Hosting

Website Hosting Services are provided for customers as a platform for the various Website software solutions that  Piers Taylor Ltd develops.

Data Centre

The Servers are hosted in the secure Data Centre at Tamar Science Park, Derriford, Plymouth. The Data Centre features UPS protection with on-site generator backup and filtered ''clean'' power. The Data Centre can only be accessed through magnetically locked doors that can only be unlocked with a special swipe card and is fully protected by CCTV.  A sophisticated air conditioning system ensures the network and computer systems operate as efficiently as possible. Should a fire break out in the Data Centre then the FM200 Fire Suppression System will be triggered and FM200 gas will be released into the room extinguishing the fire. FM200 is a computer friendly gas that will not harm computers or leave a residue.

Connectivity

Servers have multiple connections to the Internet backbone via the Goss Interactive and Eclipse Networking/Kingston Communications Company infrastructure. Twin fibre optic feeds run into the Data Centre and connections are then switched across to the servers using the gigabit internal network. Connections to the servers are Firewall protected and communication between servers is over a separate isolated backend gigabit network. A dedicated monitoring service regularly checks the public facing network connection and core database and website functions. If any of these were to fail, support staff are alerted by email and text messages.

Servers

Dell PowerEdge™ 850/860 servers with Intel® Pentium® D (dual-core) processors running at 3ghz handle the serving of webpages, database server and backup functions. RAID 1 hard disc arrays ensure maximum uptime by duplicating the data over two drives. Should a drive fail, the other drive contains a complete backup of the data. Data is also backed up nightly to a separate redundant server which has an identical software suite installed allowing for an optimum restore in the event of complete server failure and can be used to increase load capacity under normal conditions should it be required. Server loads are regularly monitored and total loads are not planned to exceed 75% of the total resource available. Spare hardware is also held on standby so that any failure can be replaced.

Server Software

CentOS Enterprise-class Linux Distribution 
Servers run on CentOS Enterprise Linux, a professional and robust operating system built from Open Source code provided by Red Hat Inc. Linux is a modern, very stable, multi-user, multitasking environment combine the enterprise computing qualities of UNIX with cost-effective hardware choices. Linux is based on long established standards and is essentially a POSIX compliant UNIX. Ongoing package management ensure that the latest security updates are applied in a timely fashion. 

Apache Webserver
Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996. The February 2011 Netcraft Web Server Survey found that getting on for 10 million websites, more than 60% of the Internet, are using Apache, thus making it more widely used than all other web servers combined.  The Apache HTTPD server is a powerful, flexible, HTTP/1.1 compliant web server that implements the latest protocols, including HTTP/1.1 (RFC2616). It is highly configurable and extensible with third-party modules using the Apache module API. Apache runs on most versions of Unix (including Linux), as well as several other operating systems (including Windows).

PHP
PHP is an open-source programming language. Originally designed as a high level scripting language for producing dynamic Web pages, PHP is used mainly in server-side application software. The original goals of PHP mean that it has many advantages and optimisations when used for creating web based applications that include dynamic elements and databases.

MySQL Databases
Oracle's MySQL database is a fully integrated transaction-safe, ACID compliant database with full commit, rollback, crash recovery and row level locking capabilities. MySQL delivers ease of use, scalability, and performance that has made it the world's most popular open source database.