by Matt Seaton

Recession Over?

As I am sure most readers within the UK are aware, the Office of National Statistic (ONS) recently announced that the economy has seen growth of 0.1%. This growth comes during the longest and deepest recession of all the leading western economies since records began back in 1955. Some members of parliament – such as Alistair Darling – believe that this short period of tiny economic growth shows the UK’s emergence from this long-lasting recession. There is no doubt that any growth, regardless of size, places the economy in a far better state of affairs considering the damage done in recent years. However, can it be said that 0.1% is really be a figure to get excited about? And if not excited, then allowing for relief from money worries?

Well, not really. The struggle is still very real, and very much in existence. Gordon Brown’s announcement that the UK’s period of recession is over could be considered highly premature. It will take a very long time for the economy to recover – although everyone realises that this is the case. The primary cause for concern is the scarily real possibility of a ‘double-dip’ recession. Whilst this generally relies on a new peak in the economy before crashing again, any growth can spark a new and sudden dip back into economic trouble.

Yet disregarding the possibilities of either a full economic recovery or a double-dip recession, most businesses (and individuals) will not likely feel the benefits of any growth for some time to come. This small level of general up-turn in the UK economy has been fueled by large PLC’s improving revenue figures through government schemes and other such repair attempts. These PLC’s tend to be centred around the production and manufacturing industries, such as car plants and heavy machinery manufacturers. For the ripple effect of any growth to reach other markets, such as the dedicated server industry and other high-technology industries, is definitely going to take its time.
Although from a technical standpoint the statistics do show growth, which if read without consideration of context can be shown to end the recession, the fact remains that times are still tough. Unless any major new revelations come to light in the near future, it is safe to assume recovery will take far longer than many politicians would like to have the public believe.

by Matt Seaton

Netwise Hosting New Data Centre Facility – Part 2

As part of our move to the new facility, Netwise Hosting are now able to offer a series of added features and services which we feel will highly benefit both new and existing customers.

The first of these major overhauls is the addition of Personal Account Management and One-Point Contact. Any customer with Netwise Hosting – from single backup solution contract holders to full multi-rack colocation customers – will now have a singular point of contact within the organisation. This will mean your account with us is personally managed by a highly-competent member of the Netwise Hosting team, reducing query times and ensuring your services run as smoothly as possible. Direct phone and email addresses will be available for use during office hours, guaranteeing an immediate source of information regarding any personal account matters. New and existing customers will be notified of their own personal account manager, along with all the relevant contact details.

Netwise Hosting will also be rolling out a wider range of operating systems, both Linux and Windows solutions. This will improve server customisation options and give greater flexibility over end-solution suitability for many different applications. Netwise Hosting aim to constantly offer the industry leading operating systems, as well as the latest releases and innovations from both Microsoft and most leading Linux Distributions. Any key updates will also be catered for.

Our existing hardware range will also be expanding very soon. On top of offering customers Entry Level, Mid-Range and High-End dedicated servers, Netwise Hosting are launching the ‘Ultimate’ dedicated server solution. Ultimate servers will come with Dual Quad Core 2.0GHz Intel® Xeon™ Processors, 8GB RAM and 2 x 1TB Hard Disk Drives. These are our most powerful solutions to date, catering for the most resource-hungry applications. An Ultimate server solution will allow the needs of any large business to be condensed into small, easy to use machines – without the need for vast numbers of low end machines working at capacity – saving on both cost and environmental impact. For more information visit the Ultimate Server page.

We are also very pleased to annouce our full migration to Unlimited Bandwidth across all Netwise Hosting dedicated server solutions. Any server platform hosted within our facilities will now have completely unlimited bandwidth as standard at no extra cost. This further confirms our position as the most cost-effective provider of dedicated server platforms in the UK. As well as this addition to our base-level services, Remote Reboot functionality will also be included as standard on all dedicated server platforms with no added cost. Expect these changes to be in effect very soon, saving you and your business money.
To complement this added value further still, network connectivity has been improved with a greater choice of connection speeds and a better level of overall service. It is now possible to fully scale your connection along with your hardware.

