Nimbus Hosting Blog

Registering a domain name is the first step in getting an online presence for your
business. Once you have a domain name you can publish a website and use more
professional looking email addresses*, this will increase consumer confidence
in your business. Who would you trust more to do your plumbing if you didn’t
know them, jimbo123@hotmail.co.uk or james.smith@js-plumbing.co.uk? Plus, what if they had a website showing customer reviews and photos of previous work.

Below are some of the main domain suffixes we offer available to anybody who wants them, they are easy to buy and inexpensive.

.co.uk – Prices £8 for 2 years

.com – Prices £9.50 per year

.co – Prices £18 per year

Why not increase your domain portfolio and protect your brand by registering your domain name on multiple suffixes and remember to make sure the registrant details are up to date on all your domains. Search for and register a domain name via our customer site today.

SEO

Domains play a big part in SEO, a few tips to improve this are to keep domain names short and therefore easy to remember and type. This also helps with word of mouth advertising. Read more at http://www.seo-gold.com/seo-tutorial/domain-name-choice

Brand

The internet is full of ‘cybersquatters’ who will actively search out available domains on your brand, register them and try sell them back to you at inflated prices.
This also affects seo directing traffic away from your main domain. Avoid this
by searching out your brands domain names and registering the ones most
important to your business.

*A hosting package will also be required for this

Microsoft has recently announced that they will be heavily
increasing their license costs, the price increase will affect all license
agreements except for those in the education sector. As a hosting company we
have to subscribe to a ‘service provider license agreement’ (SPLA) and
unfortunately, this license type is one of the hardest hit!

The pricing increases are being implemented to bring the UK
in line with other countries in Europe, these countries currently pay
significantly more. The price increase comes into effect on 1^st July
2012, please see the link below:

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/05/01/microsoft_volume_license_prices/

For some slightly better news, Microsoft has agreed to defer
this price hike for existing SPLA customers. We will not see this price
increase until 1^st January 2013. We will release information on how
this will affect our hosting packages closer to the time.

Whether you are sending an email or browsing a website, when
you input a domain name your computer needs to know how to find the correct
server on the internet. The domain name service (DNS) translates the friendly
domain names that we all use into IP addresses that computers need to use to
communicate.

This process is completed by a network of DNS resolver
servers that cache translations in their databases, if the first DNS resolver
doesn’t have the address it will ask another DNS resolver server or the name
servers that are set against the domains registration. This is illustrated
below (click the image to make it larger):

Now the technical bit!

There are different types of DNS records, the main ones are described
below:

A record – This translates a hostname to an IP address

MX record – This tells a sending mail server which host to send mail to for the
domain

Once a DNS resolver server uses an address it caches it for
a period of time, the time is determined by the time to live (TTL) set on the
name servers for the domain. This is usually 24 hours!

Here at Nimbus

We have implemented a three name server infrastructure for domains
registered with us, this greatly improves resilience. NS1 and NS2 use one
software type and NS3 uses different software for further resilience. Plus, to
cover all of the bases, all three name servers are in completely separate data
centres. We also set the TTL to just 1 hour by default, this massively improves
the time taken for DNS records to be propagated to DNS resolver servers.

Security of company domain names is usually fairly basic, underrated and in some situations very easy to compromise. Inthis article we would like to discuss a few of methods that we’ve discovered over the past year to help other clients avoid losing out.

Registrar Security

The most popular method is a hacker accessing or attempting to guess your username and password for a domain reseller. Once a hacker has access to your account they can change the dns settings, name servers, or even change the domain ownership.

Make sure your domain password is unique, not easy to guess and your registrar has good web site security. We’ve seen a number of large UK based domain registrars that have very basic security for their web site where the user’s session is still active even when they click log out.

Expiry Dates

Keep an eye on your domain expiry dates especially on domains that aren’t your main domain. We’ve recently seen customer’s domains expire and fall into the hands of competitors or hackers just because the client ignored the renewal emails.

Social Engineering

This is a less common method but again a method we’ve seen it in the past months. This method involves a hacker contacting a domain registrar via the telephone or email and pretending to be the end customer. Some registrars will ask just basic security questions like payment method or information that’s publicly available on the whois.

Ask your domain registrar what security methods they use for validation or better still spend five minutes calling their customer support number to see what questions you get asked.

Poor configuration

Another instance we’ve seen recently is hackers taking advantage of incorrect information on the whois database. This can either be incorrect email address, domain registrant or name server information.

A large client of ours had a hacker identify that one of their name servers on their domain was listed incorrectly. The hacker then registered the miss spelled domain and setup a name server redirecting all traffic to their own web site to collect advertising revenue. An unfortunate problem where the customer lost a third of their traffic for 24 hours.

How to avoid these incidents

A benefit of working with a small company like Nimbus is that we have a much smaller customer database and know customers personally. We can spot unusual activity on a customer’s account and react very quickly to resolve a problem should anything arise. We also run regular scripts that monitor our customer’s domains to make sure they are working and the information is correct.

