StarEsystems
"Your Internet
Connection"
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Basic Web Hosting Questions
Basic Web Hosting Questions
What are the setup fees and monthly
costs involved?
StarEsystems, Inc.does not charge a setup fee. There are no hidden
charges. The rates depend on whether the monthly or annual rate plan is
chosen. The full rate charts for available hosting packages are shown on
the Web Hosting page.
How do I set up my email?
StarEsystems, Inc. web hosting clients can set up POP Accounts,
Forwarders/Aliases, & Auto-Responders in the Web Browser Control Panel that
comes with every StarEsystems, Inc. web hosting package. This can be done by
yourself, and without any assistance from the StarEsystems, Inc. staff.
How do I upload my files?
All StarEsystems, Inc. web hosting packages allow the usage of FTP, Telnet, SSH,
File Manager, MS FrontPage™, and other web development publishing programs, to
upload files to your website.
Is there a trial period or money-back guarantee?
StarEsystems, Inc. offers a full 30 day money back guarantee. No questions
asked. If you are not happy for any reason, cancel your StarEsystems, Inc.
service within 30 days of signup and your full plan costs will be refunded
(excluding domain registration fees). The only exception to a refund, is if you
violate StarEsystems, Inc. Terms of Service(TOS). Violations of the TOS usually
are due to spamming, hacking, and illegal content. Your account can be cancelled
ONLY by sending an email requesting cancellation to cancel@StarEsystems.com.Other methods of cancellation are not valid.
How fast are websites set up?
StarEsystems, Inc. strives for a setup time of no more than 24 hours per
order. If an order is placed during normal business day hours, orders may be
processed in only a few hours.
Does my website get a control panel?
Yes. Every StarEsystems, Inc. web hosting plan comes with a web browser based
control panel. The control panel includes many features including; email
configurations, chat rooms, mailing lists, pre-installed cgi scripts, databases,
chat rooms, and much, much, more... The Windows NT™ account control panels run
on a Red Hat™ Linux backend, and feature email based features only. A demo of
the control panel can be found here.
Login Name: sample, Password: star
How am I billed?
StarEsystems, Inc. bills through PayPal. We collect no credit card
information. Special arrangements can be made for custom billing
requirements by contacting our customer service department at customerservice@StarEsystems.com.
How much assistance do you provide for my website?
StarEsystems, Inc. will assist you with all support for services provided
directly thru
StarEsystems, Inc.
StarEsystems, Inc. will help you with
basic settings for your email software and ftp client, as well as assist you
with using the web browser control panel.
StarEsystems, Inc. is not
responsible for teaching you how to use another company's products. Example:
StarEsystems, Inc. will assist you with the settings for using MS Frontpage™,
but we will not teach you how to actually use the product itself. You need to
contact the software maker in such a situation, who provides tech support for
how to use their product.
StarEsystems, Inc. cannot even attempt to support
all the thousands of software products on the market.
StarEsystems, Inc. will attempt to provide some tech support for the most popular programs our
clients use.
StarEsystems, Inc. is not responsible for assisting with your
own programs and cgi scripts. If you choose to install your own programs and cgi
scripts on your site, you are responsible fully for installing them.
StarEsystems, Inc. will provide support for any program or cgi script that we provide
pre-installed with your web hosting plan.
StarEsystems, Inc. is not
responsible for designing, nor developing, your website, including HTML and/or
images.
StarEsystems, Inc. will attempt to give a quick look at your
design/development problem, and offer a suggestion if it is a small issue.
Anything complicated relating to design/development is not the responsibility of
StarEsystems, Inc.
What if the hardware fails?
StarEsystems, Inc. stocks replacement parts for all servers. Hardware failures are uncommon, but they do happen, and are a part
of the hosting business.
StarEsystems, Inc.repairs all failed hardware
promptly, to minimize any downtime caused by such.
Are there any hidden costs?
No. All costs are stated plainly on our website. We do not hide fees in
fineprint or in our terms of service pages.
