Hosting

There are three types of hosting:

Shared Hosting: this is usually dirt cheap; a supplier buys a full server and then sits as many sites as possible on it (typically around 5000 but it varies). They rely on many of these sites being low traffic and low use. The problems appear when one of the 5000 users either starts sending spam email and getting the server blacklisted (or is hacked due to inexperienced site managers and spammers abuse their account), or runs some script that causes either a server crash or sucks so many resources out of it there is very little left for the other sites. There are tight limits on disk space, bandwidth and other resources.

Virtual Servers: this is a server that is divided into several parts to operate like multiple servers, each part pretending to be a full server using virtualisation software. Much better allocation of resources, and usually nothing like 5000 domains, but still shared so limits on disk space, bandwidth, number of connections and resources.

Dedicated Server: a full hardware server, usually leased, and run entirely by a single company. More power available than other hosting solutions, and usually more reliable and very unlikely to be blacklisted. Much more relaxed limits on domains hosted on the server. Lease cost is measured in thousands per year - they aren't cheap.

Airpro Software leases its own dedicted, managed server.

When you host a domain with us a full email service is included. We offer our clients a choice of POP3 or IMAP4 email, and unlimited accounts within any single domain. Emails can also be redirected to any existing email address. We'll also happily provide help setting up accounts with Outlook/Outlook Express, and we are experienced in Apple Mail and Entourage for Macs. An outgoing (SMTP) authenticated server is available to send mails.

All of our clients have Webmail included - the ability to check your company email from anywhere in the world using a standard internet connection.

We now offer all our clients email filtering from MessageLabs. Working at server level, it analyses incoming emails and filters them before any are delivered to you, so protecting your PC or network well in advance from viruses as well as spam. Owned by Symatec, MessageLabs protect over 8 million mailboxes worldwide, with an outstanding SLA:

• Antivirus Accuracy – no more than 0.0001% false positives (1 in 1 million emails)
• Antispam Accuracy – no more than 0.0003% false positives (3 in 1 million emails)
• Antivirus Effectiveness – 100% protection against known and unknown email viruses
• Antispam Effectiveness – 99% spam capture
• Availablity - 100% service uptime

MessageLabs checks every email incoming to your domain and uses a continually updated set of criteria. This is not a passive service, it is a managed and maintained provision that we believe is one of the best in the world and offers outstanding protection.

Clients who have suffered several thousand junk emails a day have seen this reduce instantly to zero. There is a small setup charge levied by Message Labs, together with a cost-per-mailbox. In return, all clients receive a MessageLabs login where they can check details of emails that have been rejected.

We appreciate that some of our clients need to communicate sensitive data or documents via email. To assist, we are able to offer SSL 256 bit encryption from GeoTrust to secure the link between your email client and the mail server for both sending and receiving emails.

Our server has a backup to Network Drive every week. Although it ought to be standard throughout the industry, it isn't simply because of the cost involved. With our backup, your data, settings, websites and emails are protected should there be a failure or data corruption.

All our domains include statistics which show you daily how many visitors are looking at your pages.