This month we are announcing a new feature included for all customers that have ASP.Net on their hosting plan - support for .Net Core, a new Microsoft open-source web framework. Some customers may already be familiar with the new technology, or actively developing for it. Now you can host your new applications with us on your existing account at no additional cost.

We are considering this new feature a beta for the moment, so if you have any issues with it, please let us know so that we can make any corrections needed.

If you haven't used .Net Core before, you can download it for your computer to try it out here:
https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/core

You can switch to using .Net Core from the "Website Settings" page in the control panel. You can view more details about how to host the new applications with us here:
https://support.liquidsix.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/108/0/hosting-net-core-applications-also-known-as-aspnet-core-or-aspnet-50

If you have any questions about this new feature, or have any problems with it, please let us know.

Also, we would like to alert customers that as from now, we are no longer using the 0845 UK telephone number that has previously been published as an option on our website. It has always appeared as one option alongside the standard telephone number - 01903 868 117, which will remain in use as the only telephone number available. We have taken this decision as the 0845 number is rarely used now due to changes in the way that telephone companies charge for calling these numbers making it a more expensive option.

We would like to thank you for your continued custom. If you have any questions about either of these announcements or need any assistance with anything else, please do not ehsitate to contact us via the helpdesk at https://support.liquidsix.com.

Starting at 11pm UK Time (GMT+1) on 25th April 2016, our network provider for the main UK network will be performing maintenance to improve their services. This will continue for 6 hours, until 5am. There will be a shorter period of downtime during this window, which we expect to be no more than 30 minutes.

The work is being performed overnight to minimise impact to customers. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused during these necessary upgrades.

We are currently investigating an issue with the mail server in the UK, please accept our apologies for the issue. We will update this post as soon as we have more information.

UPDATE: Our apologies for the delay, the issue has been identified as a major hardware problem. We are replacing the affected hardware at the moment, and will update this post once we have an ETA for the server being back on line.

UPDATE: The mail server has had to be completely reconfigured, a process that will be finishing shortly. We are ready to place the mail server back online as soon as this completes.

UPDATE: The mail server is now back online. Please accept our apologies for the disruption tonight.

Dear Customers,

We have some important updates for you this month about the move away from Windows 2003, and changes to our pricing for domain names and SSL certificates. All this information can be found below, but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at https://support.liquidsix.com.

CONTENTS
I. Windows 2003 End Of Life Update
II. ASP.Net 1.1 & ASP.Net 2.0
III. PHP 5.2 & PHP 5.6
IV. Pricing Changes
V. New Windows 2012 Low Density Hosting

I. Windows 2003 End of Life Update
As you will be aware from previous newsletters, Microsoft will be withdrawing support for Windows 2003 later this year on the 14th July. From that time, they will no longer be producing patches for any security issues that may be found and so Windows 2003 will no longer be secure. Because of this, as from the 1st May 2015, we will no longer be allowing the addition of new domains to our Windows 2003 hosting. All new domains must be added to our newer servers after this date.

In anticipation of this, we introduced our Windows 2012 R2 hosting back in 2013. Many customers have already moved their websites onto the new improved platform using our automated migration tool. As the date gets closer, it becomes more and more important to do this. 

In order to help customers track their progress in upgrading, this month we have added an overview to the control panel home page, which shows how many domains remain on Windows 2003, and has a link to a list of them, so that you can take the appropriate action. 

In addition, to make the migration of existing sites easier for users with older websites, we have added ASP.Net 2.0 support and older PHP support to our Windows 2012 servers, so that you do not need to update older code (although it is strongly recommended). The migration tool will change the version of ASP.Net and PHP to the latest, but you can re-select an older version from the "Website Settings" page in the control panel. For more details, please see below.

II. ASP.Net 1.1 & ASP.Net 2.0
Our Windows 2003 servers have supported ASP.Net 1.1 since we started offering hosting. However, Microsoft do not allow the installation of ASP.Net 1.1 on Windows 2012, and with the upcoming withdrawal of their support for Windows 2003, it does mean that it will no longer be possible to run ASP.Net 1.1 after July 14th. It is important that all ASP.Net 1.1 scripts are updated to support a newer version of ASP.Net before this date so that they can be moved onto the Windows 2012 R2 based servers.

Although replaced by ASP.Net 4.0 some time ago, ASP.Net 2.0 is still used by many websites. Where possible we recommend upgrading, however in order to make the migration to Windows 2012 as easy as possible for customers, we have this month added support for ASP.Net 2.0 to our Windows 2012 R2 servers. You will now be able to select this version using the dropdown box on the "Website Settings" page for a domain in our control panel. With this update, we encourage all customers using ASP.net 2.0 to move their websites to Windows 2012 R2 as soon as possible, to be ready for the end of life of Windows 2003.

III. PHP 5.2 & PHP 5.6
Our Windows 2012 R2 servers have now been updated to support PHP 5.6. It will become the default for all new domains from now on. The existing version of PHP, 5.5, will remain in place for existing domains unless a new version is selected using the dropdown on the "Website Settings" page for a domain in our control panel. 

