Online Cloud Storage is an expensive commodity for any business that has established it’s own online shop, however with the cloud businesses will find that resources are provided at an affordable rate so that they are able to get good value for money without having to compromise on the service that they receive. With dedicated hosting services such as VPS servers and dedicated servers catering for the more expensive and high-end level of the market, small businesses with restricted budgets haven’t been able to obtain the web hosting service that they require to put together their own online operations. The architecture of the cloud enables web hosting companies to host multiple virtual machines in the cloud without impacting on the performance of individual servers or the cloud as a whole because each virtual machine is often hosted across multiple servers in the cloud, therefore meaning that any demand placed on it is spread evenly to ensure that no single node is put under a high level of stress. Online Cloud Hosting and Storage solutions for business websites have security built into their core as businesses of all sizes need to appreciate the importance of using a secure web hosting environment because of the trust that customers place in them; furthermore, reliability is also a standard feature with an average uptime guarantee of 100% being applied to a majority of cloud web hosting plans.

Cloud web hosting virtual machines represent excellent value for money as you are able to control your expenditure on resources as many solutions allow you to set a cap on the amount of money that you spend each month, guaranteeing that you’ll never go over budget; furthermore, you can often tailor each virtual machine to meet your own requirements by choosing the exact resources that form the VM, therefore meaning that you are only ever going to be paying for what you need.

What are the main benefits of selecting an affordable cloud hosting service?

A cloud web hosting plan can provide you with the following features to ensure that you receive a web hosting service that is affordable for you:

• Tailored web hosting plan – with each individual virtual machine, you will be able to specify the amount of each resource that is allocated so that you can create dedicated hosting environments in the cloud that are designed specifically for their assigned purpose – as you are only ever going to be paying for the resources that you have assigned to your virtual machines, this guarantees that you will only ever have to pay for resources that you are using or have purchased as opposed to spare capacity that may come as the result of purchasing a web hosting plan that provides pre-defined resource levels – any good web hosting company will allow you to tailor your virtual machines to your needs as the resources available in the cloud ensure that there will always be spare capacity to guarantee the performance of the cloud as a whole as well as individual virtual machines as this will enable server administrators to purchase additional resources for their virtual machines when the load placed on them is starting to undermine their existing resource allocations.
• Scalability – all cloud virtual machines have scalability built into as in most cases you can set the resources of your virtual machines to be automatically scaled as the load on them increases, therefore meaning that you won’t need to be constantly monitoring your VMs with the view of adding additional resources when demand increases – this may sound like a costly idea to some users, but you can set a cap on the amount that is spent on additional resources through these means so that you never end up going over budget, although this could compromise the stability of your virtual machines – many start-ups are unable to predict how popular their websites are going to become in the future and this is where the benefit of the dynamic cloud comes in because it means that you can purchase a web hosting service that meets your needs for the time being with the view of expanding it once your web operations grow without the need to upgrade your hosting plan.
• Security and reliability – all cloud web hosting services are designed to offer a secure and reliable web hosting environment to customers so that businesses are able to make the most of their online operations by ensuring that customers have trust in their online brand and that their website is always accessible for customers to place orders and view goods and services – all cloud web hosting plans come with a 100% uptime guarantee because network designers have worked hard to remove any single points of failure without compromising on the level of service that is provided, therefore beating the uptime of any other web hosting service (apart from certain dedicated server configurations) – the dedicated hosting environment provided can be configured to offer you the security that you require.

What steps can I take to make the most of cloud web hosting?

There are several different steps that you can take to make the most of cloud web hosting; it is important for businesses of all sizes to recognize the cost savings that can be made from using cloud web hosting and to apply these to their business models as appropriate in order to effectively use what the cloud has to offer.

One of the primary ways in which the cloud can save you money is through the migration of dedicated servers and any servers that are hosted on site into the cloud as this will allow you to reduce the physical footprint of your servers, therefore reducing your hosting budget and making cloud hosting a more affordable option than dedicated server hosting.

Secondly, you may wish to take it upon yourself to create individual virtual machines or each service, for example a database server, a web server and a file server. This type of distributed configuration will allow you to introduce a certain level of redundancy into your website’s backend and will therefore improve stability because loads will be spread.

When you signup to eNlight Cloud Hosting you wil be sent periodic e-mails regarding your eNlight balance every 7 days. If your credit reaches £0, your eNlight Cloud will be suspended if your eNlight Cloud credit reaches -£30 or if your balance remains at £0 or below for 5 days. At which point, your eNlight Cloud will be automatically suspended by our eNlight system.

Cloud Hosting UK

eUKhost’s highly popular eNlight cloud web hosting service offers customers a 100% uptime SLA (Service Level Agreement), basically meaning that virtual machines that are hosted in our eNlight cloud will always be accessible and won’t be the subject of downtime at any point.

