Recommendations for good hosting company

elaine@cheapaccounting

Business Member
  • Business Listing
    Nov 4, 2005
    13,090
    2,896
    I’m looking at changing our existing provider and thought I would ask if anyone has any recommendation for hosting companies.

    I need a reliable, large, establish company
    99.8% reliability index
    Emails, Web, Database hosting
    FTP etc required
    24/7 support by email
    Dedicated telephone line for support during business hours

    Any suggestions from existing users please not hosting companies themselves thanks.
     

    cis_paul

    Free Member
    Jun 21, 2010
    33
    0
    London
    Could I volunteer?

    We have a 100% availability for Dec 2011 (and previous) as tested by WebPerf (http://www.webperf.net/availdetail.cgi?sutid=1542;month=168)

    Emails, Web, Database hosting are all offered (is your site PHP?), we don't support old/traditional ftp, preferring more secure sftp - but this shouldn't be an issue since most ftp clients now can do sftp too.

    24/7 support by email *tick*

    Dedicated telephone line for support during business hours and again *tick*
     
    Last edited:
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    elaine@cheapaccounting

    Business Member
  • Business Listing
    Nov 4, 2005
    13,090
    2,896
    What is the size of your organisation? (staff, turnover profit)?
    How long have you been in business?
    What is your overall up time over the course of your business life?
    How many servers do you have?
    What is your back up policy?
    What are you support hours?
    How many staff on your support desk?

    Thanks
     
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    cis_paul

    Free Member
    Jun 21, 2010
    33
    0
    London
    What is the size of your organisation? (staff, turnover profit)?
    4, we operate with a small company exemption

    How long have you been in business?
    1.5yrs in the UK, since 2001 in South Africa

    What is your overall up time over the course of your business life?
    I'd have to make that up and say 99.99%. Use the link provided to check our stats from a 3rd party. We're in a Tier4 DC specifically to prevent downtime and all the months I've checked show 100%.

    How many servers do you have?
    4 real, 8 virtual (spread over 2 real)

    What is your back up policy?
    for shared, dedicated or virtual? It seems from your previous post you're after dedicated. If so then we would only provide space for backups to be held. Perhaps you could confirm?

    What are you support hours?
    24hr support via voicemail/email. Office hours are 09:00->17:00.

    How many staff on your support desk?
    2
     
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    KM-Tiger

    Free Member
    Aug 10, 2003
    10,346
    1
    2,893
    Bexley, Kent
    managed linux

    There is another way used by some business owners:

    Buy or rent the hardware, colocated in a data centre.

    Outsource management, support, and monitoring to a third party company, who specialise in just that.

    It won't be the cheap option, but it will be high quality, which is perhaps what you are looking for.
     
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    Dominic Taylor

    Free Member
    Jun 19, 2008
    1,173
    254
    Bath
    Only one recommendation you need, Vidahost. UKBF members, top notch support, UK servers, UK support.
    Thanks :)

    Elaine - we can meet all your requirements and are used by many UKBF members. Feel free to PM me or give us a call on 0800 862 0248 (ask for Dom).

    We own & operate all our own hardware and support the operations of thousands of clients including the very small to the very large.
     
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    HostXNow

    Business Member
  • Business Listing
    Mar 7, 2011
    518
    48
    United Kingdom
    hostxnow.com
    99.8% reliability index

    You'll want better uptime than 99.8%/month. 99.8% uptime can get you 1 1/2 hours of downtime every month = loss of money due to less sales.

    You can check it here

    Uptime: 30 days 22 hours 30 minutes 43 seconds
    Downtime: 1 hour 29 minutes 16 seconds
    Percentage uptime: 99.8%

    http://easyuptimecalc.com

    You really want 99.95%-100% (we have had servers running with 100% uptime for several months at a time, so it is definitely possible).

    Good luck :)
     
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    francsutherland

    Free Member
    Mar 1, 2007
    52
    3
    Yorkshire
    I use HostPapa.com. About £60 / year for unlimited pretty much everything.
    They also have Fantastico De Luxe which does automatic installation of lots of Content Management Systems, Blogging Software etc. Unlimited MySql database too.
    I have used them for about 6 years and never had any major issues. The support tickets and live help are pretty good.
     
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