Hosted on our planet, watched by us.

// The data centre

Our own data centre, on Australian soil.

Most hosting companies rent space on someone else's computers and add a margin. This is hardware we own and run, in Australia, watched by the same monitoring that watches everything else I run. When something needs attention, the person reading the alert is the person who runs the hardware.

• Australian infrastructure. Websites, mailboxes, virtual servers and virtual desktops sit on our own kit in Australia. Your data does not leave the country to be hosted, and there is no third party between you and the hardware.
• A 99.98% uptime target, backed by monitoring. Every server, service and link is monitored, and the alerts land with the same person who handles everything else on this site. It is a target and a measurement, not a badge on a brochure.
• Not oversold. No shared box groaning under ten thousand strangers' websites. A site that gets busy does not get slow because of somebody else's traffic, and your mail does not leave from an address that a stranger's spam already got listed.
• Daily backups with tested restores. Backup software reporting success tells you the job ran, not that the data is usable. Restores are tested by actually recovering files, on a schedule. Same rule as the backup and disaster recovery page, where this data centre can also hold the off-site copy for client backups.
• Servers when you need them. VPS with dedicated resources from $88 per month, a dedicated server from $330, and virtual desktops from $77 per user on the cloud page. Because I also work with Microsoft's cloud and the big clouds, you get told which one fits rather than which one pays a margin.

// Web hosting

Web hosting: what cPanel, SSL and daily backups actually give you.

The $27.50 a month plan lists three things. Here is what each one does for a business website, so you can compare it against a quote that lists the same words and means less.

• cPanel. One control panel for your files, databases, mailboxes, DNS records and email forwarders. Your web designer can log in and work without ringing anyone, and the account is yours, the same no-lock-in rule as everything else here.
• SSL. The padlock in the browser, and the reason a modern browser does not warn visitors away from your site. A Let's Encrypt certificate is free and renews itself, and a managed certificate is $55 per year where a business wants one.
• Daily backups, restored on request. A copy of the site and its database every day, kept apart from the live server. When a plugin update breaks the site or someone deletes the wrong page, it is a restore rather than a rebuild, and restores are tested rather than assumed.
• Domains in your name. Registration for .au and .com.au from $22 per year, with the domain registered to your business and not to a provider's account. Domains registered under a previous provider turn into a real problem exactly when the relationship has gone bad.
• A clean mail reputation. On cheap shared hosting, your website's mail leaves from the same server as mail from hundreds of strangers, and when one of them spams, the shared address is listed and every business on it is caught. Mail from here is not shared with a crowd of strangers' sites.

// Email

Business email hosting vs Microsoft 365.

Two honest options, and the right one depends on what your team does with email rather than on what earns a reseller more. Both are set up here, and either way the mail authentication is done properly so your quotes and invoices arrive instead of landing in spam.

• Hosted business email at $8.80 per mailbox. Enough for a business that needs reliable email on its own domain, read on a phone, in a mail client or in webmail, with calendars and contacts, and no need for shared documents, Teams or device management. A trade, a small shop or a sole operator with a handful of addresses usually lands here.
• Microsoft 365, managed from $22 per user per month. The right call when the team uses desktop Office, runs Windows machines, shares files in SharePoint and OneDrive, or wants Business Premium's security and device management. The $22 covers admin, the security baseline and support; licences are billed at vendor RRP, for example Business Premium at about $38 per user per month, with no markup. Shared mailboxes such as accounts@ or info@ are free in Microsoft 365 and never sit on a paid licence.
• SPF, DKIM and DMARC, either way. Without the three records set correctly, receiving mail servers cannot confirm your mail is really from you, so it lands in spam. They are set at the start, checked from outside, and cleaned of the entries that still describe an old provider, which is the standard cause of a business finding its mail in junk folders a week after moving. The full diagnosis is in why business email lands in spam.
• Backup and ownership, either way. Microsoft protects its platform, not your data, so Microsoft 365 backup is $5.50 per user per month. On both options the domain and the mailboxes are registered in your business name, with you holding the top-level login. The full setup, including migration from $880 for up to 10 mailboxes, is on business email and Microsoft 365 setup.

// Migration

Moving your site or mail without downtime.

Migrations from your current host are usually free, and "we do the moving, you keep the uptime" is four steps, in this order. Nothing at the old host is switched off to make room, and nothing is cancelled until the new setup has proven itself.

• 1. Audit and copy. What is actually there: the site files and database, every mailbox and who really uses it, the DNS records including the mail authentication entries, and where the domain is registered. This is where the two mailboxes still paid for someone who left get found. A full copy is taken while the old host keeps running.
• 2. Build alongside and test. The site is set up on our servers and tested while the old host keeps running. Mailboxes are created and the mail is copied across. Your old site and email keep working throughout; nobody outside notices anything yet.
• 3. Cut over out of hours. The DNS change lands outside your trading hours. Mail is re-synced right before the switch so nothing that arrived during the move is lost, and the old host stays live in parallel so any visitor still pointed at it sees a working site.
• 4. Verify, then retire the old host. The site, the certificate and the mail authentication are checked from outside, devices are reconnected, and you get the logins and documentation to keep. Only after that is the old hosting cancelled, and the whole move is reversible until that point.

// Indicative pricing

What it roughly costs.

Real numbers, because "contact us for pricing" is code for "brace yourself." These are honest ballparks, your fixed quote comes after a free consult.

Indicative pricing ex GST. Migrations from your current host are usually free, we do the moving, you keep the uptime.

// Questions

Hosting, your questions answered.

// Pairs well with