GreenNet’s Systems Administration and Support department provides hosting on our shared web server, and for dedicated and virtual servers as described below. It consists of a small team of dedicated and experienced Linux network administrators. The same team is in charge of both our own system and clients’ remotely managed servers.
The main responsibilities of the team are:
- ensuring 24×7 operation of the systems
- automation of tasks, development of scripts and administration tools
- configuration of system and network parameters
- monitoring of system stability and performance
- maintaining comprehensive documentation of our procedures
- providing 24/7 emergency support
- planning and implementing infrastructure changes to meet demand
- maintaining network reliability through problem resolution and escalation
- analysing network traffic to identify performance and resource utilization problems.
All members of the team participate in a rotating “on call” schedule with other members of the team.
We share knowledge and solutions, share network resources and can efficiently employ solutions such as remote backups, mirroring, and mail and DNS backups.
All team members are used to working on non-for-profit projects, understand the specifics of the civil society environment and have developed a friendly non-commercial, no-jargon communication style. To extend our capacities and skills further, we closely cooperate with technicians throughout the APC network. We exchange skills, expertise and solutions and this gives us scope to ask for help if needed.
A permanent & uninterrupted connection to the Internet
We purchase the connectivity for our own and our client’s servers co-located at Telehouse from HotChilli ISP. Hotchilli are independently rated as one of the Top 10 major hosting ISPs in the UK by Zeus Technologies. The network at TELEHOUSE Europe is tested for speed and availability 24 hours a day, reports can be found at http://www.webperf.net. The network is made up of multiple 100MB lines connected directly to the Internet backbone in TELEHOUSE Europe and uses Cisco hardware. It is constantly monitored in real-time and a member of the support team is alerted via email and SMS on a 24-7-365 basis in the event of any network disruption. Hotchilli has peering agreements with LONAP, LIPEX and Exchange Point which allows them to peer with all the major ISPs and Telecom companies in the UK.
TELEHOUSE Europe has multiple external power feeds which are supported by UPS and generator back up to give seamless power continuity under any circumstances.
Physical security
TeleHouse Colocation centre in central London provides a secure and resilient environment for hosting through a combination of world-class utilities, connectivity, security, cooling/fire suppression and systems engineering services. Physical access is limited to a small number of authorised persons and thoroughly controlled. At the same times this allows GreenNet to quickly react to systems problems and emergencies.
Further details on the physical security (CCTV, Access, Power supply, operating conditions) are listed on the Co-location centerpage.
Software security
GreenNet uses Debian and RedHat/Fedora GNU/Linux operating systems on its servers. The Linux platform is widely known for its stability and security. The systems are monitored 5 days a week between 9.30am and 5.30pm and critical patches and updates are installed as soon as they are available. In addition, the monitoring systems send alerts to one of the GreenNet engineers during out-of-office hours in case of emergency, thus practically ensuring 24/7 coverage. This provides an uptime record of more than 99.9%.
GreenNet will implement the initial installation of GNU Linux OS on the server, and configure the operating system and services to maximum security and availability:
Back up facilities on site
We recommend a mixture of backup and mirroring systems. As a standard co-location add-on, we offer a backup facility for the regular, transparent backup of the entire system and data on a daily basis, with 7 days full history. The backup is performed every night over a short direct high-speed network link onto the disk array managed by our dedicated backup server hosted at the same facility. This backup can be used to restore data and configurations back to the original location as well as to another machine, which can be rented from GreenNet and can act as a replacement while your original machine is being fixed, in case of a hardware failure.
For dedicated servers we also advise our customers to purchase a secondary independent hard drive, onto which a local backup is performed and which allows for immediate recovery from a disk hardware failure.
Thirdly, if you decide to use a mirroring server located elsewhere, the mirror server can also be configured to act as an off-site backup server.
GreenNet will implement the backup strategy of your choice as part of the co-location contract.
Technical support
TeleHouse have a 24/7 on-duty engineer for first level trouble-shooting and due to the physical proximity GreenNet’s engineers can very quickly get access to the servers. The Greennet technical team has a 24/7 on-duty rota system, where the engineer is informed about any critical service errors and is obliged to act within 4 hours.
The support provided to dedicated and virtual hosting clients includes Standard Technical office hours(09.30 – 17.30) support which covers :
- Performance monitoring and troubleshooting
- Bug tracking and fixing
- General inquires about the features and functions provided by the system
- Recovery from backup
- Troubleshooting Drupal problems, general advice on Drupal administration
- Help with page formatting, and content classification.
- Recovering parts of the Drupal database from backup
- Support is provided by email, and telephone.
Virtual Server hosting
This service provides:
- SSH root access
- GNU/Debian Linux pre-installed.
- Maintenance, patching, security updates
- rsync backups (seven days of backups, full file system)
- IP & Network Connectivity not less than 99%
- 1 Mbps feed burstable to 100Meg
- Maintenance, patching, backup
- Telephone and Email Support – 9.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday
Contact GreenNet Support for details
Prices from £35 + VAT p.c.m. / from £420 + VAT p.a.
Dedicated Server hosting
A dedicated server ensures that your online applications and data can’t suffer from performance or security problems caused by other sites on the same shared server. It also provides physical independence from a particular provider.
The dedicated server service provides:
- Server setup – Installation of GNU Linux (Debian Stable)
- Connectivity & Co-location
- Backup
- Monitoring, regular maintenance and support
- Firewall setup only allowing public access to necessary services (HTTP/HTTPS)
- Custom firewall setup for additional services from authorized locations (e.g. SSH from your office LAN)
- Firewall enhancements – SyncFlood Dos attack protection etc.
- Secure Shell access (SSH) and Secure FTP access (SFTP)
- Systems Monitoring for immediate alerts upon emergency and systems statistics for performance improvements and security (munin or MRTG, nagios); these can be made accessible through a password protected web interface
- Optional HTTPS setup
Clients have the option to purchase their own hardware with onsite warranty. Servers must be in a rack mountable 1U case should be delivered to our offices. We can advise on the specification, and can assist you with the purchase if necessary.
Alternatively, GreenNet can offer custom hardware rental, further details can be given on request.
- server rental from £400 + VAT pa
- connectivity/space of 1U from £80 + VAT pcm
Additional services
- Remote mirror server setup
- Mirror server rental (dedicated*, 1GB RAM, P IV, 1500 GB traffic)
- Mirror server regular maintenance
