Web Hosting

Glossary/Features Definition

24x7 Server Network Monitoring
All of the equipment and software used is from industry leading companies, is owned by Net Energy Internet, and housed in their own facility. Their entire server farm is 100% Dell, uses Intel processing power and Ultra Wide SCSI hard disks. Failover is provided by hardware RAID controllers in a RAID 1 configuration, or redundant servers. Additionally all servers are backed up regularly to ensure data availability.

Their internal network connectivity is 100Mbps fully switched with core servers having multiple connections to switches providing redundancy should a network interface fail. Data is delivered to the Internet using multiple Cisco routers running HSRP to ensure data can be delivered even in the event of a router failure. Using redundant Internet connections provided by UUNET UK further ensures data delivery should one of their connections fail.

Finally, all the servers and components that make up their services are monitored 24hrs a day, 365 days a year. Should any component fail, their monitoring system will immediately notify an engineer, whilst at the same time automatically attempt to fix the problem.

Access to Raw Log Files
In addition to the Web-based statistics you receive included in our hosting plans you also have access to download the raw log files and import them into another statistics program for further analysis.

'Catch-All' E-Mail Address
This enables you to have anything@yourdomain.co.uk received in a single e-mail account.

Regular Server Backups
Each day, we take a complete back up of all our servers. These backups are stored off site for additional security.

Data Transfer (Bandwidth)
Data transfer occurs each time someone visits your Web site - data is transferred from our Web servers, where your Web site is located, to the computer of the person viewing your Web site.

The more people who view your Web site, the higher your monthly data transfer figure will be. The size of your files is also a key factor when gauging how much data you estimate will be transferred.

For example, if you have a Web page with images which gives a total page size of 30Kb, it would need to be viewed thirty four times to generate one megabyte .

It is a good idea to use your statistics to monitor your data transfer. Only in extreme cases will we suspend your Web site due to excessive, and we mean excessive, data transfer, however it is also worth noting that you may incur a charge if you overrun your data transfer limit.

How are charges for data transfer calculated?
We monitor and record your bandwidth usage (or data transfer) at the end of each month. If your usage exceeds the amount allocated for your hosting plan, you will be invoiced per megabyte over your allotted amount.

If when you check your usage midway through the month and you choose to upgrade, your upgrade will be effective immediately and your data transfer allocation increased. If you regularly monitor your usage and upgrade when required, it is unlikely that you will ever incur additional data transfer charges.

Disk Space
Disk space is the allocation of hard drive space where your Web site is stored and connected to the Internet. This space is used to store your HTML files, graphics etc. Each of our plans provides a specified allotment of disk space. Additional space can be purchased as and when necessary.

e-mail Auto-responder
An autoresponder or auto-reply is a message which is automatically sent to someone who e-mails a specific address. For example, your company may advertise on their Web site that they will e-mail customers with their latest pricing information. It would be a time consuming task to manually send this information to each enquiry so you could set up an auto-responder (vacation message) so that each time someone e-mails pricing@yourcompany.co.uk, the pricing information is dispatched automatically within seconds.

Other uses of auto-responders can include holiday messages, "Hi, I'm on holiday at the moment, I've received your message and will reply when I'm back in two weeks", news or other information.

e-mail Aliases/Forwarding
An e-mail aliases/forwarding enables you to forward a specific e-mail address to a specified destination, whether it is an existing POP3 e-mailbox on one of our e-mail servers, or an existing account elsewhere.

FTP
FTP, the acronym for File Transfer Protocol, is the standard method for uploading and downloading files across the Internet.

It was first developed by the University of California, Berkeley for inclusion in Berkeley Unix 4.2BSD as a client/server protocol allowing users to transfer files to and from a remote site.

FTP works with the transmission control protocol (TCP) and is most commonly used on the Internet although it can also be used on a LAN (local area network).

The term FTP has also been coined as a verb, to FTP, used generically to mean to upload or download, e.g. I just FTPed a new page on to my Web site or I am just FTPing these files from the (Web) server.

Live Detailed Access Statistics (DeepMetrix LiveStats)
The statistics reports enable you to track both the usage of your Web site and the growth as it becomes more popular. Your online promotions can be analysed and evaluated to gauge what people like about your Web site enabling you to tweak content and site design to retain and attract as wide an audience as possible.