Starting in May this year you’ll be able to register and renew the majority of domains for up to 10 years. Consider asking your registrar for a discount for  a longer period to avoid your domain expiring.

Some customers prefer to keep their domains and hosting separate although we believe the opposite. If you keep your domain and hosting together you have a single point of contact should anything go wrong. If a problem does happen it can be quickly resolved as there’s no need to relay information onto a third party.

As I’m sure you’re aware Magento is a fantastic ecommerce package that’s ideal for either someone starting out in ecommerce or a company that’s been trading for a number of years.

However Magento’s largest problem is that it’s very resource intensive so much so that Microsoft should have written it. At Nimbus we have a number of tactics that we use on our customer’s Magento sites to improve performance.

Hardware

The most important part is having the right hardware behind the site. Web hosts that offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space are the ones to avoid first as you can be sure they are overselling their servers. This type of hosting works well for basic brochure web sites but anything database intensive like Magento will need something a bit more powerful.

All the packages from Nimbus run on premium hardware from HP that uses Intel Quad Core processors, fast SAS (SCSI) hard disks and blisteringly fast memory. The cloud software we use prevents us from overselling our hardware so the specifications that we quote our customers are what we guarantee.

Check out our hardware blog article here http://www.nimbushosting.co.uk/blog/you-must-have-standards/

Database Optimisation

What Magento likes is lots of memory especially for the database. By tuning MySQL you can optimise the performance by keeping lots of the indexes and data in memory. This reduces the amount of time it takes for MySQL to find certain records, which in turn improves page load speeds.

Replacing Apache

Apache is great for the majority of basic web sites out there but as soon as things get intensive then there’s a great alternative, nginx. Pronounced (Engine X), it’s designed as a lightweight webserver that has simple configuration and ideal for running intensive web sites like Magento. It uses less memory and less CPU resources basically
doubling a server’s capacity.

CDN Networks

CDN networks are becoming more and more
popular especially for sites that have a global audience. They work by hosting
regional servers closer to your end users. These servers host your static
content like javascript, CSS files and images where they will download faster
and take away traffic from your primary web server. The side effect is that your
web server has more resources available to handle more traffic without any
hardware upgrades.

What next?

The process of optimization never stop and at Nimbus we are constantly evaluating new methods. As we discover and evolve the ideas we roll them out to other customers who can benefit from these new achievements.

On February 3, 2011, in a ceremony in Miami, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigned the last batch of IP addresses to the Regional Internet Registries, officially depleting the global pool of completely fresh blocks of addresses. So what then?

IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is the new version of the Internet Protocol intended to succeed IPv4. IPv4 currently directs almost all Internet traffic but is unable to fulfil the demand for IP addresses. IPv6 allows up to 340 undecillion addresses (A LOT!), a massive increase from the 4.3 billion addresses that IPv4 supports, and includes several other improvements.

The most obvious advantage of IPv6 is its much larger address space than in IPv4. Other benefits are default multicasting support (sending to multiple destinations in a single session), simplified headers for easier processing by routers and enhanced security.

For the Internet to make use of the advantages of IPv6 over IPv4, most hosts on the Internet, as well as the networks connecting them, will need to deploy this protocol so the switch over may be some time off yet.

At Nimbus, we have our IPv6 allocation already and have already implemented it on our core infrastructure. The internet as a whole may not be ready but we are!

At Nimbus we pride ourselves on providing the best customer service. From the initial point of contact, the free migration all the way to the daily support of your hosting. You will always be able to speak to a real person. Plus we put highly experienced technical staff on the front line, this helps us deal with more enquiries at the first point of contact.

Proactive approach

Our attention to detail helps us stand out from the rest. Using ultra reliable HP servers in a brand new state of the art datacentre, we monitor your server 24/7 and make sure your servers are always online. Taking a proactive approach to our systems rather than a reactive one we aim to avoid unnecessary down time by staying one step ahead of any potential problems.

Experience is essential and here at Nimbus we have plenty of that so you can rest assured you are in good hands. Whether on an entry level Whirlwind package or a high end dedicated server solution our customer focussed approach means you will always be treated like a person not a number and we’re always available to offer assistance and advice to help you out.

Digital data is fast becoming many small companies most valuable asset, yet a surprising amount of these organisations have no real strategy for backing it up. The effects of losing their data has moved from just embarrassing to truly damaging for many organisations.

A recent server found that 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within six months and that companies that cannot resume normal operations within ten days due to severe data loss are not likely to survive.

If you are hosting with Nimbus, you can rest assured that we are running disk redundancy on all servers so a single disk failure will not affect the servers in any way. That being said, hardware failure is not the only threat to your data. Below are some other possible threats.

• Malicious damage
• Accidental deletion
• Data corruption

A tried and tested backup strategy should be a priority for any business.

