is widely used by organisations around the world, who rely on Netwise Hosting’s infrastructure day in, day out.

The second is perhaps our largest offer to date – COLOCATION50. This promotion gives clients an impressive 50% off for the first 3 months of service on any of our Server Colocation deployments. Our £699 / month Full Rack packages are now just £349 / month for the first 3 months. Please quote ‘COLOCATION50‘ in any enquiries to secure these rates.

Welcoming Windows Server 2012

We are also launching Windows Server 2012 on our provisioning system this month, which will mean clients can deploy servers with Microsoft’s latest server operating system. Licence pricing will be available on our website starting 28/11/2012.

New Data Centre Video Coming Soon

As part of our end-of-year celebrations, we will also be releasing a new Netwise Hosting South video, with some video testimonials from happy customers, and a closer look at the data centre’s new features added since our first Overview video in December 2011.

by Matt Seaton

What to do when your PC stops working

We have been working within the IT industry for a number of years here at Netwise Hosting, and when we find a company that provides real benefit to us and our customers, we like to promote what they offer.

We have had the pleasure of building up a fantastic business relationship with Remote Techs, an experienced company offering a great range of instant computer support services. If you are ever left wondering what to do when your PC stops working, all you have to do is contact Remote Techs – they will be able to solve the problem for you, whatever it may be, quickly and effectively.

Remote Techs

This is an instant service – they are able to access your computer remotely from their offices, without the need to physically be with you and your PC. Gone are the days of needing to transport your computer to the nearest computer repair shop, where you often have to leave your PC with them for a lengthy period of time. With Remote Techs instant remote service, you don’t even need to leave the house! They have a full range of transparent pricing options available through their website (much like we do) so you’ll be able to see exactly how much they charge for the services they provide.

One of the other key features that really impresses us about Remote Techs is that they adopt a ‘jargon free’ approach to IT support – rare these days! They are not in the business of trying to confuse; they always aim to show you why your computer has stopped functioning properly to help avoid it from happening again in the future.

No longer do you need to worry about what to do when your PC stops working. From our experience, you can speak with the IT advisers at Remote Techs via their instant ‘live help’ feature which can be found on the home page of their website. If you would prefer, you can also contact them by calling their team on 0800 6121 380.

by Matt Seaton

Fully Comprehensive Colocation and Connectivity Packages Now Available

Netwise Hosting’s OpenAccess Connectivity Partner has just announced the most aggressive private business fibre circuit pricing ever seen in the UK. Our clients now have exclusive access to these rates, which combined with our remarkable Server Colocation pricing makes for the ultimate IT outsourcing package.

We are calling this unique service COLO-CONNECT. The catch? You only have until the 31/10/2012 to apply for a quote before these prices rise back to market value.

You can now introduce a high speed fibre connection to your office, and colocate safe in the knowledge that you can talk to your remote machines unimpeded. It has never been more affordable to install a private leased-line and colocate with Netwise Hosting.

Any premises on-net with Virgin Business can now obtain a 100Mbps fibre circuit on a 1Gbps Bearer for £160 / month, with varying setup fees dependant on contract length and initial circuit size.

An example package would look like this;

–

COLO-CONNECT from Netwise Hosting

—

– Full Rack Colocation with 8 Amps Power & 20Mbps CDR
£699 / month

+

– 100Mbps Private Leased-Line Virgin Business Circuit on 1Gbps Bearer
£899 / month
£160 / month

£859 / month*

*Setup costs vary depending on length of terms, and can be spread across 12 months

–

For more information, please contact us. Please ensure all quotation requests are in place by the 31/10/2012.

by Matt Seaton

Colocation Prices Slashed at Netwise Hosting

As many of you may already be aware from our recent market reaction tests, we are currently in the process of repositioning our applauded Server Colocation services.

The team here at Netwise have always been known for radically rethinking the company’s approach to the market. From our unique facility, right through to our unparalleled personal support network, we have always done things a little differently here. This restructuring of our colocation pricing takes this notion a step further, solidifying our position as the premium data centre of choice in London across all of our service sets (dedicated servers, server colocation, and online backup).

Our acclaimed colocation packages are now the highest value offerings available in the capital, bringing true affordability to London’s retail colocation marketplace. Combining our existing world-class enterprise level service quality with these new price points places Netwise Hosting at the very forefront of the high-demand retail colocation sector.

