Frequently Asked Questions

No, the Managed Server service is specifically for one client only.

We always over spec our servers to clients to cater for their growing needs however should the server start to slow down due to heavy usage we will recommend a hardware upgrade to the existing server, such as memory. We will always endeavour to keep the cost as low as possible to you and will pass on any hardware costs from our supplier at cost. We can also increase bandwidth to the server for a small monthly fee.

As the saying goes "You get what you pay for". We provide our managed servers on HP hardware. The server is designed with redundant hardware down to the component level to make them as reliable as possible. We do not want your server offline any more than you do therefore we provide the best possible hardware for the job which we know our cheaper competitors do not. We have been doing this for many years now and this is why our customers continue to renew their Managed Servers with us.

We always obtain new server hardware and software for our managed servers to ensure you get the latest technologies. This means we lease a server on behalf of the client which covers the contract period. If the client cancelled their managed server contract with us during the contract period we would be left with hardware which we cannot redeploy that we still have to pay for. Many host providers do not tell you that the server you are using may well have been used by another client before you. They tend to run server farms which takes the next available, already running server to deploy new customers to. At Total Web Solutions your Managed Server is bespoke to you and the contract period and termination reflects this. 

All technical support incidents are logged regardless of whether it is for a Managed Server or other service. With a Managed Server however support incidents tend to be more in-depth and actually require an engineer to spend a lot of time investigating it. Each managed server comes with 5 support incidents a month which are over and above the standard support we offer. For instance we are often asked to archive logs and other data on a Managed Server which is essentially one support incident.

Some examples of what a Managed Server support incident consists of are below:
- Change configuration of IIS or Apache 
- Archive logs 
- Change server file permissions 
- Run diagnostics, such as memory or CPU. 
- Produce bespoke logging or graphing data on server resources

It is up to you what information you store on your server as long as it is within the law. In particular copyright, data protection and deformation law must be adhered to. We would always ask before setting up a Managed Server as to its use and advise accordingly. 

We always strongly advise that we perform a server backup at least every month. A server backup will ensure that should there be a hardware fault and we have to replace the hardware that we can get it back up and running to a near original state. Otherwise we can only restore the server to its original configuration which usually does not include your bespoke files. Be aware that without a backup it will affect your Service Level Agreement in that we can only restore the server to its original configuration as opposed to your last known running configuration.

We offer this service free of charge as long as it is prior to the server going live. We want to facilitate the install as much as possible and are happy to install files from disk or memory stick.

Each managed server we setup is recorded in a build record which spans many pages. This build record is unique to your server and facilitates a server rebuild if required. Some of the build records we have in place currently cover over 100 pages of configuration information so we take disaster recovery practices seriously.

The server hardware is owned by the leasing company and can be purchased at the end of the contract period for a nominal price (usually one to two months rental). We rarely get requests for the hardware afterwards but are happy to obtain the hardware on the clients behalf and ship to the client directly at the clients expense.

As mentioned we provide a bespoke installation for each Managed Server customer. This means we have to cover the cost of obtaining the hardware and installation up front and cover the cost of the server contractually by way of a lease. As it is a lease there is a risk to us should the customer not complete the contract period because they have gone out of business say. We mitigate a portion of this risk by obtaining a portion of the server costs up front. In previous years we have offered a no setup service to Managed Server customers, which has resulted in losses to our business through companies that have entered bankruptcy. Therefore it was decided to meet the customer half way by having a small setup charge (usually 10% of the contract value).