Well, we are not the most expensive but neither are we the cheapest. We could give a myriad of reasons why this is but the bottom line is that we have to make a profit to survive and as a privately owned and operated business, we are not trying to buy market share so that we can sell out to the highest bidder – and we never employ the ‘stack them high and sell them cheap’ approach! We’ve been providing Internet services with the same management team / owners since 1994 and our plan is to continue to do so. We provide a high quality, high availability; well supported business-to-business service. We wouldn’t dream of insulting our customers and prospects by trying to justify outrageous premiums for these benefits but as we all know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
 
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Generally speaking, the datacentres in which a hosting provider holds its servers are divided into four 'tiers'. Each tier defined by factors such as the number of independent power supplies feeding the racks, the height of any raised floors (for airflow and cable management), the cooling systems, the presence of backup batteries or generators and the guaranteed availability of the servers being stored. A Tier 1 data-centre offers only the most basic facilities you might expect of a server room, while a Tier 4 offers state-of-the-art facilities complete with the latest biometric security measures. High-end, corporate level providers will normally operate a Tier 2 or Tier 3 equivalent datacentre; though a Tier 1 data-centre is acceptable for the needs of most small and medium sizes enterprises.

 
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It all depends on what you want to do. If you want the best resiliency option, then perhaps load balancing via two separate Internet Service Providers is most appropriate. This will ensure that if one ISP goes off line or even (if you are smart when selecting your provider) even individual DSLAMs in the BT Exchanges have problems, your service will continue. If you want the best performance, the channel bonding is the best option. This takes two or more separate links (from the same provider) and presents them as a single connection providing higher speeds and a reasonable level of resilience. For more information on channel bonding and load balancing, please refer to our White Papers section where we have documents which explain the differences and the technology. We ask you to register for this service but we will not share your data with any other individual, company or organisation of any type.
 
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This will depend on the size of the main server and the product mix of the virtual machines that we sell and deploy on it. It is not our intention – nor is it in our interest – to over-populate any machine so we keep a close eye on performance and always welcome your feedback on any performance related issue. Of course, if we don’t live up to your expectations, you can always leave us (and we don’t want that to happen) as there is no contractual term – all VMs are provided on a monthly basis.
 
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Yes. Our limits are ‘soft’ i.e. we do not stop serving your data if you reach your agreed limit. In such cases, we will contact you by email and inform you of the overage. Providing the overage is not excessive, we can be flexible. However, if the overage if greater than twenty percent of your agreed limit, we will need to issue a request for additional payment. Just because one month incurs a charge, it doesn’t mean that you will be charged again the following month – unless of course your bandwidth usage is outside of the agreed limits – in which case, you must be doing something right with your website(s) and the additional traffic you are receiving should justify the modest additional charge.
 
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Shared hosting essentially provides you with the ability to serve web pages to the Internet. You are provided with some storage space on to which you load your web page(s) and the web server software ensures that when a user wants to look at your page, it is ‘served’ to them. You can utilise databases and other specially developed routines but most hosting companies have strict rules about the level of access and capability you have to run particular types of software/utilities. This can seriously compromise the ability of your website / application to deliver the service you require to your prospective customers and is a real headache for web developers. The good news is that shared hosting is cheap but if it doesn’t deliver what you need, it is of little use to you! Until recently, the only option – should you not be able to use Shared Hosting - was to use a totally dedicated server….a Windows, Linux or Apple Mac server on to which you could effectively load what you wanted – although some hosting companies even limited this on servers they rent to their customers (most inflexible!). The problem with dedicated servers is the jump in cost – typically from less than £100 per annum to £000’s per month! Enter Virtual Dedicated Servers / Virtual Machines, Slices - there are many names for them. This can almost be viewed as a best-of-both-worlds hybrid solution – a single server split into several (virtual) dedicated servers. Unlike Shared Hosting, a Virtual Dedicated Server provides each user with their own ‘complete’ server, with access to the core operating system so that you can load whatever software is compatible with your OS. There are a few but in the main, you have all the benefits of a dedicated server at much lower prices. If you are in doubt which one best suits your needs, just call our Network Consultancy Team free and without obligation on 0800 5426 555 or email info@jpci.net.
 
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