Graeme’s Blog

The LetsHost company blog has now been moved from a blogspot domian to its very own blog.letshost.ie domain.

I currently have over 500 domain name registrations, and decided to do a clearout - over 100 domain names will now be allowed to expire at renewal time. 

LetsHost have launched a new website with information regarding the status of all servers and associated services. 

 This new site - http://www.letshoststatus.com should be the first port of call for any service affecting issues, and will be constantly updated should there be any service affecting issues.

I have just set up my personal email to go through my companies  recently launched Spam Titan spam filter system.  Whilst I always used the traditional Spam Assassin, and it did a reasonable job at removing spam, a fair amount of spam still got through. 

With the LetsHost anti spam system, all mail gets filtered through a separate server and is checked for viruses.  If there are no viruses, the email is then passed through a rigorous set of tests including keyword scoring, RBL list checks, etc., and only if it passes all these tests is it then sent to the inbox.  If it fails the tests, the email is delivered to a quarantine section on the server for later retrieval if neccessary.

 I am amazed at the accuracy of the system, and even more amazed at the amount of junk spam emails that people and bots try to send.  Over 90% of email sent to my private email inbox is spam.

From a business perspective, although the solution is not free, it saves so much time and effort that I think it has to be  a must have for any business who uses electronic mail today.

LetsHost (www.letshost.ie), announced today a further reduction in the cost of .ie Domain registrations. This  price fall brings the current LetsHost price of 24.99 down to the lowest ever price of 19.99.  .ie Domains have never been as low as this before.Letshost has led the way in bringing the price of a .ie domain registration down. Only 2 years ago the average price of a .ie domain name was around €65 + vat. LetsHost have developed a fully automated API link to the Irish Domain Registry, allowing then to process the application for a new .ie domain name within minutes of receiving an order on their online ordering system.

To take advantage of this excellent offer you can log on to the LetsHost website at www.letshost.ie, and select Order Hosting from the menu. From there, enter your chosen .ie domain name and complete the contact form. Once verified for completeness by LetsHost staff, your order will be automatically processed through to the domain registry, and you will receive confirmation by email.

Another new feature launched by LetsHost is the ability to manage DNS name server changes and DNS zone management using the new LetsHost Domain Management or DNS zone management system - from the Support menu on the LetsHost website, simply select the Domain Management option you wish to use, and you can update the DNS information without even having to contact the LetsHost support department - this fully automated process allows Letshost to continue to offer the lowest .ie domain name registrations in the country.

In 2007, LetsHost registered more .ie domains than any other company, bar one.

Business Owners are at constant risk from theft, viruses, system crashes, stolen or misplaced backup tapes, etc.,  A recent study has shown an estimated €4 billion will be spent in 2010 on data protection and backup systems – a growth of 30% from 2005. Recent advances in internet technology have resulted in more and more hard disk based backup systems becoming available.  Instead of worrying about changing that tape, losing it in the street, or burning it up in the sunshine in your cars glove compartment, all files can now be backed up to remote locations by using high speed internet lines.  At specific timed intervals throughout the day and night, a snapshot can be taken of all changed files on a particular server, and these can be transported through a high bandwidth internet connection to an off site server.  In addition, file compression makes the whole process much faster, reduces the amount of bandwidth needed to transport the file and takes up less space on the backup server. One company that has deployed this technology is Irish based LetsHost (www.letshost.ie).  They have implemented a multi Terabyte backup server in a data centre in another location hundreds of miles away, and this takes 6 hourly snapshots of all production web servers.  Copies of the last 10 days backup snapshots are maintained, allowing an almost unbelievable combination of files that can be restored.  Even if a single file was lost, for example at 3pm, five days ago, the system will allow the restore of this file.  In addition, and probably the most remarkable of all, is the ability to recover databases using the same technology.  The system is so granular that a single table in a single database can be recovered from any of the 42 snapshots. To add to this, weekly backup snapshots are also taken, and kept for 6 weeks.  A user control panel allows the user to log on and recover any files he or she wishes, without the need for intervention by LetsHost staff.  This makes the entire process extremely cost effective and efficient.   In the event of a total server and complete server failure, LetsHost can recover the entire server in a matter of hours, bringing it back to life with a maximum data loss of only 6 hours.  Server recovery can even take place to a different server in a different location if necessary, so even in the highly unlikely event of the entire production data centre being cut off due to unforeseen circumstances, LetsHost can recover their clients data to servers in a different location within a few small hours.   The improved internet technology in terms of speed and reliability is bringing the whole area of backup to new heights and ultimately securing the future for many businesses who in the past would have been prone to serious issues in the event of server production server failure. With such new technologies coming on-stream, the total cost of managing a business critical backup may actually come down, and the accuracy and reliability of the solution will improve significantly. LetsHost5^th February 2007

LetsHost is a web hosting company based in Dublin, Ireland.  Formed in 2003, the company currently hosts in excess of 11000 domains, all of which are protected using CDP – Continuous data protection.  LetsHost welcomes any press or contact from interested parties wishing to know more about the technologies used to deploy this backup solution