StarEsystems, Inc.will allow you to
upgrade your plan to the next size up should you see your current plan is
insufficient. Disk space usage and availability as well as estimated
bandwidth usage is available to you in the control panel included with your hosting
plan.
What is Cpanel™? Do you have a Demo?
CPanel™ is the brand name of the web browser control panel software that
StarEsystems, Inc. utilizes on its web hosting plans. A demo of the
control panel can be found here.
Login Name: sample, Password: star
What happens if I decide to leave
StarEsystems, Inc.
You are free to leave at any time.
Is there a discount if I pre-pay for several months in
advance?
StarEsystems, Inc. offers 2 months free for all yearly advanced payments.
Pay for 10 months of service, and receive 2 months free.
May I have some examples of some sites hosted by you?
StarEsystems, Inc. makes a sample
client page available to the public on it's website.
Does my website have their own IP number or is it
shared?
StarEsystems, Inc. hosting plans come with a dedicated IP address that is
shared omong its various clientele.
What type of support do you offer? Average Response
Time?
StarEsystems, Inc. offers support to our clients 24/7/365 via email We strive for response times of no more than a few hours.
Response times of just a few minutes are quite common during normal business
hours.
What are the hardware specs of the servers?
The servers at StarEsystems, Inc. are constantly subject to the upgrading of the
hardware on our network. If more
drive space, memory, or faster processors are needed, they are added in at that
time. The current servers are dual processor system, with 4048MB RAM,
and 160mbps SCSI hard drive(s). All StarEsystems, Inc. servers run spare hard
drives for backup requirements.
Can I have adult content on my website?
Yes, you can have adult content on your websites under the Platinum Plan.
May I view your Terms Of Service?
The StarEsystems, Inc. terms of service (TOS), including policy and service
guidelines, are available online at: http://www.StarEsystems.com/terms.htm
.
How long have you been in business?
The company has been in business since September 05, 2002. The company was incorporated in the State of
Florida, USA.
Do you support International domain names and clients?
StarEsystems, Inc.can host all international domains. StarEsystems, Inc. can accept foreign clientele, just please be advised that
all correspondence must be conducted in English.
How do I transfer my domain name?
StarEsystems, Inc. provides domain name registration and transfers through its
domain registration service. Click on the Domain Names Button on our main
page or click here.
What if my site breaks your "acceptable usage
policy" rules?
Users' sites may be suspended for violations of policy, or if extreme, or second
time offenders, sites may be cancelled. Each occurrence is dealt with on a case
by case basis, and we try to work things out with every client. Notifications
will be sent, if StarEsystems, Inc. takes any action on your account.
What if I want to upgrade my website?
You may upgrade or downgrade your StarEsystems, Inc. web hosting plan at
any time. You will be required to pay the difference in price of your
current plan and the plan you are upgrading to should you decide to choose a
larger plan. You will then pay the new monthly fee for the new account package
that you select.
How is my website monitored?
StarEsystems, Inc. maintains internal and external monitoring systems for its servers. The servers are checked
every 5 minutes via network monitoring software. StarEsystems, Inc. monitors
uptime as well as individual features and services running on each server.
StarEsystems, Inc. staff is notified via alarms, email, screen popups, and
paging if a problem occurs.
What is the uptime?
StarEsystems, Inc. strives to maintain a 99.5% network and server uptime
service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and does not include
any scheduled hardware/software upgrades, nor "Acts of God". Our
definition of "Act of God" includes; fire, flood, tornado, earthquake,
telco fiber issues (ie...Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere), backbone
peering point issues (ie...UUnet™ having a router go down in Virginia that
wipes out internet service for the entire East Coast), hard drive failure
(faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided), as well as
network floods, hacks, and attacks. If StarEsystems, Inc.
fails to meet it's
99.5% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the above reasons.
What is your connectivity to the Internet?
The Network Operations Center is connected via a fiber connection to our
backbone provider. StarEsystems, Inc.
utilizes a DS3, running at 45mbps thru
Sprint™ and a 2nd DS3, thru AT&T™ for
redundancy. A third DS3, or an OC3, is being planned.
