We've been building web sites since the days when web browsers were text-only and dynamic content was nonexistent. We've followed the progress of the World Wide Web from its infancy with fascination, ever evolving. The web is still young and changing every day, with new technologies such as AJAX and DOM emerging every day.

We know that it takes more than a keen eye for design to make a good web site. It also takes planning, blueprinting, draft designs, programming, testing and fine tuning. It also requires knowledge of your chosen server architecture, so you can ensure the user experience is fast and problem free. Users won't wait for a slow site, and won't stay for long if they can't find what they're looking for.

We can help with:

• Web site planning and architecture
• Database integration
• Integration with existing infrastructure through custom programming
• Custom code development in PHP, Perl or Lasso
• Advanced analytics including user tracking and ad campaign conversion tracking
• Optimisation and accessibility
• Server installation and optimisation
• Building load balanced server clusters for high traffic sites
• Solutions for web updates including CVS access and segregated development sites

Contact Us to discuss your needs further.

Email was originally designed as a very simple method of sending text messages from one user to another. The protocol used to send these messages between hosts is called SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. When it was invented in 1982, the Internet was still a small community. Malicious viruses and junk mail didn't exist.

Over the past 23 years this situation has changed drastically. Email is now a critical part of every day life and work for millions of people. Viruses and junk mail now account for over 56% of incoming mail (stats from our own email filtering software.) Email filtering alone now consumes far more resources than all of our web servers put together!

In addition to the problems of junk mail and viruses, Government regulations such as the Data Protection Act (1998) and now the Freedom of Information Act (2005, only applies to the public sector) are forcing organisations to keep secure archives of employees email - a monumental task.

This seems like a bleak picture, but we can help by

• Providing secure email solutions that scale well
• Ensuring compliance with Freedom of Information Act
• Implementing powerful anti-virus and spam filtering solutions
• Building clustered email systems for five-nines availability (99.999%)
• Providing group discussion and announcement lists
• Implementing organisation-wide contact lists and calendaring functions
• Integrating with your existing LDAP database
• Enable secure access to your mail while on the road, via Webmail or a mobile phone or PDA
• Monitoring your systems 24/7 so we can detect and fix problems preemptively

Contact Us to discuss your needs further.

The first database system was invented in the mid 70's at IBM. The relational structure and language for accessing their database, SQL, is still in use today.

We have extensive experience of planning, installing, populating and managing databases utilising the open source MySQL database server. We can

• Assist in the planning and deployment of new database systems
• Build and test single or clustered systems
• Implement high-availability software to ensure maximum uptime for your databases
• Assist with migration from other database formats to MySQL
• Integrate your MySQL database into your Web application and other services

Contact Us to discuss your needs further.

We have extensive experience with the most popular DNS server on the Internet: BIND. We can provide managed DNS hosting services for your organisation with the ability to update DNS records remotely from a friendly web based interface, or we can provide you with your own dedicated DNS servers.

If you opt to run your own DNS servers, there are a number of criterea outlined in RFC2182 such as having at least 2, preferably 3 DNS servers, of which at least two must be "placed at both topologically and geographically dispersed locations on the Internet, to minimise the likelihood of a single failure disabling all of them". We can arrange this as we have two co-location facilities (see our network page).

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Servers are now becoming so powerful, one server can easily perform multiple tasks without sacrificing performance. Some people argue that you shouldn't run more than one service per server citing performance issues, security concerns or the common reason that if your server crashes, all of your services will go down.

We have developed strategies to overcome these problems utiling server virtualisation technology. One host server can run multiple virtualised operating systems, giving maximum flexibility and performance. Limits can be set per virtual system, so a DOS attack on your mail system can't take down your web server. And since each virtual system is completely self contained and secure, a breakin on your web server won't give the attacker access to your other virtual systems.

To combat the problem of a server crash taking down all of your services, we recommend you run two servers which mirror each other. In the event of a failure on one node, the other can automatically and seamlessly take over the running of your services.

We can help you with planning, constructing and migrating to a smaller server cluster, potentially saving you many thousands of pounds.

Contact Us to discuss your needs further.

Your data is your most value asset. Think about it -- the number of hours involved in creating all of those letters, spreadsheets, databases, email messages, graphics, brochures, accounts files etc is enourmous. Your data is your business. That's why you need offsite backups. You need current backups, and you need a good strategy for keeping historical data.

A good backup strategy will include storage of all your data in multiple locations and should have generations going back an appropriate length of time. We recommend keeping a snapshot every month for the past 6 months, plus a weekly snapshot for the past 4 weeks, and daily snapshots for the current week.

We can provide offsite storage and backup management solutions tailored to your needs, from 10 Gigabytes to 10 Terabytes.

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Security is a growing concern for businesses large and small. When a good security policy is enforced, it should go virtually unnoticed. A poor security policy can lead to a break-in and the consequences of such can be extremely embarrassing!

A number of areas need to be considered when implementing a security policy:

• Base system security of your servers and workstations.
• Access security - user authentication, tiered administrative access.
• Enforce good passwords - your pet's name doesn't make for a secure password.
• Protocol level security - use SSH instead of Telnet, IMAPS instead of IMAP, and ensure your Intranet applications are accessed using an SSL encrypted HTTP connection.
• Provide mobile workers with a VPN connection so they can access your network services securely while on the road.
• Timely security updates. Make sure you run regular, scheduled updates on all of your servers and workstations and apply any security updates released by your software vendors promptly.

Contact Us to discuss your needs further.