Our work has also extended to the improvement of end-user software solutions. We uncovered a need for server control panels to come pre-installed on our dedicated servers for customers to use right away. Because of this emerging demand, we will soon be offering a choice of top control panels when purchasing and setting up any dedicated server solution. Panels will be provided for all operating systems wherever possible.
Whilst deciding to roll out a set of end-user control panels, we have also decided to begin redeploying our own purchasing and order handling control panels. Within the next few months, customer will be able to log into their own control panel, from which they will have the ability to undertake a wide selection of tasks, including but not limited to; checking their billing, adding upgrades, purchasing new services, advanced support, download library access, network and server status reports, maintainance timetables, FAQ’s and a new affiliates program.

Free setup will also be applicable to all services as we move into 2010, again reducing costs and increasing the overall value of the Netwise Hosting service range.

We hope you are as excited about the future as we are. These new features will ensure that both new and old customers continue to get the most for their money when it comes to owning an online service with Netwise Hosting. We look forward to adding to this growing list of additional features and services in the very near future. Keep checking back for more information.

by matthew.butt

Netwise Hosting New Data Centre Facility – Part 1

As CEO of the Netwise Group, I thought it would be beneficial to give you all an insight into the development of our new data centre facility which is due for completion in the forthcoming New Year. I hope to write frequently to keep you up to date with our progress and to show you where your data will soon be stored.

To start with, you may or may not have been aware of the fact that we were planning on building a new facility for your data. This was decided just 6 months ago due to major inflexibility at our current premises; this almost forced the decision for us to move or for us to at least re-think the direction in which we wanted to head.

After several key meetings it was clear that a new facility was the most logical answer from both a service and financial point of view. From here we started to list in detail our requirements from which a specification could be produced. As always this is easier said than done. As I am sure you are aware, with technology constantly moving at such a quick pace it’s often difficult to try and specify accurately and to cater for both now and the future whilst keeping within strict financial budgets. During this process it was soon evident that we needed to keep our motto at the heart of our plans; speed, security, stability.

From this, several main areas arose from which solutions could be researched and discussed. This covered everything from the real estate side right through to the best method of air containment within the data centre; I hope to cover these in more detail in future posts.

The first major area was finding a suitable site/building. After much searching and number crunching we finally found a suitable area for locating our new facility. It ticks all the boxes; large amounts of available power, accessible redundant fibre connectivity, room for all the M&E equipment both internally and externally and plenty of room for both now and the future, but it is rather expensive! I will try to upload some photos in the near future for you all.

When completed we will have two state of the art server floors, each being able to accommodate over 1500 servers. As well as this, a new larger office space, meeting areas and a network operations centre will be built. Alongside this we are planning on providing designated server provisioning areas. This will give our both our internal technicians and our colocation customers a comfortable and practical area from which they can manage their servers and the associated hardware without being stuck in the middle of an uncomfortable server row. We want to encourage all types of client to visit our facility to show them firsthand what we do and how we do it, this should hopefully aid the building of long lasting and fruitful business relationships.

From here, we moved towards the major structural and provider services side of the build. Endless meetings with energy suppliers, specialist connectivity providers and data centre designers led us towards a final specification (if it is or interest to anyone then I can write up certain amounts of information in regards to this). We are now finalising our schedule of works and stage one should be under way within the next few weeks, fingers crossed!

And this is where we are up to. The build and kit out should progress very rapidly, we will have several teams working around the clock to meet our deadlines, I will try to provide photos whenever possible. I hope you have found this interesting and I look forward to updating you further in the near future. If you have any questions or comments then please don’t hesitate to get in contact, we would love to talk to you.

by Matt Seaton

Review – HP ProLiant DL140 G3 High-End Servers

The High-End dedicated servers from Netwise Hosting offer customers with an impressive array of features, coupled with a solid set of hardware to ensure internal operations are completed just as fast as external operations.

In our previous review we discussed the custom-built solutions employed by Netwise Hosting in providing balanced services for both Entry Level and Mid-Range server solutions. Whilst a custom solution could also have been employed for our High-End services, the Netwise Hosting team felt customers would expect a solid brand to power their technologies when purchasing a flagship dedicated server. Because of this, a number of the worlds largest technology manufacturers were approached in determining a workable solution for our clients.

After tireless searching for a server platform we could rely on, and feel comfortable in rolling out to our end users, we settled on a tried and tested hardware set from HP (Hewlett-Packard).
HP were able to deliver a balanced solution for our High-End specification, also providing us with excellent aftercare and supplementary services. Of course, all of these services are passed onto our customers, helping Netwise Hosting deliver on our uptime guarantees and quality promises.