A snapshot of the new pricing can be seen below, with particular attention to be drawn to our full rack offering, which is just £699 / month until January 2013;

Full Rack Colocation > £799 £699 / month + £0 Setup

  • 40U Lockable Enclosure
  • 8 Amps of Conditioned Dual Feed Power (32 Amps available per cab)
  • 20Mbps of CDR Bandwidth (advanced global connectivity options available)
  • 1Gbps Network Connection
  • 16 APC Remote Reboot Ports
  • 16 IP Addresses
  • 24×7 Enclosure Access
  • Redundant UK Connections
  • Live ‘My Netwise Hosting’ Bandwidth / Power Monitoring
  • Read More…

 

Our Half Rack and Quarter Rack offerings have also seen dramatic readjustments, with prices now standing at £399 and £199 per month respectively.

If you would like to know more about our Server Colocation services, and how Netwise Hosting can provision the perfect solution for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us for further information, or to book a tour of our private London facility.

And… don’t forget about our award-winning Colocation Calculator – live, real-time colocation prices with dynamic slider control, based on your own unique colocation requirements.

by Matt Seaton

Everything You Need to Know About Microsoft Windows Server 2012

The launch of Microsoft’s new Server operating system is upon us, presenting server administrators with some rather exciting developments going forward into 2013, with a particular emphasis on virtualisation and the control system admins have over each virtual machine. This short guide will help you understand the various new developments on offer, introducing you to a new way of  interacting with your services.

User Interface

Windows Server 2012 UIThe first thing you’re going to notice is the interface. This is the first major departure Microsoft has made from its trusted desktop environment for its server operating system, adopting the new tile layout (Metro) first seen in Windows 8 earlier this year. You can opt to stick to a more traditional desktop environment if you wish, but we certainly feel this will add some variation to how administrators control their machines. This new user interface has been said to make it far easier to manage multiple servers more quickly and efficiently.

Server Core

Server Core is a new function of the Windows Server operating system. It is a command line only version of the OS, perfect for more advanced users who have no need for the advanced graphical user interface. The most important function of Server Core is that it can be enabled/disabled without a reinstall.

New Editions

Microsoft have reinvented their range of editions for this new release, scrapping Enterprise, Small Business Server, Web and HPC versions in favour of a more concise 4-edition setup. The new versions are Foundation, Essentials, Standard, and Datacenter (listed here in order of price/feature set, lowest to highest).

Licencing Changes

Linked to this is a new way of licencing the operating system – Server 2012 is now licensed per server as usual for the lower end Foundation and Essentials editions, and per CPU for Standard and Datacenter. The Datacenter edition becomes more cost effective as the number of instances grow. Standard and Datacenter editions of Server 2012 have advanced virtualisation options;

The New Home of Hyper-V

Hyper-VOne of the key features of Server 2012 is its in-built server virtualisation functionality. While the two entry level editions have very limited virtualisation options (as they are designed primarily for basic single server deployments), Standard and Datacenter both have powerful Hyper-V functionality built right into the core, meaning the base operating system can form the basis of a virtual cloud server setup.

The Cloud OS

Having already been dubbed as Microsoft’s ‘Cloud OS’, Windows Server 2012 Datacenter can support very large virtual environments, supporting up to 1024 virtual machines per host server. Each virtual machine in this version of Hyper-V can access up to 32 virtual processors, up to 512 gigabytes of random-access memory, and up to 16 terabytes of virtual disk space per virtual hard disk.

IIS 8.0 is Here

Microsoft’s latest version of Internet Information Services supports a range of new features, including per-site CPU capping – another indication of the shift towards shared cloud computing.

Impressive Scale for the Data Centre Environment

Windows Server 2012 supports 640 logical processors, 4TB of RAM, and can work inside a cluster of up to 64 nodes.

Optimised for the Cloud

System Center 2012This latest version of the Microsoft Server operating system has been built from the ground up to support cloud platforms. As such, it is perfectly suited to those looking to host virtual machines, databases, applications (SaaS), web hosting, and even desktop hosting. Microsoft’s in-built System Center 2012 handles much of the cloud service management, managing the computing, storage, and network components of the server.

 

There is no doubt that Microsoft have made giant leaps forward in releasing this new server operating system. Is is perfect for dedicated server operators, cloud service providers, multi-use clusters, and general data centre operations. The user experience has been drastically simplified, despite the number of features within the OS growing dramatically.

Netwise Hosting will be rolling out Windows Server 2012 in both Standard and Datacenter guises shortly. If you would like to know more about our implementation of this new operating system, please feel free to contact a member of the team.