After this, StarEsystems, Inc. will be peering (sharing capacity) with
major backbones, to exchange connectivity. The connection will run BGP4 (border
gateway routing protocol) & SONET to maintain the speed and uptime. If one
backbone line goes down, it will balance the load to the others. If one line
gets congested, it will load balance the traffic. SONET technology is a high
capacity, 100% fiber optic network deployed in a ring topology with a working,
or "hot," path carrying data in one direction and a standby, or
protect, path transmitting in the opposite direction around the ring. In the
event of a fiber cut or service degradation, SONET equipment at the edge of each
failing fiber segment isolates the failure and uses both working and standby
fibers to create a new temporary ring. All of this happens within 50 milliseconds.
Do you have battery backups and generators?
Our Network Operations Center is backed up and protected by UPS (Uninterruptible
Power Supply) systems. In a very rare case of utility outages, our auto-start
generators start automatically, taking over for the UPS system and supplying all
necessary power for our Network Operations Center. APC™, Tripp-Lite™, &
Liebert™ UPS Systems provide the power backups, along with Kohler™ generator
systems.
What about software upgrades?
StarEsystems, Inc. fully follows all trends in the industry, and monitor all
support/bug announcement groups. If a new bug or security vulnerability is
found, StarEsystems, Inc. immediately upgrades our systems. StarEsystems, Inc. auto-updates the Linux
system every night from security patch
websites. As new software is released, including new versions of the operating
system, StarEsystems, Inc. evaluates the new software. If the software's
new version does not have any security issues, or bug problems, the upgrade is
implemented.
What if the server gets hacked or
attacked?
Individually hacked websites are rare. If such occurs, usually they are a target
for a reason; hate sites, pirated software, etc... StarEsystems, Inc.
does
not host such websites. If such materal is found on a StarEsystems, Inc.
server, it is deleted immediately and the user's account cancelled. Usually the
target is the whole server itself. Hackers usually go after a server just to say
that "they did", or to use the server to bounce off of to hack
something more important. Rarely are any user's files on the server damaged,
erased, or modified. For this reason, once a hacker is detected, the server can
usually be cleaned up and the hacker locked back out within a matter of hours.
At that time the server is restored to full security levels, as if the hack has
never occurred. Most hackers get into a system thru valid user accounts. We
recommend you use complicated passwords for your account. StarEsystems, Inc.
strictly reviews all orders for new clients, to make sure they are legitimate.
Unfortunately, some fake orders do get thru the system, and that is one way a
hacker can gain initial access. StarEsystems, Inc.
runs security checks on
the servers daily, so even if a hacker does get in, they are found and dealt
with quickly. Most hackers are not malicious, they are just playing or testing
their abilities. If an individual attacks the StarEsystems, Inc.
servers measures are in place to cut off such floods and attacks automatically
at the backbone level and the router level. StarEsystems, Inc.
also uses
firewall technology to fend off most common methods of flooding and attacks to
the network.
What is included in my website package?
StarEsystems, Inc. provides full hardware, software, support, and system
administration. The
software provided includes the operating system, email software, web
server software and control panel. StarEsystems, Inc.
even includes free
e-commerce shopping cart software. Everything you need to conduct business on
the Internet, or maintain a personal website, is included in your StarEsystems, Inc.
hosting solution. StarEsystems, Inc.
will provide basic support
on services/software that we provide you with your account. StarEsystems, Inc.
does not develop your website for you, nor provide tech support on
how to use software products that we do not provide to your directly. We are always more than willing to help you if we can
with external issues, time permitting...
Why should I choose
Simple. StarEsystems, Inc. maintains one of the most feature rich hosting
packages on the market. StarEsystems, Inc.
offers Cpanel™ on it's packages, the
premier software in the business. StarEsystems, Inc.
offers a 30 day full
money back guarantee for new clients that sign up...so you really cannot loose
by selecting StarEsystems, Inc.
How do I get started?
Simple! Decide which hosting plan is right for your and
complete the setup process! You will receive details shortly afterwards about
how to proceed with your new StarEsystems Web Hosting
Account!
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