The HP ProLiant series is perhaps the best selling and most industry-proven server platform used in the IT sector today. The build quality and leading internal technologies make for a robust package offering users a powerful tool which can be used in any number of ways.

The DL140 G3 (3rd Generation) combines all of the features offered by HP’s ProLiant series into a powerful rack server with an unbeatable performance to value ratio. As standard, the DL140 G3 comes with a modest set of internals, offering little towards our expectations in delivering industry beating power to our High-End clients. Therefore the HP systems we employ here at the private Netwise Hosting datacentre are customised to match the requirements we know our customers will expect.

With the raw power of the High-End dedicated servers being provided by a Quad 2.0GHz Intel® Xeon™ Processor, there is never a need to worry about the efficient running of power-hungry applications. Quad core processors from the Xeon™ range give the user four symmetric multi-processing units to employ in even the most demanding data crunching scenarios. This is connected to the rest of the system through a 1333FSB, making for instant cross-hardware data transfer. Couple this with the large 8MB Cache and you have one of the most robust server processors on the market today.

The powerful processor speeds are supplemented perfectly with 4GB’s of DDRII Dual Channel Memory running at 667MHz. You will not be encountering any speed issues with a RAM package like that, with high usage applications having more than enough memory to feed on. The RAID1 (mirror) storage setup that comes as standard on the High-End server packages also promotes a perfectly balanced system, running on two 500GB SATA drives with an operating speed of 7200RPM.

In summary, the Netwise Hosting High-End dedicated server (powered by the HP ProLiant DL140 G3) is the ultimate in online service luxury. No corners have been cut in ensuring clients receive excellent value for money, and have the opportunity to use one of the most powerful and well-balanced server platforms on the market.

Visit our high-end server page today to see just how affordable it is to obtain your very own high-end dedicated server from Netwise Hosting.

by Matt Seaton

Review – Entry Level/Mid-Range Servers

When it comes to our Entry Level dedicated server packages here at Netwise Hosting, we build and deploy fully customised servers into our system infrastructure. We do not rely on third party hardware vendors such as Dell or HP, as we feel we can better cater for the requirements of our entry level customers by building a completely unique custom solution. We have full creative freedom over how our servers are put together, and the components we use.

By selecting only the very best components for our dedicated server platforms, we are better able to ensure we meet our uptime guarantees and have full control over our own upgrade system.

Speed and reliability are at the heart of the Netwise Hosting ethos, which is why we will always apply such factors very rigidly to our hardware. All processors within the Entry and Mid-Range dedicated server packages are from the rock-solid Xeon™ series from Intel®. We feel this gives customers the piece of mind they require in understanding the quality of each component, and also ensures that we are delivering the exceptional levels of quality we always promise to clients. The processors in the Entry Level servers run an Intel® Xeon™ 2.8Ghz processor specifically designed to operate in the power-hungry world of dedicated servers. These come with a  533FSB for very quick interaction with the motherboard, and a 512KB cache giving supreme speed increases to applications and regular tasks. The processor in this machine is backed up with fast 1GB DDR 266MHz RAM, meaning your server operates consistently with stable high speeds.

Value for money is centric to the Entry Level server specification, meaning you are receiving serious punch for your money. As one of the cheapest solutions available on the web today, the Entry Level servers provided by our team here at Netwise Hosting offer the user an incredibly affordable solution without compromising on speed or quality.

The Mid-Range solutions are based around the same custom server platform as the Entry Level servers, but with a considerable speed boost. These servers come with Dual Intel® Xeon™ 2.8Ghz processors, giving an incredibly noticeable speed increase over the Entry Level servers. The systems RAM is doubled giving 2GB of DDR 266MHz Dual Channel Memory. The Mid-Range servers also sport two 250GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Disks, running in RAID1 (mirror) for added data security.

All servers within the Netwise Hosting facility are full connected to the UPS infrastructure, meaning power failures are a thing of the past. Your server will be online regardless of any problems with mains power at the substation. This adds an extra degree of data security, and added peace of mind.

All in all, the Entry Level and Mid-Range servers from Netwise Hosting offer the user an unparalleled level of value without any quality-based shortcomings. It has never been so affordable and stress-free for you to own a personal dedicated server and begin taking full advantage of its endless uses and features.