There are many ways of backing up you data with varying costs. At Nimbus, we offer an offsite online backup service for any server that is hosted with us. Please call 0844 309 9600 for further information and pricing on this service. Some benefits of online backups are described below.

• Easier to manage – Backups are fully automated on a daily basis.
• Multiple locations – The provider stores your data at different locations in purpose built online backup data centres. This means that you will not lose data due to a natural disaster
• More versions – We can restore your files from many different versions – yesterday, last week, three weeks ago. In fact we keep a version for each of the past 30 days. These older versions can be restored to any location on your server
• More cost effective – Conventional backups costs time and effort as well as storage device and software

The key benefit for an SSL certificate is quite simple, to secure your web site so any data being sent is encrypted. This is ideal if you are taking credit card details or in fact, any personal data that a customer sends to you via your web site. Encrypting sensitive data is vital in increasing customer confidence in your site.

We offer a number of different types of SSL certificates and it’s important to choose the right one for your business as this quote confirms.

“According to research conducted in 2009 online retailers lost out on $21 billion in sales where customers did not trust the web site they were browsing.”

Here’s a list of the SSLs we provide and how you can use them.

Domain Validated

Domain Validated SSLs are the entry level certificates that are usually issued on the same day. The SSL is authenticated by an email sent to an email address at the domain which the SSL is for, this is usually administrator@, postmaster@ or webmaster@.  Once this SSL has been installed it providers between 128-256 bit encryption depending on what the user’s browser supports. Some Domain Validated SSLs come with a seal that can be displayed on the web site to confirm authenticity of the certificate.

Domain Validated SSLs are used either for general personal data collection rather than for credit card information.

Standard Organisation Validation

Standard organisation validation SSLs are the most common type of certificates that we issue, they provide 128-256 bit encryption. Each SSL is validated against the organisation and the domain name that it’s registered too. The type of organisation can be Sole Trader/Partnership, Private company, Public company or charity. A third party certificate authority handles the verification process using third party databases.

These SSLs confirm the owner of the web site when the user clicks the padlock in their browser, they are usually used to collect credit card data. A seal is available for the web site to confirm the authenticity.

Strong Encryption SSL

A strong encryption certificate is identical to a Standard Organisation Validation SSL although the certificates forces 99.9% of browsers to encrypt the connection at 256-Bit. This means that the connection between the customer and the server uses military grade encryption and is much more difficult to intercept. These SSLs are typically used by websites looking for the higher level of security for their web site.

Wildcard SSL

A wildcard SSL can either be domain validated based SSLs or organisation validated SSL. However this type of SSL will automatically secure unlimited subdomains under the domain name, for example secure.domainname.co.uk, checkout.domainnane.co.uk, www.domainame.co.uk.

These are ideal for customers who would like to secure multiple web sites under the same domain but save on the cost of multiple SSLs. The Thawte Wildcard certificate is provided alongside the Seal.

Extended Validation Certificate

Extended Validation SSLs (EVs) are similar to Organisation Validation SSLs except they require extensive verification including confirming the order with an official officer of the company, like a company director. Once the SSL has been issued and installed a green bar is displayed in the browser window. This bar will display the company name and provides customers with increased confidence in the web site they are browsing.

Multi San SSLs

Multi SAN Certificates are very similar to the Standard Organisation Validation SSL certificates although you can specify multiple web site addresses that are owned by the same organisation. This is particularly useful if you have several ecommerce shops that are run by the same company but use different web site addresses.

All the SSLs provided by Nimbus come with support, setup costs and unique IP address included within the price. Please contact us for pricing and advice on which SSL would be right for you.

In the IT industry standardising is vital, especially when it comes to hardware. Using a single type of hardware in each area makes support and maintenance much easier and more efficient.

At Nimbus, not only to we adhere to this, we believe that it is important to have high standards. That is why we only us high quality HP servers and Cisco routers.

We only implement HP proliant DL360 servers for our high performance hosting, these are just less than 2” high which allows us to get more into each cabinet and provide competitively priced and reliable servers. Some providers will use custom built micro systems for cheaper hosting but this can result the service being less reliable.

The HP proliant servers are renowned for their speed, scalability and reliability. They also have the benefits below, these either benefit you directly or enable us to provide better support and reliability.

• Allow up to 16 processor cores
• Allow up to 384GB memory
• The servers can hold up to eight disks and we only deploy the disks in a mirrored configuration for fault tolerance
• Dual power supply compatibility for further redundancy
• Clean, tool-free, mechanical design enhances reliability and simplifies configuration and maintenance
• integrated iLO 3 allows powerful, hardware-based remote administration and control from a standard web browser even if the server has crashed
• System health LED on the front of the server highlights potential issues to engineers and allows for proactive management

Standardising on this hardware also allows us to store a spare for every server component, that combined with the fact that the data centre provide fully trained IT staff means that we can commit to our 1 hour response time for hardware issues.