There are over forty different unique and detailed marketing, traffic, demographic and usage reports that can be used to generate information about your Web site and the people who visit it.

Statistics Reports:

Usage By

This report will help you to track the growth of your Web site and enable you to view a 365 day history of your Web site. It will show you your hits, page views and more, broken into monthly, weekly, daily or hourly totals which can determine your peak hour or peak day of the week.

Pages By

All pages and downloadable files are recorded in the 'Pages By' reports. You will also find entry, exit and error pages, which will help you to detect bottlenecks, dead-ends or errors in the design of your Web site which you can correct before your visitors notice. You can evaluate the paths people are taking through your site, including the order in which they are viewing your information.

Browsers By

This report enables you to determine which operating system your visitors predominantly use and which Web browser they prefer. You will then be able to cater for your audience and may wish to include browser-specific features such as style sheets or Java" applets if you notice a preference for a browser that can support the technology. Older browsers which are unable to support some of the newer technology may fade out as people upgrade, giving you the opportunity to experiment with the latest technology without sacrificing your potential audience.

Referrers By

'Referrers By' records where your visitors are coming from, the exact domain name and even the keywords if they have found your Web site through a search engine. From this report, you are able to analyse which keywords are more successful than others and what interests your visitors.

Sessions By

This feature records demographics about the country, company and individual computers that are active on your Web site.

Summaries and Analysis

The 'Summaries and Analysis' reports consolidate your Web site traffic information into text-based reports that can be included in status reports and e-mails or saved for future reference. Your online promotions can be evaluated as they roll out to analyse how they are affecting your Web site traffic.

Usage Map

This feature enables you to analyse your traffic by a specific category, for example a special event, a department, a product or any other section of your Web site.

POP3 e-mailbox
The POP3 e-mailbox feature is a means to store your e-mail messages on one of our e-mail servers so that they can be later retrieved from anywhere on the Internet.

Redundant Connectivity/Multiple High Speed Connections
Net Energy Internet have multiple connections to the Internet, providing a resilient service for our customer Web sites, e-mail and secure e-commerce solutions. Their network actively monitors the primary connection and will automatically switch to a back up connection in the event of a failure. This ensures a continuous throughput of data for their business-critical customers, allowing their network and server operations to continue as normal.

SSL
SSL, Secure Socket Layer or Secure Certificate creates a secure environment in which confidential data, such as credit card details may be sent from people anywhere in the world across a secure channel to your Web site. This allows you to carry out secure transactions across the Internet.

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)
All our computers, servers and network components are protected by uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). In the event of a power glitch or total loss of power the UPS systems will seamlessly continue to serve power until the mains power is restored. In the unlikely event of a long-term power failure, our network will safely power down to prevent customer data loss - as soon as the power is restored, the system will come back on-line and the UPS's will recharge to full capacity.

AVAS - Anti-Virus/Anti-Spam
AVAS is our dual anti-virus and multi-level anti-spam system designed to help protect you from the multitude of e-mail viruses and Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (UCE), or spam that is being sent by e-mail on a daily basis.

By combining two self-updating anti-virus engines from independent vendors and a five level intelligent anti-spam system, you should immediately see a significant reduction in the amount of viruses and spam messages that you receive.

Anti-Virus Module
Each e-mail is checked against a database containing thousands of known viruses, trojans and worms. If a virus is detected by either engine, the message is automatically deleted and a notification message is sent to both the sender and recipient of the e-mail informing them that a virus has been found.

As an extra layer of protection, the anti-virus module also ensures that no attachments of a blocked type (e.g. .bat, .cmd, .exe) are delivered to the recipient.

Furthermore, to ensure that it's up to date with the latest virus threats, the anti-virus module automatically checks every hour for updates, which if found, are applied instantly, ensuring that your e-mail is protected around the clock.

