UK Hosting

Hello.

Can you recommend hosting solutions located in the UK?

Thank you!

What do you need in the way of a server?  What is your monthly budget?  Do you need a managed solution or unmanaged.  You can PM me details if necessary.

Only place to go is here: http://www.zarconia.net

You will not go wrong in shared or dedicated with Zarconia. This guys know, and are tailored to dolphin software..

I think I could offer just as good a hosting service as anyone on here.

Thanks for the recommendation!

While we're not UK-based, we do offer dedicated servers that can be setup in Europe for a local connection. All our servers are semi-managed and fully optimized for Dolphin. Let me know if you have any questions.

other than for support issues, I don't think being UK based is a key factor for Dolphin (if you are based in the UK)

the amount of 'lag' you get between a UK based server for UK focused traffic, and an EU one, or USA one is un-noticable for Dolphin in my experience.

e-commerce, could be different but only for a high volume site.

social sites, split second difference in page load is nothing these days.

look at how long FB now takes to load with its stupid auto play videos!

 RE:

 It's a factor as far as video chat is concerned, but why have all them little packets travel an extra 12,000 miles if they don't have to.

 It depends on whether or not you can manage your own server.  If you can walk upright and have opposing digits, you can probably manage a server, and save a bundle of cash. 

Thank you TruckingSpace, Nathan Paton, daihlo but it is important for the server to be UK-based for accountancy reasons.

Thank you houstonlively for your insight re: videochat. I don't trust myself to manage a server but am willing to learn. Can you point me to a tutorial? I have Cpanel and a dedicated and unmanaged server. (sigh!)

 Geek-girl, how many servers are you currently managing?

I appreciate all of your contributions to this thread.

 RE

 Try Denre, they offer "fully managed" options.

http://www.boonex.com/m/dedicated-servers-managed-dolphin

http://denre.com/

Now, does the server have to be located within the UK or can it be located in Europe?  As for a control panel, do you need anything more than webmin?  What do you intended to do with your server?  Do you really need something such as cPanel or Plesk; which comes with licensing and can add to the cost of the server?

My intent in offering servers to the Dolphin community is to offer servers set up with Nginx instead of Apache using webmin as the control panel; and I can even set up Dolphin on the server for the client.  One can run many Dolphin sites on a server without going through such things as cPanel and PLESK, especially PLESK as I think it is a horrible control panel.  Unless one is planning on setting up a reseller server then those bloated control panels are not needed.  The servers will be offered managed and unmanaged with managed servers coming at a higher monthly cost.

Geek-girl, I sent you a PM.

I should clarify that we interpret semi-managed differently from other hosts. We include full technical support and server assistance with all servers, and Plesk is included by default to make server management very easy (practically everything can be done from a clean and modern web interface). We differ from managed in that we still provide root access to the server, and the customer is in complete control of the environment.

Since we use Plesk (cPanel is also available) and fully setup the server before delivery, there's really no server tasks that need to be done. Updates are automatic and Plesk can handle everything like adding new domains and email accounts. So all that's left is the site itself, and we do provide complimentary technical support for Dolphin.

 RE

 http://www.server4you.com/vps/    (Servers in US or Germany)

Any of their vserver plans will run Dolphin without much tweaking. A few adjustments to php..ini and the my.conf files is all that is needed.  They will come with Plesk... not cpanel.  Plesk takes a little getting used to if all you've used is cpanel.  Once you have things set up, there's really not much managing to do... for the most part, it's just making sure licenses and server software stay up to date.  You don't have to run the latest version of everything... just make sure important security fixes are applied when available.  It's a little bit of work, but nothing that is going to consume a lot of your time.

If you have some time to learn, a vps plan can be a good starting point, and won't cost much.  If however, you need to get a well performing site online asap without having to worry about server management, it might be best that you go with a managed server/reseller.  Most people here, already know how I feel about resellers, so I won't comment any further on that.

I don't wish to get into an argument over control panels but I would avoid PLESK.  And, if you try to drop out to do work in the shell you can trash the PLESK panel; and this is mentioned on the web, not just my opinion.  I have used PLESK and I have helped people with PLESK and it is a mess.

We have more than 40 servers with Plesk, all with no issues. I've never heard of shell work breaking Plesk, unless you're specifically tempering with Plesk files (which is understandably not advisable). I can understand that not everybody likes Plesk, so we do carry cPanel as an option when ordering.

Plesk 12 is a lot better than previous versions.  It's different than cpanel, but I would hardly call it "a mess".

I am going to have to agree with HL and Nathan (not just because of partnership) here. I was a dedicated cPanel user since the beginning, but after Zarconia was created, My dedicated server was loaded with Plesk. It was my first time using it. Yes, it is different, but definitely not in such a way that it is difficult by no means.