The 5.2 version of PHP has not been updated in a number of years now, and we are now considering this version to be out of date and encourage all users with websites that still make use of it to upgrade to a later version of PHP.A warning will be displayed on the control panel home page, to show which domains need updating.

Despite this, in order to make upgrading existing sites to Windows 2012 R2 easier, we have now added older versions of PHP to those servers. All domains will be able to select from versions 5.2, 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 using the dropdown box on the "Website Settings" page for a domain in our control panel.

IV. Pricing Changes
As our long term customers will know, our domain registration prices have only changed once and this was about 5 years ago. We set the prices as low as possible, as we consider the registrations to be a service to customers rather than a way to generate profit. Unfortunately, over the years the various domain registries have increased their prices to us and our suppliers on a number of occasions. We have absorbed these costs and kept our prices to customers the same. But over time, the many increases, coupled with exchange rate fluctuations has meant that we have no choice but to increase the amount that we charge, as some of the domain extensions were being sold below our cost price which is not sustainable.

The majority of our prices have had to be revised upwards in order to cover the increased costs. The UK domain registry, Nominet, have not increased their prices during this time and are unaffected by exchange rate changes, so there have been no increases for these domains. In fact, in order to bring them in line with the other prices, the cost has been reduced slightly (by a penny) for a 2 year registration.

Despite these increases, our domain registration prices for common domains such as .com remain below many of the large UK registrars and our prices continue to be the same for both new registrations and renewal - we do not charge you a higher price after your first year is up, unlike some competitors. We hope that you will allow us to continue to provide domain registration services to you, but we do understand that the price increases may affect your plans. If you find that you have domains that you no longer wish to keep as a result of the increase, you can cancel any domains that you wish through the "LiquidSix Domain Registrations" icon in the control panel so that you will not be charged for their renewal.

A similar revision has also been done on SSL certificates as well as taking the opportunity to expand the range. Our range of GeoTrust certificates have remained at approximately the same price, and some additional certificates have been added. We have also added a new range of Comodo certificates to our list. Unfortunately due to supplier changes, the prices for Thawte certificates have had to be increased. If this increase changes your mind about what sort of certificate you would like (possibly switching to a cheaper brand, such as GeoTrust), please contact us and we can arrange to change the type of certificate that will be used the next time it is up for renewal.

These pricing changes will apply to both new orders and renewals of existing domains that are paid for from the 6th April 2015. We are giving notice of these changes as we are aware of the effect that they may have and that some resellers who sell our services on may need to adjust their own pricing. We do apologise for any inconvenience caused by these changes and we hope that you can understand the reasons why we have been forced to do this and appreciate that we do so as infrequently as possible. Please be reassured that these increases do not affect the services that we provide directly, including our hosting plans, as these have never been increased for existing customers.

For full details of the price changes for each type of domain and SSL certificate, please click the link below:
http://www.liquidsix.com/domains/changes.asp

To view our new range of SSL certificates, please click this link:
http://www.liquidsix.com/services/ssl.asp

V. New Windows 2012 Low Density Hosting
Also this month, we have launched our new range of low density hosting based on Windows 2012, which replaces our older Windows 2003 low density offering.  The new plans, which include more space and bandwidth, also feature Application Initialisation, which ensures that your website is always loaded in memory and ready for a visitor. This improves the performance of all websites, but is especially helpful for ASP.Net based sites as the compilation time on the first visit can delay the page loading. To view our new plans or to make a purchase, please see the following page:
http://www.liquidsix.com/ld

We will be sending all existing low density customers an email in the next few days detailing how to move from the existing Windows 2003 platform to the new Windows 2012 one to gain the new features.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the contents of this newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us via the normal methods, including the helpdesk at https://support.liquidsix.com.

Kind Regards,
The LiquidSix Hosting Team

Overnight tonight there has been disruption on our UK SQL Server. The problem has been identified as a hardware issue. The timing of this is unfortunate, as the server was due to be replaced by a new higher spec server during the SQL Server 2014 upgrade in 3 days time.

Because of this, and the fact that the new server was already ready and prepared for the migration, the quickest way to recover from this hardware failure was to perform the migration early, as everything was already in place for it. This has now been completed, and all UK SQL Server databases on our shared and reseller hosting are now moved to SQL Server 2014 on new hardware.

We apologise for the disruption that this has caused overnight and we have worked as quickly as possible to fix the problem. Because the migration has been completed, it does mean that those customers on shared and reseller hosting in the UK will now not need the maintenance that was scheduled to take place on the 31st December.

Customers with databases on our US servers and our Low Density service are unaffected by these issues and their migration will take place as scheduled on the 31st December.

Again, please accept our apologies for these issues. At this time, with the migration completed, all services appear to be functioning normally and the migration was fully successful. However, if you are seeing any issues with your database after the move to SQL Server 2014, please open a ticket at https://support.liquidsix.com and we can assist you.