Features
  • Dangerous attachment file types blocked at the server level
  • Incoming and outgoing e-mail scanned by two anti-virus engines
  • Checks against thousands of known viruses, trojans and worms
  • Attachments decompressed and scanned, e.g. zip files
  • Instant, automatic deletion of e-mail containing a virus
  • Notification message sent to both sender and recipient
  • Message header inserted into each scanned e-mail
  • Self updates, every hour, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week
Important Note
No anti-virus system can guarantee a 100% detection rate and therefore the anti-virus module of AVAS should be thought of as an add-on and not a replacement for desktop anti-virus software. There are many sources of possible virus infection and whilst the anti-virus module will help with viruses transmitted by e-mail, it will not offer any protection against viruses transmitted by floppy disk, CD, DVD or across a network.

Anti-Spam Module
The multi-level anti-spam module of AVAS passes every incoming message through five separate anti-spam engines to identify any spam like characteristics. If any engine considers the message to be possible or likely spam, both the subject and message headers are altered to let you know which engine failed the message as well as the relevant Bayesian Analysis and SpamAssassin scores.

As the anti-spam module will never reject a message unless it is corrupt, you can use the features available to you in your e-mail program to set up advanced rules defining exactly what you would like to do with any spam messages.

For example, you could specify that messages marked as likely spam are automatically moved to a separate folder, except for messages failed by DNS Blacklist Lookup engine, these you choose to automatically delete - The choice is endless, and you're in control!

To ensure that messages are delivered, spammers constantly change tactics to avoid anti-spam systems. The anti-spam engines within the anti-spam module of AVAS are updated by both the software vendors and ourselves to increase their accuracy and to ensure that they remain up to date. Using a feature available to you in the WebMail interface, you can also teach the Bayesian Analysis engine so that it learns from the messages that you receive, further helping to reduce the amount of spam reaching your inbox.

Features
  • Non-fixable, corrupt messages automatically rejected
  • Incoming e-mail passed through five separate anti-spam engines
  • Message subject automatically altered if the message fails any engine
  • Message headers inserted providing more detailed information
  • Periodically updated by both the software vendors and ourselves
  • The ability to teach the Bayesian Analysis engine from e-mail you receive
  • Additional custom filters and spam marking capability (see Custom Filters)
Anti-Spam Engines
  • Bayesian Analysis
    - Analyses the whole message using a probability approach.
  • Spam Assassin Filtering
    - Uses a wide range of heuristic tests on headers and body text.
  • HTML/Character Set Filtering
    - Checks for invalid HTML messages & forbidden character sets.
  • Regular Expression Filtering
    - Looks for specific senders, headers, phrases and content.
  • DNS Blacklist Lookup
    - Checks sending server against 3 databases of spam sources.
Webmail
If you're frequently out of the office, want to access your e-mail whilst abroad or just want another option for reading your e-mail, then our WebMail service can help.

Included with all e-mail and Web hosting plans for no extra charge our WebMail service is accessible from any Internet connected computer using any popular Web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla or Opera), and is ideal for sending and receiving e-mail using your domain name whilst on the move.

Key Features
  • Send and receive e-mail using your own domain name
  • Access to your e-mail from any Internet connected computer
  • Fully compatible with the most popular Web browsers
  • Works in conjunction with your POP3 and/or IMAP e-mailbox
  • SSL Secured login option to protect your username and password
Messaging
  • Compose messages as plain text or HTML with built-in editor
  • Spell checker to check messages before sending
  • Add multiple attachments to outgoing messages
  • Supports both encrypted and signed e-mail
  • Search facility to find messages stored in your folders
  • Set-up processing rules to automatically move e-mail
Account Management
  • Change your WebMail/POP3/IMAP password
  • Temporarily forward your e-mail to another e-mail address
  • Set up and manage your own auto-responder
  • Visual indicator showing how much space remains in your account
Flexibility
  • Choice of 3 different interfaces, 24 languages and 25 character sets
  • Create and manage your own folders for storing e-mail
  • Access to your own, personal address book and contacts
  • Your own WebMail preferences e.g. signature, time-zone etc.
AVAS (Anti-Virus & Anti-Spam) Integration
Ability to index genuine and spam messages to teach the Bayesian Analysis engine Spam folder pre-setup - Can be used with both processing rules and spam indexing Custom filters module - Create filters to reject, accept, delete or mark messages as spam.