Posts Tagged ‘UK Hosting’

Reminder: Keep Your Joomla Sites Updated and Secure!

Posted By: Brad Baker, Date: Friday, September 11th, 2009

Brad Baker

I can’t hold back any more, I’m seeing still, so many people who do not keep their Joomla sites up to date, and then end up being exploited/compromised and cause more stress to themselves.. so.. again.. please Keep Your Joomla Sites Updated and Secure!

A simply way to do this, and with minimal effort is to use this great free component: Update Manager for Joomla! – Joomla! Extensions Directory – it will enable you to update your site, all from your Joomla backend. What could be easier?

BTW It’s not just Joomla that needs to be kept up to date, but any scripts you run. Joomla, along with scripts like Wordpress are very popular and as a result attract the ’script kiddies’ and others who once a patch is released, work out how to scan for compromised sites and exploit … YOU.

So, avoid being blacklisted by Google, avoid the downtime and pain involved with recovering from a site compromise, and simply Keep Your Joomla Sites Updated and Secure!

If you are in the unfortunate situation where you’ve been ‘driving a racing car without a helmet or seatbelt’ aka not bothering to Keep Your Joomla Sites Updated and Secure and your site has been compromised, please see the following articles: How do I use Rochen Vault? and My site has been compromised, help!

- Brad

Brad Baker has been a member of the Rochen team since early 2003 and is a founding member of the Joomla! Open Source Project. He currently is part of the Joomla LeadershipTeam, and also blogs here.

Rochen UK Q and A. Is the “UK / Europe” or “US / Worldwide” service best for me?

Posted By: Chris Adams, Date: Friday, June 19th, 2009

Yesterday was an exciting day for Rochen. We finally launched our UK hosting services. You can find details in my previous blog that I wrote prior to the launch. I wanted to use this blog post to address some questions we have been getting as well as provide some discount promo codes. Everyone loves pictures, so I have included some of those too.

 

1. Can I expect the same level of service with Rochen’s UK hosting?

Yes, our UK service is pretty much a direct copy of our US offering. We have applied everything we have learnt in the US and used all of our best practices. Services like Rochen Vault Managed Backups are included free with the UK plans. Whether you are on a US or UK plan you can seamless login to Rochen Vault via: https://vault.rochen.com, for example. Technical support is all in one place too at: https://my.rochen.com.

 

2. What services does Rochen offer in the UK?

All of our shared hosting plans including the Starter Plan, Multiple Domain Hosting and Reseller Hosting are available in the UK. Our Managed Virtual Server (MVS) service is available too. The plans are identical to the US offering except we charge in GBP instead of USD. Simply select the US or UK option prior to ordering on the plan page.

 

Enclosed isle technology. Click to Enlarge.

Latest enclosed isle technology. Click to enlarge.

 

3. In the UK does Rochen own and manage all of the hosting infrastructure?

We own and manage everything. Rochen could have probably saved quite a bit if we had started out the UK service with lower capital investments by leasing servers. However, we were not about to start compromising our service standards, so if we were to offer a UK service it had to stand up to its US sister. All the infrastructure in the UK from the enterprise Supermicro rackmount services, to the Cisco switches and backup appliances are all fully owned and managed by Rochen.

 

4. Is the US or UK service best for me?

It really depends where the bulk of your site traffic originates from. Configuring Google Analytics on your site should be able to tell you. If the bulk of your traffic comes from within Europe or Africa then the UK service is best. If most of your traffic is coming from North America, South America or areas like Australia then the US service is probably best. Some European companies also need to host their data inside of the EU for data protection reasons, so the UK service would meet that requirement. If you host sites with traffic from different regions then splitting your hosting between both Rochen locations might be a smart move. E.g. a Reseller Hosting Plan in the US and another in the UK.

 

First UK shared hosting servers. Click to Enlarge.

First shared servers. Click to enlarge.

 

5. I wish to change from the US to UK service. Is this possible?

This is not currently possible. The reasons behind not allowing transfers are purely business ones right now. We could end up with lots of people moving over and filling up the UK infrastructure. This would mean Rochen has huge additional capital and recurring outlays without any additional revenue. We will however allow transfers in the future. If you are upgrading though we can however offer a transfer. E.g. Reseller Hosting in the US to Managed Virtual Server (MVS) in the UK.

