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- Dedicated Servers
- Fun Links and News
- Helping Hints
- Melbourne News
- Our Network
- New Services
- The Web Hosting Industry
Blog Posts
- 2008 a record year for Melbourne
- Don't shout at your hard disks!
- Welcome to our new site!
- Severed undersea fibre causing connectivity issues to Middle East and Asia
- VAT rate reduction
- Melbourne's Environmental Policy
- Free onsite support ("Helping Hands")
- Melbourne launches UltraSpam Anti-Spam Service
- Virtual Dedicated Server beta testers welcomed
- Freephone support now available
- Shared Load Balancing and SAN Space Now Available
- Extended support hours
- Melbourne wins "Number 1 Dedicated Server Provider"
- £1 same-day setup on dedicated servers!
- UltraLoad™ Load Balancing now available
- helping hands - price decrease
- Support Site Improvements - http://support.melbourne.co.uk
- HTTP Compression for IIS6 (Windows Server)
- Job Position - Junior Datacentre Technician
- Job Position - Technical Director
2008 a record year for Melbourne
January 5, 2009
We're pleased to announce our 2008 financial year, which finished 31/12/08, resulted in above target performance and exceptional year-on-year results. Our figures show turnover and profit increases of over 100%, when compared with the same period in 2007.
The success is due to excellent growth due to a continuing stream of referrals from existing customers, which highlights the attention to detail and customer care provided by Melbourne.
Underpinning all of this is a team of dedicated Melbourne employees, who promise to "Bend Over Backwards" to help all our customers.
With the launch of our new website, which formalises our portfolio of service offerings, including our new UltraSupport&trade Charter, Melbourne is in a great position for 2009.
We'll shortly be sending out our 2009 customer satisfaction survey to make sure our customers are happy with all aspects of the service we provide.
Section: Melbourne News
Don't shout at your hard disks!
January 5, 2009
Sun engineer Brendan Gregg has made an interesting discovery, posted on his blog (with youtube attachment of course) at http://blogs.sun.com/brendan/entry/unusual_disk_latency, that disks suffer high I/O latency when subjected to vocal outbursts.
Something to bear in mind the next time your server has you in a fit of rage :)
Section: Fun Links and News
Welcome to our new site!
January 3, 2009
Just in case you hadn't noticed, things have changed around here a little! Welcome to our new site!
The new site showcases the extended range of services offered by Melbourne, including which were launched in January 2008 and an extended range of managed services.
We'd welcome any comments on our new site, which is a collaboration between our internal web development team, and outside design agency atechmedia.
Section: Melbourne News
Severed undersea fibre causing connectivity issues to Middle East and Asia
December 17, 2008
Internet and phone communications between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have been seriously disrupted after submarine cables were severed.
Customers may notice higher latency and/or connectivity issues to the Middle East and Asia.
More details at BBC News Website
Section: The Web Hosting Industry
VAT rate reduction
November 29, 2008
In line with the Government's VAT rate reduction, all invoices sent from today (1st December) will be at the reduced VAT rate of 15%.
We're pleased to pass on the VAT rate reduction to customers, which lowers the cost to customers who are not VAT registered, and helps the cashflow for those that are.
If you pay us by standing order or online banking, please be sure to amend your payment amount, otherwise you'll start to accrue a small balance on your account :)
Section: Melbourne News
Melbourne's Environmental Policy
November 13, 2008
Melbourne is, and has always been, commited to reducing our impact on the environment, long before it became the hot topic it now is.
We are big believers in putting in place practical steps to make sure we minimise waste and power consumption. An interesting challenge when you're looking after over 2000 servers!
Our environmental policy (below) outlines the ways in which we're trying to do our bit. Make sure you follow our blog as we're always looking for, and implementing, improvements to reduce our impact on the environment.
We're always wary of providers who think that purchasing carbon offset credits somehow are a catch-all solution to environmental impact; we'd much rather focus on pragmatic ways that we can reduce our energy use in the first place.