CONTENTS

I. 12 Days of Christmas Offers
II. SQL Server 2014 Migration
III. US Websites and Control Panel Migration
IV. VAT Changes
V. Windows 2012 Servers Update
VI. 2015 Plan Updates

Welcome to another LiquidSix Hosting newsletter, the last one of 2014. It has been an exciting year for us, with the launch of our Windows 2012 hosting and new plans in the first few days of the year. We hope that 2014 has treated you well, and we would like to wish all of our customers that celebrate a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to serving you further in 2015! In this newsletter we have some special offers to finish off the year, details of migrations for SQL Server and US websites, details of EU mandated VAT changes, and updates on Windows 2012 and our new plans. As always, should you have any questions or comments about anything in this newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us at https://support.liquidsix.com!

I. 12 Days of Christmas Offers

Starting today and lasting for 12 days, we have 12 exciting offers available for both new and existing customers. All 12 offers will be available for all 12 days, and they are available to view on the website now! 

Included are offers on Single Domain Hosting, Multi Domain Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Servers, along with addons such as disk space, bandwidth, domain registrations and SSL certificate packages. Savings of up to £799 a year are available in some cases!

For full details of all 12 offers, please click here:
http://www.liquidsix.com/christmas2014

Offers are available until 11.59pm on 20th December 2014, although some are only available while stocks last, so don't delay!

II. SQL Server 2014 Migration

On Wednesday 31st December 2014 between 12am and 6am GMT, we will be moving all SQL Server databases hosted with us (both in the UK and the US) on to SQL Server 2014, the latest version. In the UK, this is also being combined with a move onto new improved hardware for the database server.

There will be no changes required to scripts, the address to connect to SQL Server will remain the same. If you connect from your PC to manage databases, you may need to download an updated client from Microsoft, depending on your needs.

The downtime for each database server during the window should be no more than 1 hour. After the migration is completed, as well as the new features of SQL Server 2014, you should also see improvements to performance provided by the new hardware.

III. US Websites and Control Panel Migration

As part of our continuing service improvements, we will be moving some services in the US onto new hardware shortly. This will only affect the Helm control panel and websites hosted on Windows 2003 (websites on Windows 2012 are unaffected). Because of this, and the recommendation to move sites off of Windows 2003 in the next few months, if you would like to avoid moving the sites twice we recommend using the automated tool in the control panel to move the sites to Windows 2012 before the migration date.

The migration will take place between 12am and 6am GMT on Saturday 3rd January 2015. There will be IP address changes during this process, which will be communicated to the affected customers a few days beforehand. All customers using our nameservers (which is strongly recommended) will not need to take any action as we will make the changes automatically. Customers who are using nameservers elsewhere and pointing domains to our servers via A records will need to make these changes themselves. The websites will continue to be served from the old IP (although this also means they come from the old server and old copy of the files) for 7 days after the migration. The old server and IP address will be shutdown on the 10th January.

Helm will be unavailable in the US for a few hours during this process. The websites will not experience any downtime, as they will remain online from the old IP during the propagation process, however there could be some minor disruption during the migration window.

IV. VAT Changes

On January 1st 2015, new EU laws will come into force regarding VAT which will affect how we have to bill a small number of customers. To get a summary of how (and if) these changes affect you, please read the section relating to you below:

Customers inside the UK: There will be no changes, you will still be charged VAT at 20% as normal and any VAT registered businesses can claim it back from HMRC.

Customers outside the EU: There will be no changes, you will still not be charged any VAT.

Customers outside the UK and inside the EU with a VAT Registration number: If you have registered your VAT number with us, there are no changes - no VAT is charged on our bills and your local tax authority can advise on how you report the purchase to them.

Remaining customers outside the UK and inside the EU: All purchases from the 1st January 2015, including new purchases and renewals that have not been paid before that date, will now have VAT charged on them at the VAT rate for your own country (whereas previously it was charged at UK VAT rates). You will see Helm reflect this as from the 1st January 2015.

Hopefully this explains the changes that are being made to comply with the new laws without causing unnecessary confusion. If you have any questions relating to VAT, please contact your local tax authority who will be able to assist you.

V. Windows 2012 Servers Update

As communicated in our last newsletter, the default operating system for new domains for all resellers is now Windows 2012. We strongly recommend moving existing sites onto Windows 2012 as soon as possible (using the automated tool in the control panel), as Microsoft are ceasing support and patches (including security patches) for Windows 2003 in July 2015. We will be contacting customers again before then with any additional changes that are being made. We expect to stop allowing new websites on Windows 2003 in the first half of 2015. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

VI. 2015 Plan Updates

After the launch of our complete new plan range at the beginning of 2014, we are planning to make updates to our range each year. For 2015 the changes will only be small, with a few tweaks to some of the limits. As all of the changes will be increases, we will be applying the changes as well to anyone who has one of the existing 2014 plan range at no extra cost. For customers on a pre-2014 plan, there will not be any changes.

You will see these small changes reflected on our website and in Helm in the first few days of 2015.

Thank you for reading this newsletter and for your continued custom. We hope that 2015 will be a good year for you and should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at https://support.liquidsix.com.

Regards,
LiquidSix Hosting