Some of you may have noticed last night that the blog was offline for about 30 minutes. We were unaware at first that there was a problem until we heard from one of our friends that they couldn’t connect. In the past this would have meant a long spell of the blog being offline until a technician at our host could get round to fixing the problem. Instead, because we now have our own Server based here in the UK, it was just a case of Edward logging into the control panel and he has full control of the server. This works exactly the same as though the server was in the same room. Five minutes later we restarted the server via remote control and everything was back up and running.

Although running your own server is more expensive than just paying a host a couple of pounds a month, we feel the extra is well worth the difference. Access to our own Apache Web Server running Linux Ubuntu 10.4 means we have full root access to the server and can fix our own problems the moment we are made aware of them.

Additionally, having our own server means we can pick and choose the server software we run and not rely on a host to provide older, outdated software. PHP5, Perl 5.8, MySQL 5.0, PHP MyAdmin, Virtuozzo, POP3 Email and SPAM Assassin have all been installed because they are the latest and greatest software available. All this is managed with Parallels Plesk 10 Control Panel the innovative and user friendly interface for the best server management available.

Moving over to our own server did cost us some of our pocket money and moving all our domains over added to the expense but just one week after finalising the move, we are seeing the advantages already.