Now that you have your FastServers.Net dedicated server in place, all set up and working for you, you determine that you need to upgrade it. At FastServers.Net, any addition/change of hardware, software or service is an “upgrade”. Here are some examples: “upgrade RAM from 512MB to 2GB”, “add an additional 160GB SATA drive”, “change my Plesk 7.5 Reloaded license from 30 Domains to unlimited domains”, “order Fantastico Deluxe”, ”order an additional 100GB of bandwidth”, “order 25GB of remote backup”, “order remote reboot”, “add a Sonic firewall”, “order 4 more IPs”, “Upgrade my DEFCON managed service from DEFCON 3 to DEFCON 2”, and “reinstall my OS and control panel”. These are only a few examples; almost all the possibilities as well as their corresponding fees are listed under “Server Upgrades” in your FastServers.Net Pentagon account located at https://pentagon.fastservers.net.

Now that you know what you can order, how do you do it? Can you call us, email us, or open a technical support ticket? The answer to that is NO! To protect both of us, we are inclined to use good business practices since we have many customers as do many of you. In other words, we use a secure, password protected, ordering process. FastServers.Net lets you use your pentagon account to order server upgrades. Just sign in to pentagon with your login name and password, go to server upgrades, click on the appropriate upgrade(s), and order.

After the order is submitted you will receive an almost immediate acknowledgement. Once the upgrade order is processed and payment is made, the upgrade is completed for your dedicated server. In most cases, it takes less than 24 hours after payment to complete your server upgrade. In the event that we have to order hardware or for other reasons it will take longer than 24 hours, we will inform you. We will also work with you to coordinate necessary server down time to insure the smallest inconvenience to your enterprise.

The FastServers.Net sales staff is available weekdays from 9AM-11PM and Saturday from 8AM-Noon CDT to assist you with this process. You can contact us by toll-free phone/chat/IM for more information on server upgrades.

In less than 30 minutes per month you can increase security, uptime, and make sure your server is running at optimal levels. Pro-active FastServers.Net servers owners already know the ins and outs of getting the most of the service they are provided. The great thing about making your service the best it can is it requires little technical knowledge, little effort, and most importantly very little time on a monthly basis to become a pro-active server owner.

Many of the current customers that are taking a pro-active stance have already dealt with disaster in the past and have selected this path due to necessity. It is the hopes of our entire staff that a server failure, data loss, or security breach on your server doesn’t have to happen before you join the crowd and move from a passive to pro-active server owner. This newsletter covers some great tips on using Pentagon.FastServers.Net, recommended tickets to open on a monthly basis, and a feature article on Plesk Power Pack and Fantastico. We hope you enjoy it!

The Plesk Power Pack, available for both Windows and Linux flavors of Plesk, is a very powerful and inexpensive add on to the already robust Plesk software. The Power Pack is a combination of add-on components consisting of SpamAssassin, a built-in help desk, Tomcat, Cold Fusion, and MSSQL/PostgreSQL modules. It also includes the full blown Application Pack which is a completely customizable repository of Site Applications giving administrators the ability to add, deploy, configure, and remove applications for any domain on the system.

The Plesk 7.5 Reloaded Application Pack comes standard with an extended group of applications including a Mambo CMS tool for creating and deploying dynamic web content. Currently included with this add-on is post-Nuke (CMS), osCommerce Ecommerce software, phpBB (bulletin board), gallery (picture gallery), phpBook (guestbook), bbClone (counter), gtChat (chat engine), AdvancedPoll (Poll system), AutoIndex (File statistics and file manager), b2evolution (Blog), Coppermine (Photo gallery), CSLH (Customer support), DocFAQ (FAQ system), openbiblio (Library), Owl (Knowledge base), phpAds (Banner system), phpBugTracker (PHP clone of Bugzilla), phpDig (Search engine), phpMoney (Account management), phpMyFamily (Genealogic tree), phpsurveyor (Surveys creation tool), phpWiki (Documentation management), pLog (Blog), Tellme (Network tools (whois, traceroute etc.)), TUTOS (Work process organization), typo (CMS), UebiMiau (Webmail), WebCalendar (Calendar), WebShopmanager (Online store creator), WordPress (Publishing platform (blog)), and xrms (CRM).

Fantastico Deluxe for CPanel. $5.00/mo

Fantastico, available on Linux-based CPanel systems, is the leading auto installer for CPanel servers. Fantastico integrates with your existing CPanel system to give you and your customers the ability to install over fifty highly utilized scripts in a matter of seconds. The scripts range from blogs, CMS, Customer Support handlers, Discussion Boards, Project Management structures, Guestbooks, and more.

Additional features include:

• Overview page (lists all installed apps of all users)

• Set default language

• Email notifications to admin for installations/removals

• “Feature-Sets” so different users, hosting-plans, resellers, get different combinations of available applications.

• Report/Fix common problems

• Display newest version available and display a warning when your version is not the newest

• Display news pulled from http://netenberg.com/ informing you for security issues, technical updates etc

Our team of dedicated experts are well equipped to handle a variety of advanced troubleshooting related tickets, software installations, and high end security audits. Hundreds of tickets are opened and responded to on a daily basis mostly dealing with “right now” situations on servers with a very small percentage having to do with overall upkeep of the server.

This article introduces you to 10 tickets that are simple enough to open and will increase uptime, stability, security, and reliability of your server. Each ticket takes less than two minutes to open and features mission critical tasks that you should consider highly critical as a server owner. It is not necessary to open such tickets, but those that participate have a less likely chance of losing data, getting hacked, and you might even increase uptime!

The basic structure of the tickets are all the same and should include the following: an amicable salutation, a simple request, and a firm, closing statement.

Examples of Good Salutations:

“Dear Dedicated Server Experts:”

“Greetings System Administrators:”

“Dear FastServers.Net Gurus:”

“To Whom This May Concern:”

10 Easy & Potentially Crucial Tickets

(Body of the Ticket):

Ticket #1: Could you please tell me about how backups are being done on my server?

Ticket #2: I would like a security audit that is included with my DEFCON service.

Ticket #3: Please upgrade my server so it is secure.

Ticket #4: Could you verify backups on my server are taking place?

Ticket #5: I am paranoid about security what would you suggest to increase security on my server?

Ticket #6: Could you let me know about the resource usage on my server (Memory Usage, Hard Drive Usage, and Processor Usage)

Ticket #7: Where can I see how much bandwidth I used last month?

Ticket #8: What DEFCON Level am I and what does that include?

Ticket #9: What are remote backups and why should I consider them?

Ticket #10: Could you please upgrade my server with the latest kernel, service pack, and application upgrades that are available?

Closing Statement Examples:

“Thanks, Your Name”

“Regards, Your Name”

“Warm Regards from Your Address”

If you are a DEFCON 4 client this article is targeted directly at you. We’ve witnessed MANY occasions when servers that do not receive the attention they deserve end up having more problems, more down time, and are wide open for the world to hack into. As a server owner you have the option of being pro-active on the upkeep of your server or ignore it until it’s too late. We look forward to hearing from you in the near future, hopefully via a “Pro-Active” ticket and not a “My Server is Down” ticket.