Data centre storage for your Ahsay business. From £0.005p to £0.05 per GB.

If you are using Ahsay for your backup software, do you have the backup platform you require?

We specialise in providing backup platforms for backup providers utilising Ahsay™ and StoreGrid™. All data is stored on RAID 6 SANs within ISO accredited data centres in Maidenhead, Croydon and Edinburgh.

Why choose us?
The most successful online backup companies know the importance of having their resources local to them at all times. A common mistake from start-ups is to replicate their servers between data centres and even around the World. In reality when a backup server goes down they find they cannot get their replicated data back easily. This very often means increased expense in moving the replicated data back to where the front-end backup server is and the customer fallout from the prolonged outage. We operate differently because we know what works in the ‘real world’. We can host your front-end backup server and replication server on separate hardware within the same data centre. This negates the risk of a single point of failure and more importantly means your replication speeds run at gigabit and there are no out-of-band transit charges. We can also VLAN your servers together into their own private network which will improve speed, security and simplify administration. There is always a slight risk of a data centre being destroyed by fire, however the likelihood is near zero due to the recent advances in data centre fire prevention and suppression.
There is no single point of failure between your backup and replication servers. All of our resources are direct and not cloud based.

Is data protection an issue to your customers?
If security is an issue you will be glad to hear we only use data centres in the UK whereas the biggest cloud operators are outside of the UK in Dublin and the USA

All about Ahsay (reproduced from their website)

Partners using Ahsay™ as their core back-end technology offer reliable online backup services. The fully brandable white-label solution allows you to tap into this industry at ease. This allows you to stream data to and from your server using the application and technology of your choice.

Offer Online Backup Service. Ahsay™ Backup Software allows you to offer automated online backup (a.k.a. offsite, remote, or cloud backup) to your customers. Currently, over 4,800 partners are using Ahsay™ as their core back-end technology in offering reliable online backup services. The fully brandable white-label solution allows you to tap into this industry at ease.

Computers have become one of the necessities in today’s world. With photos, music, e-mails, business records etc are all being stored in digital format, computer data are now growing at an annual rate of 60 percent. Therefore businesses and home users will look for online backup service providers to safeguard their mission-critical data against disasters.

Who uses our online backup platform?

Our online data storage facility is used by:
Online backup service companies
Online backup companies using Ahsay software require a low-cost and robust backup platform such as ours. Because we don't place any restrictions on the amount of storage data available and don't charge for data transfer outside of our 'fair usage' policy we are the preferred SaaS platform provider in the UK for companies who don't want the overhead of building and maintaining their own backup platform. Typically online backup companies use applications such as Vembu's StoreGrid, Ahsay, FTP and WebDav.

Hosted and dedicated Exchange service providers
Private and public hosted Exchange platforms must be available 24x7 and be able to grow seamlessly. Our managed network provides both and because of its low cost is a popular choice for providers. Because of Microsoft's licensing agreement we have to provide all Microsoft licenses when used on our platform. We have a SPLA agreement which allows us to rent Microsoft licensing at a low cost. The result is a platform which is managed by us at the hardware and license levels, leaving the technical expert free to run their business.
Where High Availability is required we can cluster virtual and physical servers as required or host your own equipment for you.

Website hosting companies
Web hosting is the ultimate servant of low cost computing and as such must produce the maximum ROI for the hosting company. Our servers and storage are competitively priced and our servers come with a standard build which allows you to add only the Windows features you require.

Hosted application and SaaS providers

DR recovery and failover sites

Managed email providers

Application and development testers
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are bespoke systems and are configured around specific customer requirements. These are in effect Cloud terminologies which we can discuss if you require a private cloud constructed and managed by us.

Third party virtual servers
Have you pre-built a VM and want it hosted in a data centre? Contact us for further details.

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Features

Complete control - You will have full root access via RDP or another application of your choice to your server so you can connect to it as you would any server.

Latest technology - Our baseline virtual server configuration utilises Windows 2008 R2 and has 2GB of RAM. You can easily upgrade any virtual server to a maximum of 48GB RAM and 4 processor cores. If you require a physical hardware server we can supply one to your specification. We currently use HP or Dell servers. Server clustering is also available.

Security and connectivity - If you have more than one server with us we can VLAN all of your servers into one virtual private network. This is a managed layer 3 service which will not only secure your server but will also improve performance.

Network connectivity and speed - Fast 100Mbps internet link. Private circuits up to 1Gbps available.

Persistent and highly available - Our service runs on Microsoft's Hyper V platform and utilises high availability clustering.

Inexpensive solution - If you can find a like-for-like service that is more competitively priced, we will match it and give you 3 months free of our service.

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Import and export of bulk data

If you need to upload or download a large amount of data to your server we recommend using a portable or removable USB drive.
What do we mean by large amounts of data?

Example You have 2TB of data you want to transfer and assume an overhead of 5%.
1.54 Mbps connection (T1), the upload will take 126 days.
10 Mbps connection, the upload will take 19 days.
We can receive and send out bulk data on removable media the same day.
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Connection type
Power connections: Standard UK 3 pin (kettle lead), IEC (UPS lead) or USB powered. Non UK devices must be switchable to 240v.
Data connections: USB (any type)
Size and weight: Any normal portable media disk.

Please contact us if you want use a NAS or any other type of device.

See pricing below.

