I have had enough of 1&1 in the UK. They are OK for my smaller businesses but the managed server for my Viart shop is proving a nightmare!
 
I am looking for recommendations - serious hosting for three or more eCommerce sites each with ssl [1&1 for example will only allow ONE ssl per server] 30+ e-mail boxes and seriously reliable uptime and service.
 
Many thanks
 
Chris

have you checked out Liquidweb for Dedicated Server. They are expensive but they have good reputation

2 more suggestions.
 
Softlayer and VolumeDrive

Thank you very much Ibn Saeed
 
I am in the UK and would prefer a UK host - nevertheless Liquidweb looks good and I don't find them expensive compared with 1&1.
 
1&1 has responded to me:
The only packages that allow more than one SSL certificate is the Root server packages. In the root server, you are the administrator and you are entitled to order as many SSL as you want
 
This is at the same price as my managed server - the same as for Liquidweb.
 
My only concern is that I am not a programmer and do not understand Linux - I need to be sure I have good support.
 
Regards
 
Chris

Hi Chris, you might also like to look at http://www.gradwell.com/products/hosting.php/ who I use and are extremely competent and reliable.

That is useful Ned
 
I am in Bristol so this one is very close by
 
They are a bit expensive if you have a number of TLDs - I buy all the main variations around my main domain and at ?15 per domain this pushes up the cost quite a lot.
 
Otherwise they look very good and I shall look into this one further.
 
Thank you
 
Chris

Greetings
 
Hi christopherO
 
Since your not restricted by bounders, I suggest Bluehost
 
1,500 Gigabyte Hosting Space
web hostingHost UNLIMITED Domains!!!
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
15,000 GIGS of Transfer (NEW!)
SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder
24/7 Superb/Responsive Sales/Support
 
1.Cost around 7.00 USD per month around 90.00 dollars per year.
 
We operate from Italy, system goes down once or twice a year, for about 5-20 minutes but no serious problems.
 
with 1 account your able to site-up and operate several domain sites.
 
Service very reliable, we also use skype to discuss issues by phone 24 hours with BlueHost Tech.
 
To learn more: http://www.bluehost.com/track/anthonyholley/CODE11
 
Tony
HolleyLand

And all the ssl certificates I need Tony?

Greetings,
 
Not sure what you mean, for our heavy hitting site we purchase ssl certificate and run on a primary independent server hosted by Bluehost which is required for our particular ssl.
 
For others sites we determine that it was not necessary to have ssl certificates since the gateway are already ssl certificated so we save the expenses on this issue. Group 6 domains on 1 account without any problems.
 
Their are several versions of ssl, to be safe I suggest you discuss your requirements with BlueHost sales for the best options that meets your requirements.
 
Tony
HolleyLand
HolleyLand

Thank you Tony

I have tried a bunch of hosting companies in the past, and I find servage.net to be the best. Since I moved there there have been no outages, I think they're german...
They have a special way of clustering their servers which make it a very reliable service, and I think you can have all the options you want, fast customer service as well... check them out via:
http://www.servage.net/?coupon=cust44664
if you decide to do this there will be a bonus for me and extra disk space for you!

Our business uses Liquid Web and we've been extremely satisfied. We like their managed server, and we've had three different kinds.
 
The great telephone support will make you feel spoiled.
 
Bill

I personally think bluehost is very un-reliable in their support department. Their cost is cheap however, so it's what you pay for. They do offer a lot for the price.

Thank you very much everyone - that has all helped me a great deal in making my decision.
 
Chris

ewoud, I am almost at the point of moving to Servage.
 
I have asked a number of questions and they appear to be what I need. I guess that my only reticence is their financial strength and likely long term market stability - but, then, that probably applies to all.
 
I will use your link above when I sign up
 
Regards
 
Chris

I am not sure what you mean by 1 SSl per server, this might be your misunderstanding.
 
You can only have 1 SSL certificate per IP address and you need to have a fixed IP address to run your own SSL certificate per domain account.
 
For instance, if your domain is yourdomain.com and you also have a subdomain sub.yourdomain.com then you can not have a seperate SSL certificate because you have a fixed IP address.

Mark - 1&1 only allows ONE ssl certificate per server - not per domain. So, you see, to run multi shop on several domains on the same server I have to move if I need ssl for each domain.
I don't want sub domains because of the search engine benefit I will get with several distinct domain names.

So they must be running a shared SSL certificate then. Yeah just move.

One dedicated ssl and one shared ssl.
Yes I am moving which is why I set up this thread

Christopher,
Try Intellitech - http://www.intellitechitsolutions.com
I use them for multiple servers - extremely professional people and personalised service. They also have very good reviews on the ITProfessionals website as they offer both Servers based in the UK and in the USA.
 
Hope you manage to find what you are looking for.

Thank you Simon, I have now moved to Servage.
I am very impressed with their very comprehensive package, v good service, and a significant cost saving.
And they have all I need to expand my Viart based business.
 
Chris

I should add, for completeness, that Servage failed me badly.
 
The sites kept going down - the database was blamed, I was mover to another area of their servers with 24 hours lost trading ... and so on. There were issues with sites using http://sitename and failing when www was included. ssl on one site was also an issue that delayed the set up. Finally, exasperated that I could not get reliability, I moved back to my previous server where, suddenly, I got reliability and consistency again.
 
I got round my ssl problem with 1&1 as Viart multi sites allows me to have my main site on PayPal Pro and all other sites using PayPal standard. Not what I really wanted but it works.
 
I am sure others will tell me that I could have chosen well elsewhere but the pain (and financial cost) of the move out and back deters me from considering another move.
 
Chris

Chris,
 
I too am on Servage and having some issues with speed and the ssl. My site seems to run very slow and i'm thinking about a move, but the hassle is high.
 
What happened with your ssl... could you explain? I'm trying to get it to be https://mysite.com rather than https://ssl46.servage.net/mysite.com. I purchased a security cert with them, but still... nothing functional and I want this second site up and running quickly...

Are you looking for dedicated or shared hosting ?

Hi Dan.
 
The problem was just getting the ssl set up - it just seemed to take ages and all this time, the shop that I had moved to Servage was not trading. The ssl issue was more like the last nail in the coffin.
 
I also agree about speed - at times my sites seemed to crawl. I complained. This was exacerbated by short but frequent periods of lost connection - both site down and failed database connections.
 
They moved me to another cluster - more lost time and the outcome was no improvement. I wondered how much I was just expecting too much as the move coincided with my new multi-site set up. But - I moved back to 1&1 - have total reliability and sites run very much faster.
 
Servage appears really ken and enthusiastic but I am not sure that they are capable of managing servers for serious trading.
 
btw - should give credit to Viart for there efficient support for my sites and problems during this time
 
Chris

Dan
 
https://ssl46.servage.net/mysite.com. sound like a shared certificate rather than a dedicated one?
 
Chris