[Gllug] OT: Good ISP & Offsite Storage

[Martyn Drake]

On Tue, 3 Sep 2002 13:40:59 +0100 Andy Young wrote:

> Sorry that one of my first (maybe ever my very first!) postings to
> this list is off topic, but a kind gentleman pointed me in the
> direction of this list a while ago as a very helpful source of info
> for UK IT issues. I've been lurking a while and hopefully won't get
> shot down in flames ;)

Don't worry - we were all new here once, you know :)
 
> May I ask for a couple of bits of advice?

That'll be 50 quid, please.
 
> 1) Who would you recommend as a name registrar / website host / ISP?
> I'd not quite go as far as a Co-Lo server but I would like a Unix
> based server account with Telnet access and CGI scripting ability. PHP
> would be nice too.

I use 123-reg.co.uk for domain registration and handling, and
kdawebservices.com for the hosting.  In the years that I've been using
123-reg.co.uk I've never encountered a single problem.  Good email and
web forwarding is included within the registraton fee.

I've only recently (i.e. within the past week) signed up with
kdawebservices.com having suffered the cardinal sin with XCalibre.co.uk
that ISPs can make - no redundancy in their network (or DNS servers)
when connectivity to your data centre goes bellly up.  No connectivity
for eight hours plus their DNS servers stopped resolving (including
customer domains).

Set-up with KDA was extremely quick, and they provide you with a
temporary URL to use while you wait for domain(s) to be transferred. 
There's a good ticket support system, and you can always grab somebody
if there is something you need help with.

> Maybe some peaks of pretty heavy bandwidth usage. Must be reliable and
> provide a good service. I obviously don't want to pay over the odds,
> but good service and support are important to me. Spending hours on
> the end of an engaged 'phone line doesn't do a lot for my blood
> pressure!

My hosting package (the K200) includes 200Mb of web space, 6Gb of data
transfer, 200 email accounts, 2 mailing lists, 10 MySQL databases,
subdomains (for both email AND web - useful for individual projects),
the ability to host 2 domains and map other domains to them, shopping
cart CGI scripts, Frontpage (spit!) extensions, SSH access and lots more
besides (such as access to raw log files and Webalizer output).

> 2) Who would you recommend in London as an off-site tape storage
> facility? Or failing that, what do you do to rotate your backup tapes
> off site? Don't say "take them home" as they'll end up in the wash or
> something ;)

There was a place in Greenwich that did off-site storage, but I can't
remember their name at the moment - I'll post back here when I do (you
may be waiting some time!).

Regards,

	Martyn

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