A cloud web hosting plan can offer a business the room it needs to expand its online web presence without any restrictions. Quite often virtual machines in the cloud are easy to expand with the opportunity to purchase additional resources when you require them as opposed to upgrading an entire web hosting plan; this arrangement not only guarantees affordability, but also enables you to make sure that you’re only paying for what you require.

eNlight is a platform that is revolutionary in the features that it offers eUKhost’s cloud customers; for the first time our customers will have full control of their hosting experience, with some of the core eNlight features including:

• Auto-scaling can be enabled individually for virtual machines so that additional resources can be allocated to your virtual machines when the demand placed on them increases, therefore reducing the chances of downtime being caused by a lack of power
• If you think that auto-scaling is going to benefit but could put you over budget then you can set a cap on the amount that you spend on eNlight resources each month; it should be noted that any additional resources allocated due to auto-scaling will automatically be scaled back once demand has dropped so that you aren’t over billed
• As you are able to predict your monthly costs with eNlight cloud servers, budgeting for your web hosting services will be made simpler.

If eUKhost’s eNlight cloud hosting solution isn’t exactly what you are after then we also offer a range of Hyper VM-based Windows cloud servers; private cloud solutions are also available for large enterprises requiring a complex hosting configuration.

Cloud Computing for Beginners

eUK cloud web hosting service will provide a business of any size with a stepping stone into the world of the internet, with assistance available from our 24×7 support team so that you are able to get your web presence established swiftly. Being able to manage your virtual machines through a web interface is one of the staple features of any cloud web hosting service because this simplifies server management; from a web interface you should be able to control the state of your virtual machines and order additional resources for maximum effect.

Shared cloud hosting such as the eNlight cloud services eUKhost offer the best starting point for any beginner as not only are they affordable, but they are also the most stable platform on which to test and develop applications. The resources of a virtual machine can be dynamically scaled as necessary without incurring downtime so that users of all levels are able to take advantage of what cloud computing can offer.

Cloud Hosting vs. Dedicated Server

Although a dedicated server can provide a high level of uptime as well, unless you choose a mirrored dedicated server then there is no backup for the server if it crashes, therefore meaning that your web applications and other services that are hosted on this server will become inaccessible. Small businesses with complex hosting requirements may find some comfort in dedicated server hosting however as the physical nature of a dedicated server will benefit those requiring custom hardware configurations because these aren’t available in the cloud.

The architecture of the cloud dictates that the cloud must be formed around a cluster of servers that share the load placed on them by the virtual machines hosted in the cloud; this load-balancing feature ensures that no single virtual machine is reliant on one node, therefore boosting performance and increasing the stability of the cloud as a whole. If one of the cloud’s hosting nodes crashes then this architecture also helps to guarantee that there will be no noticeable impact on performance.

eUKhost offers a range of Windows servers and Linux servers alongside our eNlight cloud hosting packages. Full support is provided with any web hosting service that you purchase from us, with our support team being available 24×7 to answer your enquiries and issues as they arise.

eUKhost offers a wide range of web hosting service that will provide you with facilities to make use of dedicated IP addresses and the benefits that accompany these.

A shared IP address is the standard option provided with all eUKhost shared web hosting plans, but the option to upgrade to a dedicated IP address for an extra small monthly fee is available. Within a shared or reseller web hosting environment you are able to make use of dedicated IP addresses as you would in a dedicated web hosting environment; this means that a shared web hosting plan is still appropriate for you if you wish to use an SSL certificate.

An eUKhost dedicated hosting plan, whether you choose VPS server hosting or a dedicated server, are accompanied with at least two dedicated IP addresses for your use. As many domain names require at least two nameservers, in a dedicated hosting environment you will be able to make use of a single server to provide you with both nameserver services. Alternatively, you can use each individual IP address to host different websites that require SSL certificates and move your DNS hosting elsewhere.

Within our eNlight cloud hosting services, dedicated IP hosting is a service provided with all virtual machines. When configuring the options for your virtual machines, you can choose to have as many IP addresses as you see as necessary assigned to your servers. With each VM having at least one dedicated IP address, you can treat each VM like an individual server with access being possible through Remote Desktop or SSH.

Dedicated IP Address

A dedicated IP address can be used for a number of different applications, with the main intent being to provide web developers with a more professional end product that customers will be able to appreciate.

The primary application for dedicated IP addresses is for webmasters that wish to use SSL certificates with their websites; in order for an eUKhost SSL certificate to function properly, a website requires its own dedicated IP address so that the certificate can be applied as necessary. SSL certificates are used by many websites to encrypt the information that is sent between visiting computers and the hosting servers so that if hackers do eavesdrop on the connection, they won’t be able to pick up anything that will be of any use to them.

Secondly, a dedicated IP address is required if you wish to setup reverse DNS for your website; this means that if someone was to do a record lookup for your dedicated IP address, the host record returned should match your domain name/website address. Reverse DNS is a required configuration option for anyone developing a web application that is going to be sending emails as a majority of email servers will reject emails that originate from servers that don’t have rDNS configured.

Dedicated IP VPN

Larger businesses may require a VPN so that their external employees are able to connect to the internal company network and a dedicated server or VPS server with a dedicated IP address can be of assistance where this service is needed.

A Virtual Private Network hosted on a dedicated server will benefit businesses that wish to connect multiple sites together so that resources can be shared securely through a central point. A dedicated IP will assist with VPN hosting as it will give all computers that require access one static address that they can then use to login to their business’s corporate network.