 

6. I wish to open a UK account in addition to my US account. Is this possible?

Yes, this is certainly possible. You can simply order a UK plan via our website. When ordering though please be sure to provide a different email address to the one you currently have on file with Rochen. This is to ensure your UK order is placed under a separate My Rochen customer portal login to your existing US account. Currently our customer portal can not support US and UK accounts under the one login. If you use the promo code UKCLIENT this will apply a 5% recurring discount for the life of your UK account. You must maintain both your US and UK accounts. Be sure to order under the same name and postal address as your US account so we can verify you are a customer already.

 

Neat Cabling

Neat Cabling. Click to enlarge.

 

7. I am not currently a customer. What’s the best way to signup for Rochen UK?

Simply visit our website at: http://www.rochen.co.uk, find the plan that best meets your needs and signup. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to email sales@rochen.com, post within our pre-sales questions forum or Twitter us @rochenhost.

 

8. Are there any discounts for non-customers?

Yes, you can signup using the promo code UK20 (expires Sunday, 21st June) to receive a 20% discount on your first invoice or UK15 (expires Tuesday, 30th June) to receive a 15% discount on your first invoice. These discounts apply to the UK service only as part of our launch celebrations. You can use the promo code DEAL for a 10% discount on your first invoice with the US service though. If you pay annually for a Starter Plan or Multiple Domain Hosting Plan then the savings can be significant.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read and do get in touch if you have any questions at all about either our new UK offering or any Rochen service!

- Chris

Chris Adams is the Founder and CEO of Rochen, a web hosting provider specializing in providing a performance tuned hosting platform for dynamic database driven scripts.

Rochen’s new UK hosting offering. Pricing released. Choose to host on a US or UK server.

Posted By: Chris Adams, Date: Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Currently Rochen has all of our servers located in Dallas, Texas in the United States at a truly fantastic facility called Colo4Dallas. As many of you may be aware from discussions with our team at events like Joomla Day UK, a couple of months ago, and in threads at our own customer forums, we will be launching UK hosting services as well very soon. This means you will be able to choose to host on either a US or UK server with Rochen.

Yesterday we executed a contract to take data centre floor space, connectivity and power in a brand new facility near London, England with a highly respected provider called Gyron Internet. As is the case in the US with our UK hosting setup Rochen will own outright all of the servers and network switches we deploy, allowing us full end-to-end control over the service. Rochen very much focuses on “performance hosting” so this type of control is critical.

The new UK data centre uses the latest enclosed hot isle technology allowing for increased density per square foot and reduced environmental impact in line with our green hosting initiatives. All aspects of the new facility including connectivity, cooling and power are fully redundant to a minimum of N+1 or 2N standards. We will maintain redundant network drops using Cisco’s Hot-Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) to all cabinets (as we do in the US already) and will maintain dual Power Supply Units (PSUs) in every server connected to separate and fully redundant Power Distribution Units (PDUs) with A+B circuits.

Connectivity will be amongst the very best of any UK or European hosting offering with redundant fiber rings running from the data centre to both Telecity Sovereign House and Telehouse North in London Docklands. We will maintain bandwidth to Tiscali, Interoute, NTT/Verio and Global Crossing. Additionally we will have direct peering to the London Internet Exchange (LINX) and Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMX-IX). This means that you will be able to reach a website hosted by Rochen UK within one hop from virtually any major Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the UK or Europe.

When we got asked about pricing for the UK service a few months ago we didn’t really want to get into a discussion about it. This was mainly because we didn’t know what our own exact cost base was going to be at the time and also to try and keep expectations measured. Well I am pleased to announce today some extremely aggressive pricing for our UK offering very much in line with the US pricing. All of the UK plans will come with the same great features we include with our US offering including Rochen Vault managed backups.

Rochen UK Hosting Pricing (billed monthly in British Pounds) -

Starter Plan – £4.95

Multiple Domain Hosting Plan 1 – £8.95

Multiple Domain Hosting Plan 2 – £12.95

Multiple Domain Hosting Plan 3 – £17.95

Reseller Hosting Plan 1 – £19.95

Reseller Hosting Plan 2 – £24.95

Reseller Hosting Plan 3 – £29.95

Reseller Hosting Plan 4 – £34.95

Reseller Hosting Plan 5 – £39.95

Managed Virtual Server (MVS) – £99.95

Free account setup. No minimum contract. Above pricing excludes VAT.

We expect to launch the Rochen UK hosting service around the second week of June. At that time you will see the Rochen website change slightly with a “UK version” released. Our entire team is extremely excited about this new offering and we look forward to working with everyone to grow our UK and European business over the coming months and years.

- Chris

Chris Adams is the Founder and CEO of Rochen, a web hosting provider specializing in providing a performance tuned hosting platform for dynamic database driven scripts.