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About our support:

About your options:

About our service:

What is the difference between your managed and unmanaged service?

Our managed service is designed for "plug and play" ease of use and convenience. We will install either the Parallels™ Pro (£10/month) or CPanel (£20/month) control panel on your server: a secure browser based tool that simplifies the most common tasks of server administration, such as creating hosting accounts and managing users and email accounts. Our technical team take responsibility for ensuring the ongoing security of the control panel software and operating system, along with automatic weekly remote backups. Root access is provided as standard for customers that require additional flexibility to make more technical configuration changes.

Our unmanaged service is suited to experienced system administrators. We provide the bare system with the Linux operating system of your choice pre-installed, giving you the freedom to install what you want, when you want. Although you are responsible for backup schedules (remote backup space is provided) and managing any software on the server, you will still benefit from the protection of our dual border firewalls.

Service summary at a glance: Managed Unmanaged
Control panel installation and support Yes Cross
Root access Yes Yes
WelcomeHome™ orientation support Yes Yes
Automatic backups Yes No
OS installation Yes Yes
OS patching Yes No
Remote power Yes Yes
Dual firewalls Yes Yes

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WelcomeHome™ orientation support

As a dedicated server customer, you're entitled to a free two hour WelcomeHome™ orientation session with our support team, allowing you to get to know us and your server.

In addition, if you're migrating from another host, we will provide your first month free of charge, so that you aren't doubling up hosting fees. If you need any help with the migration, we can assist with this too (see below).

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Can you help me to migrate from my existing host?

Absolutely, and to save you a double-hit on hosting fees, we'll give you your first month free of charge. Our support staff are well drilled in managing the process of migrating live sites, and will work with you to ensure a smooth transition to remove customer disruption and downtime. You can read more about how 1st Easy manage the migration process in this customer case study.

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What hardware and network monitoring do you do?

Monitoring tools include NAGIOS, which constantly polls our server farm and alerts our support team if a server or service develops a fault, and SIM, a program that monitors the load of a server and automatically restarts services if they stop.

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Who owns and is responsible for supporting the hardware?

1st Easy own and are responsible for maintaining all aspects of your server hardware, including the provision of on-site "hot-spare" standby systems for use in the event of hardware failure.

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Which operating systems can I choose from?

We offer a range of the most common Linux distributions, including CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and RHEL. CentOS 5 is our current default, which is installed on all managed servers. Looking for Windows dedicated hosting?

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Which control panels can I choose from?

We offer a choice of Parallelsô Pro (£10+VAT/month for a 20 domain license) and CPanel (£20+VAT/month for unlimited domains). If you opt to have a control panel installed, you will qualify for our managed service.

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How many IP addresses do I get?

We provide one IP address with each server; additional IP addresses can be added to your account at any time for £10+VAT/year.

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What hardware do you use?

1st Easy only use brand new, genuine Dell® PowerEdge™ hardware, which has been designed to operate within a datacentre environment. All of our systems use factory fitted components. Besides offering a proven platform for reliability and performance, the systems are power optimised to minimise energy consumption.

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How much bandwidth do I get?

As a dedicated server customer, you are entitled to an unmetered bandwidth allowance: we do not actively set limits or cap bandwidth usage. In order to prevent abuse and protect the high standard of service that we provide to our legitimate customers, bandwidth usage is subject to our terms and conditions.

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Do I get root access?

Root access is provided as standard, regardless of whether you choose a managed or unmanaged system.

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How is my data backed up?

Your data is backed up to remote (off-site) servers in our second datacentre for an additional layer of protection. You can choose to manage backups yourself, and determine which data to backup and how often, whilst our managed service customers benefit from an automated weekly backup schedule and four week rotating archive.

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Do you provide remote power and control (KVMoIP) access?

All of our systems come with access to a remote power port, allowing you to power-cycle your server remotely. KVMoIP is also available on request.

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Do you offer a Service Level Agreement?

Dedicated server customers benefit from our 100% uptime Service Level Agreement. You can read full details of this SLA within our Terms and Conditions of Service.

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Where will my server be located?

Your server will be located in the UK, within the commercially resilient Reynolds House datacentre facility at Manchester Techno Park. This purpose built datacentre offers the ultimate in physical and network security, including 24/7/365 on-site security and support staff, dual fibre networks and redundant power supplies.

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