There are a variety of VPN daemons available that can be used on eUK Linux servers and eUK Windows servers. eUKhost’s 24×7 support team can assist with the installation and configuration of VPN servers where necessary.

Yes. We have a CentOS cPanel templates that automatically installs CentOS and cPanel on your eUKhost Cloud Hosting virtual machine. cPanel licenses cost just £5 per month per virtual machine/install. You do not need to have cPanel on your eNlight eNlight Cloud Hosting, you can also choose from:

• - CentOS alone.
• - Windows Server and Plesk.
• - Ubuntu Server (Available Soon).

And as with all our other web hosting services, our Cloud Hosting products are fully managed hosting services.

Pay Per Use Cloud Hosting works by simply charging you only for what you use and for nothing you don’t. Unlike VPS Hosting, you aren’t paying for resources you may not be using all of the time, which can equate to a cheaper month-to-month bill.

Our own eUKhost Cloud Hosting platform, eNlight Cloud, works by auto-scaling resources automatically based on traffic and resource requirements for RAM and CPU usage and automatically scales the resources allocated to virtual machines in real time. Customers are only charged for the resources they use.
eNlight Cloud will not upscale resources further than the maximum amount you wish, which customers can set when they create a virtual machine and can change these values at any time. So it’s both cost-effective and convenient.

There are a few cloud hosting providers out there that use the pay per use model where you are only charged based on what you use, however our own cloud hosting platform, eNlight, does this and gives customers even greater control over their finances.

eUKhost Cloud Hosting products have back-end redundancy with the use of additional hardware and important functions spread out across many servers. eNlight Cloud is one of our products that uses this redundancy approach which means if components inside one server fails in a cloud hosting set up, it does not equate to complete disaster and downtime.

Cloud hosting is not the solution to every person’s or business requirements, which is why we also offer eUK dedicated server hosting. Dedicated server hosting provides you with a leased server that is completely yours to use. eUK’s Virtual private server hosting essentially shares resources, however our eNlight Cloud Hosting platform does this in a very effective way because it auto-scales resources and certain functions are spread across many servers, as does our other cloud hosting services without autoscaling.

Unlike VPS Hosting, our cloud hosting platform, eNlight, does not require to be concerned about resource usages or the speed of your virtual server as a result, as eNlight takes care of this for you. You can change the maximum values for resource allocation of RAM and CPU via the eNlight Control Panel, which takes effect immediately.

Unfortunately no. Section 3(e) of eUKhost’s Terms of Service also relays this.

Usually, some of the open source applications may not function properly as the mod security is enabled on the server. It can be enabled or disabled in both the ways either via .htaccess or from WHM control panel. However its necessary to have ConfigServer ModSecurity Control (cmc) Plugin already installed in your WHM on dedicated server.

In this tutorial we are going to show you Steps to Install ConfigServer ModSecurity Control (cmc) for your WHM:

Step 1: Log in to your dedicated server via SSH using root login.

Step 2: Make sure you download the latest version of ConfigServer ModSecurity Control (cmc) from the following source:

http://www.configserver.com/free/cmc.tgz

Step 3: Untar the GZip’ed Tar format file with the following command:

tar -xzf cmc.tgz

Step 4: Now, change the directory to the extracted folder:

cd cmc/

Setp 5: Simply execute the installer entering the following command:

sh install.sh

Step 6: Once it is installed, you can login to your WHM control panel and scroll to the bottom of the left hand menu and there you will find the “ConfigServer Mod Security”

How to Configure Time Sync for a Cloud VM ?

The following are the steps to configure Time Sync for VM’s in Cloud. This should enable administrators to synchronise the time by the node despite rebooting of the server.

How to Configure Time Sync for Linux ?

Step 1 : Log into the server via SSH as administrator
Step 2 : Use the following command in the command prompt :

vmware-guestd –cmd “vmx.set_option synctime 0 1″

How to Configure Time Sync for Cloud Hosting Platform using Windows 2008 R2  ?

Step 1 : Access the server using RDP – Remote Desktop Protocol (Make sure you have administrator rights on the server)
Step 2 : Go to the command prompt.
Step 3 : Use the following command:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:pool.ntp.org,0×8 /syncfromflags:MANUAL
net stop w32time
net start w32time

Since its a VM withing Hyper-V, one must disable time sync by going to VM settings >> Management >> Integration Services >> uncheck Time Synchronization.

Step 4 : Check if the VM syncs the time on reboot, use the below command for that:

schtasks /create /tn TimeSync /tr “w32tm /resync” /sc onstart

Step 5 : You might be prompted to enter your username and password to re-establish connection for Remote Desktop.

Some might receive an error trying to sync time, for example : “RPC Server is Unavailable”, you should use the following to troubleshoot :

A. Use the following command to Stop the Windows Time Service (WTS) :

net stop W32Time

B. Use the below command to Unregister the WTS :

w32tm /unregister

C. Following is the command that would help you re-register the WTS :

w32tm /register

Note: You might at times be required to reboot the server before re-registering the service.

D : Re-initiate the WTS and ensure that the service is running well, use the following command for the same:

net start W32Time sc query W32Time