The Problem

The problem with shared hosting is that every customer and their web site on a shared server are essentially at the mercy of all the other customers. A shared server will normally host many hundreds or even thousands of other web sites, any of which could be responsible for crashing the server and causing down-time. This can be caused by a number of things, but the most common being:-

• Customers who use the live server for testing and development of their web site, applications and database.
• Poorly written code that affects the server’s performance when under any kind of load, such as increased traffic.
• Access Databases. Most developers use the Microsoft Access database as the backend for their web application. This is not what MS Access was intended for, as it is only a single user desktop database and not a database server, thus it is not intended to deal with multiple connections at the same time. When an MS Access database is overloaded with more requests than it can handle, it tends to fail or can even become corrupt. In a Coldfusion MX environment this also causes the ColdFusion server to fail and/or become unresponsive because of the way ColdFusion handles ODBC connections.

The other problem with shared hosting environments is that they are not secure. In order to actually provide all the facilities and features that customers need, a host has no choice but to allow certain non-secure activities. And no matter what precautions have been taken, a clever programmer/hacker with access to the server can always find a way to circumvent these to his advantage.
There is a simple rule. Any data that is stored in a publicly accessible area or shared environment cannot be considered secure. And the Internet is a publicly accessible global network.

The Solution

The only way to avoid these types of problems is to have your own dedicated server that you are not sharing with other customers and web sites and over which you have total control. But this can be a fairly costly solution for smaller companies who do not have the resources or skills to manage their own server, and thus need to pay for a fully managed service.

Our new semi-dedicated hosting solution fills the gap between shared hosting and dedicated servers, by providing a fully managed, virtually dedicated server environment without the hassle or expense involved.

A semi-dedicated server is still shared, but with a limited number of customers so as to reduce the risk of problems and provide a more robust, secure and reliable hosting environment.

We can also provide isolation from other customers to further reduce the risks and improve performance.

• IIS Application protection. High (isolated) to reduce the risk of individual web sites crashing the Internet information Server.
• Your own isolated application pools for .NET applications
• Your own isolated instance of ColdFusion server.
• Customised NTFS permissions and security policies

Hosting Plans

Generic Features

• MAX 10 clients per server
• MAX 5 domains/web sites per client per server
• High isolated application protection
• Application pools configured on request
• No Access databases allowed (major cause of bottlenecks, coldfusion crashes and server slow down)
• Secured Enterprise Manager Access only by static IP address
• Secure FTP
• ColdFusion MX for J2EE
• URL Protector (password protected folders)
• ASP
• .NET
• Perl
• Weekly incremental backups of server

Semi-Dedicated Standard (£99 per month)

• 5GB disk space
• 50GB Bandwidth (data transfer)
• Single domain/Web site
• Unlimited Data Sources
• Unlimited Email Addresses (aliases, forwarders)
• 100 pop3 Mailboxes
• Default ColdFusion instance
• SQL Server Database

Semi-Dedicated CFMX (£199 per month)

• 5GB disk space
• 50GB Bandwidth (data transfer)
• Single domain/Web site
• Unlimited Data Sources
• Unlimited Email Addresses (aliases, forwarders)
• 100 pop3 Mailboxes
• Your own dedicated instance of ColdFusion MX
• Access to your own ColdFusion administrator
• SQL Server Database

Extra Features

• Additional domain/Web site £15 per month
• Additional 100MB SQL space £50 per month
• ColdFusion MX Clustering £199 per month

About ColdFusion MX for J2EE

On the semi-dedicated servers we are running ColdFusion in the CFMX for J2EE configuration on top of JRUN4.

This is what allows us to isolate separate instances of the ColdFusion server and give you access to your own ColdFusion administrator.

We run 1 x default instance of ColdFusion on each server which is what your site will run under unless you have purchased your own instance.

Coldfusion MX Clustering (£199 per month)

.If you choose this option, we will deploy a second ColdFusion instance and use the JRUN clustering technology to provide load balancing and fail over for your application, including sticky sessions or session replication.
This only provides fail over/clustering for Coldfusion requests, not for the web server or any other type of template.
You require a Semi-Dedicated CFMX plan first to deploy a cluster.

For more information on clustering with CFMX for J2EE go here http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/j2ee/articles/endtoend.html

CLICK HERE to Sign-Up for Semi-Dedicated standard
Contact Us to Sign-Up for Semi-Dedicated CFMX or Clustered Plan