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Pricing (monthly)

SERVER - front-end server pricing
Server specification - Virtualised Windows 2008 R2, 2GB RAM, 50GB OS partition, 1 x IP, 1 x processor core on an Intel 64bit processor, 100Mbps shared connectivity.	£45 per month
Dedicated and clustered dedicated servers	Contact us for a quote

Extra server resources
RAM (maximum of 48GB per server)	£4 per GB
Processor core (maximum of 4 per server)	£3
Extra IP address	£2 (justification required for RIPE)

STORAGE - production (persistent SAN storage)	Up to 3TB	3TB – 50TB	50TB – 200TB	Over 200TB
Per GB	£0.05	£0.03	£0.01	£0.005

STORAGE - backup (used for backing up production storage). FTP or Windows share	Up to 50TB	Over 50TB
Per GB	£0.03	£0.01

Security and firewall services
Hardware firewall (shared Cisco ASA device)	£4.5
VLAN your server into a private network (used for 2 or more servers)	£15 per server
CA signed SSL cert (12 months)	£12 (annual price)
Cisco point-to-point static VPN to your server(s)	£95 per connection
MCSE \ CCIE software and networking services	£90 per hour

Import \ export of bulk data
Bulk import \ export using removable disks (2 disks)	£75 (based on customer supplying and shipping disk(s))
Per hour loading (per disk)	£0.67

Extras
Windows 2008 R2 persistent cluster services	Contact us for a quote

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Working scenarios (prices correct at October 2011)

Online backup provider with 500GB of customer data.

Requirements
Environment : Windows 2008 R2 front end-server running in a data centre facility.
Storage : Highly available, durable and unlimited storage capacity. 500GB required.
Backups : Must have access to a secondary server or storage device in another facility for backups.

Recommended Solution
Price : £70 per month. Comprises of 1 x virtualised Windows 2008 R2 server with 16TB of SAN storage..
Environment : Windows 2008 R2 front end-server (virtualised) running in a data centre facility with access to unlimited computing resources.
Storage : Highly available, durable and unlimited SAN storage connected via iSCSI.
Backups : Optional 16TB of secondary storage attached to the primary server running within another facility.
Options : You can specify your own physical dedicated servers and choose to cluster two servers using Windows 2008 R2 for high availability.

Online backup provider with 16TB of customer data.

Requirements
Environment : Windows 2008 R2 front end-server running in a data centre facility.
Storage : Highly available, durable and unlimited storage capacity. 16TB required.
Backups : Must have access to a secondary server or storage device in another facility for backups.

Recommended Solution
Price : £585 per month. Comprises of 1 x virtualised Windows 2008 R2 server with 16TB of SAN storage..
Environment : Windows 2008 R2 front end-server (virtualised) running in a data centre facility with access to unlimited computing resources.
Storage : Highly available, durable and unlimited SAN storage connected via iSCSI.
Backups : Optional 16TB of secondary storage attached to the primary server running within another facility.
Options : You can specify your own physical dedicated servers and choose to cluster two servers using Windows 2008 R2 for high availability.

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VFAQs

General
Q. How is the service different to that offered by other hosting companies and cloud providers?
Your server will be built and stress tested by a real person before it is released for operation. All of our services are provided on a fixed-price basis and we never bill for one-off overuse of resources. All resources are directly connected to the underlying server hardware with no grey areas around shared resources. All storage is directly attached to your server via an iSCSI connection running at gigabit speeds.

Q. Do I have to build my own Window server?
No. Your server will be pre-built for you and your storage attached, you can install other Windows components such as IIS. If you choose to use a hardware firewall to protect your server(s), this will be configured before your server is release into production. If you have specific requests such as installing Microsoft Exchange or SQL, our in-house team can do this for you if you prefer.

Q. Do I have full control of my server?
Yes. Your server can be accessed immediately via RDP.

Q. Can I upload \ export storage?
Yes. We can import and export storage using removable disks (charges apply).

Q. How much storage data is available?
We have unlimited capacity available in 16TB sizes LUNs of which there are no limits on quantity. LUN sizes of over 16TB are not recommended by Microsoft when using NTFS.

Q. What about support?
Support is available on the phone, email and trouble ticket system.

Q. Can I upsize my server(s)?
Yes. You can increase your server’s storage, processor and RAM.

Billing
Q. How does billing work?
We will ask for a pro-rata payment up to the end of the current month before we build your server. All other invoices will be issued on 30 day terms and payable by BACs. International payments are received via PayPal only.

Q. Cloud providers charge for the time my server is running. If I leave it on and it isn’t being used will I still be charged?
No. You will only be charged for your regular fixed monthly price and there are no hidden extras.

Q. Do you charge for bandwidth used?
No. There are no restrictions on your bandwidth. All we ask is that you transfer in\out no more than 50% of your purchased storage. This keeps undesirables off our network such as SPAMMERS and illegal file sharers.

Q. Will I be compensated for any downtime?
Yes. We refund 100% of your monthly fee for any unscheduled downtime incurred outside of our 99.99% SLA.

Reliability and performance
Q. Do you monitor my server and update me when it is not responding?
We monitor our own network 24x7 and respond to incidents which will affect your server. We can automatically monitor the internal processes of your server and alert you to internal issues in your server (charges apply).

Q. My application works better on Intel 64 bit processor which processors do you use?
All of our servers exclusively use Intel 64 bit processors.

Q: Is my data backed up by the data centre?
No. Whereas our systems are highly available and have multiple layers of redundancy we recommend you back up or replicate your critical data to another facility. We offer low cost backup facilities for this purpose.

Q. Can I get a true public IP address?
Yes. Your server will come with one public IP address and more can be supplied on request (subject to RIPE approval).

Security
Q. Is my server secure?
Yes. Your server will only accessible by you. If you add extra servers to your account we can VLAN those so they communicate with one another within your own private network. You also have the option when ordering your server to incorporate a hardware firewall in front of your server. This will permit you to specify which Internet based devices can communicate with your server(s) and on which ports.

Q. Can I establish a site-to-site hardware-based VPN straight to my server?
Yes. We can configure a hardware VPN on our gateway which will communicate with your router on your premises. Or if you prefer we can host your own hardware router on our network (fee applies).

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