blue lightning internet
Offers of cheap Internet access abound.
But is it worth putting an SME at risk?
Can an SME put too high a price on being able to
maintain high quality Internet and email communications?
essential, “Value for money is not the same as with multiple domain names and URLs: That
the lowest possible cost, though we recog- facility means that mail box naming is greatly
nise that executives need to monitor and con- simplified, so that a box created for a user on
trol the cost of all of their outsourced services. the master domain is automatically rolled out
“The customer base which we serve today to become the same address on all of the
has evolved with our team over the past dec- aliased domains.
ade. They demand a high level of support and Time spent managing emails is therefore
technical expertise. No two businesses oper- dramatically reduced. “It is important that cus-
ate in quite the same way over the Internet tomers feel that they are in control of their
and we have to create solutions which reflect web and email facilities.
their requirements precisely.” “The online management tools, which are
always accessible – allow authorised users
Greater range of facilities included
to set up message forwarding, out of office
messages and mailing lists directly from their
In practical terms on the hosting front, the desktop. If they do require assistance, there is
standard solution set appears to go beyond a rapid feedback service to which we will re-
basic web site hosting into PHP server-side spond.”
scripting, for example, and a CGI-BIN direc- It is in the area of more specialist support
tory which supports Perl and Bash scripting. for the business requirements of its customers,
As Ford noted “We recognise that many as opposed simply to their IT demand, that
smaller businesses offering e-commerce fa- boutique ISPs like Blue Lightning would ap-
cilities or interactive web sites do not have pear to come into their own.
the in-house technical resources to develop Stuart Ford again: “An increasing number of
these scripts. businesses trading on line need to give their
“Over the years we have assembled script own customers access to databases of prod-
libraries which are immediately accessible. ucts, accounts information and FAQs, for ex-
And recognising that our clients are likely to ample.
want accurate information on site traffic, de- “As optional add-ons to the basic business
tailed site access statistics are compiled package, we have been providing a MySQL
nightly.” database facility and features such as a dedi-
cated IP address for clients to establish their
Greater control over domains
own secure certificate.
“A directory can be provided on a secure
As a business starts creating and promoting its server, which allows pages and script to run
web presence, there is a strong case for it to over the HTTPS protocol. This is a vital facil-
protect its identity through acquiring related and ity if the client intends to handle payment form
similar domain names: some businesses find it processing.
makes sense to operate different parts of their “FTP access is of course standard, but some
business with different web site domains and clients often have a more rigorous file transfer
trading identities while retaining centralised requirement. We can convert the FTP account
control over emails linked to those domains. into a secure shell account using SSH so they
Blue Lightning can accommodate an un- can update their files live on the servers with
limited number of server aliases for websites no risk to their business.”
The Informed Executive
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