Our UltraCloud™ Virtualisation platform, which is currently in beta-testing, is set to reduce the energy use, when compared to equivalent physical servers, by approximately 90%.
Click here to access our Environmental Policy.
Section: Melbourne News
Free onsite support ("Helping Hands")
October 25, 2008
As a result of customer feedback, and as a recognition of the tough economic times our customers are facing, we have reviewed our charges for "helping hands" (i.e. on-site help) and are pleased to announce that helping hands in our Reynolds House datacentre during office hours is now free-of-charge, subject to a maximum usage policy.
The included allowance (which will not be rigidly enforced but serves as a guideline) is as follows:
Shared Colocation
2 x 15 minute incidents per year, per "U" of space occupied
Dedicated Servers
2 x 15 minute incidents per year, per server.
Rackspace
2 x 15 minute incidents per month, for quarter cabinet customers.
4 x 15 minute incidents per month, for full cabinet customers.
For a full definition of Helping Hands (i.e. what's included and what isn't), please visit our support levels definition page.
Should you have any comments or feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
Section: Melbourne News · New Services
Melbourne launches UltraSpam Anti-Spam Service
October 13, 2008
Melbourne today introduces its new anti-spam service, called UltraSpam™.
The problem of weeding out indiscriminate unsolicited e-mails proved to be a major problem for the Manchester based outfit. It could not find a satisfactory solution on the UK market. In response it has launched UltraSpam™, based on MailFoundry, a US industry-leading anti-spam appliance.
Spamming was first noted in May 1978, but the first instance concerned less than 10 recipients. Today, over 100 billion spam e-mails are sent every day. Spam accounts for over 80% of all e-mails worldwide.
In addition to time wasted removing them, spam is the source of much of the fraud, viruses, identity and financial theft experienced on the Internet. The Californian legislature estimated that US organisations lost $13 billion in 2007 alone to this one source. The problem is no less serious in the UK.
Steven Allan, Melbourne's sales director comments: "An employee spending 20 minutes a day removing spam doesn't sound much. But it amounts to a full day a month, 12 days a year; it is a lot of time if you have 10 employees. And then there is the threat of a virus taking out an enterprise's IT systems".
Melbourne's UltraSpam™ service costs from just £10 per month and a 30 day trial of the service is available.
Section: Melbourne News · New Services
Virtual Dedicated Server beta testers welcomed
October 7, 2008
We are currently developing the infrastructure and software to offer a virtual dedicated server solution. This would enable customers to have either individual virtual dedicated machines, or to form a dedicated cluster of physical servers with the virtualisation software pre-loaded, on which virtual servers can be added by the customer independently. We’re inviting customers to beta-test the service at the moment.
The system is based on the Xen virtualisation platform, but with a custom-designed web frontend allowing customers to view details of machines, stop or start machines, and view the console output of the machine. Additionally customers with dedicated clusters will be able to provision/edit/remove virtual machines, and manage other aspects of their cluster.
The system will have SAN storage (with SAS drives) and therefore will support auto failover and restarting of virtual machines if any server hardware fails.
If you would like more information or would like to take part in the beta-testing which we will be starting soon (either testing a single machine or a dedicated cluster) please contact inbox [at] melbourne.co.uk.
Depending on the uptake we may have to limit the number of beta places available. We expect the live service to be available towards the end of the year.
Section: Melbourne News · New Services
Freephone support now available
October 1, 2008
In today's business world where companies seem to be increasingly trying to make telephone support more difficult or more expensive to obtain.
Melbourne has once again highlighted our commitment to providing business-class service and support by adding a direct freephone number direct to our support team. There are no queues, and your call will be answered directly by a technician.
With immediate effect, all customers can call 0800 915 8772 for support.
For people calling from mobiles, the regular support number, 0161 232 0125 is still available.
Section: Melbourne News · New Services