As many customers will be aware, in 2016 the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Although this happened earlier in 2020, it is only now at the end of 2020 that the transition period is ending and so changes have been needed.

We have therefore had to make a few minor changes to our legal agreements to comply with the new laws. As the UK government only announced what rules would apply a few days before they would take effect, this could only be completed at the last minute.

The new updated agreements apply from the 1st January 2021 (tomorrow) and are available on our website:

https://www.liquidsix.com/legal

Only minor changes have been made, including changing references to GDPR to the equivalent new UK law and references to the UK being within the EEA needing changing. A few other minor changes have been made at the same time, including removing our old payment processor, WorldPay. No changes have been made to how we process your personal data.

For customers within the EU, there will be VAT changes required (including us being issued with a new VAT number for EU use - the current number will stay the same for UK use). Due to the law, these changes can not be made until after the 1st January, so you will see these changes take effect in the first half of January.

If you have any questions about these changes, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,
The LiquidSix Team

The latest release of Microsoft's .Net Platform is available on our services now. The new .Net 5.0 brings together the best of the .Net Framework with the best of .Net Core, and is the future for both of these existing platforms.

It is available now on all plans that include ASP.Net, and can be turned on from the "Website Settings" page for your domain in our control panel. All existing versions of the .Net Framework (2.0 to 4.8) and .Net Core (1.0 to 3.1) are of course still available to use as well.

If you have any questions about using the new platform, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We are currently urgently investigating an issue with one of our UK web servers, "Leda". Websites hosted on this server are currently unavailable due to the issue.

As soon as we have more information, we will update this page.

UPDATE 13.09: Websites are back online and we are still investigating the cause of the problem with this server

UPDATE 13.49: The websites have been running without issue since the last update. We believe a networking issue caused the problems, which has now been fixed. We are continuing to monitor in case of any further issues. Please accept our apologies for the problems on this server today.

The upgrade to SQL Server 2019 for all customers was completed yesterday as scheduled and notified by email a few weeks ago.

If you are trying to connect to SQL Server using an older version of Management Studio, you may not be able to connect. We recommend that all customers trying to connect install the latest version of Management Studio, which is available free from Microsoft here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver15

If you have any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 CONTENTS

1. SQL Server 2019 Upgrade
2. PHP Upgrades
3. Other Updates and Maintenance
4. Changes to Domain Prices

Dear Customers,

We hope that all of you are doing well and keeping safe during this strange time for everybody. We have been continuing to operate as normal since the beginning of this outbreak, and expect to continue to do so. If there is any way that we can assist you or your business during this time, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We have a few updates for you this time about upgrades to SQL Server and PHP, as well as changes to some of our domain registration prices. If you have any questions about these, please get in contact so that we can assist you.

SQL Server 2019 Upgrade

On Saturday 15th August, we will be upgrading all of our customer Microsoft SQL Server instances to SQL Server 2019, the latest version of SQL Server that Microsoft has released, so that all of our customers have access to the latest technology.

This will be being done as an in-place upgrade to reduce the disruption. The window for the work will be between 12.30am and 6.00am UK Time (GMT+1) on Saturday 15th August, we will be doing each server one at a time. The downtime for each server during this period should be less than an hour and will be kept as short as possible. It is being done overnight to reduce the disruption that this will cause.

No changes will be required to connection details, and there are not expected to be any script compatibility issues - however you may wish to check with your developer that scripts are compatible with SQL Server 2019. The only impact that the upgrade is expected to have on customers is that older versions of SQL Server Management Studio will no longer be able to connect to the server properly. Microsoft make the latest version of Management Studio available for free to all users, so you can simply download the latest version from the Microsoft website here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver15

This affects Microsoft SQL Server databases only, and not any MySQL or other databases, which will remain as they currently are.

PHP Upgrades

At the same time (12.30am to 6.00am Saturday 15th August) we will also be applying the latest upgrades to PHP available on the server. As each website will continue to use the same major version as it already does, but be updated to the latest minor update of that version, there should not be any action that customers need to take. There is not any expected downtime during this process. 

We do recommend that customers upgrade to the latest major version of PHP (7.4) wherever the scripts on their website are compatible. This can be done from the "Website Settings" page for the domain in the control panel. Where scripts are not compatible with the latest version of PHP, we do recommend that customers talk to their developers or software suppliers about making them compatible, in order to ensure that websites remain stable and secure, as older versions of PHP can have security issues that are no longer patched.

Other Updates and Maintenance

There will also be other miscellaneous updates and maintenance being performed at the same time (12.30am to 6.00am Saturday 15th August). There is not any extended downtime expected for these, but they may require brief server reboots during this window.

Changes to Domain Prices

Since October when we last updated our prices, there have unfortunately been further large increases by some registries on the cost of their domains. Although we have absorbed these costs so far, we are having to increase the cost of some of the domains we sell. These price changes will take effect for domain registrations and renewals that are paid for on or after the 1st August 2020. Renewals paid before this date will be at the old price.

The prices that will be changing are as follows:

All Nominet UK domains will change from £5.99 to £6.99 per year excluding VAT, this includes:

              .uk

              .co.uk

              .org.uk

              .me.uk

              .plc.uk

              .ltd.uk

.net domains will change from £14.99 to £15.99 per year excluding VAT
.org domains will change from £13.99 to £15.99 per year excluding VAT
.biz domains will change from £15.99 to £18.99 per year excluding VAT
.info domains will change from £15.99 to £18.99 per year excluding VAT
.us domains will change from £9.99 to £10.99 per year excluding VAT
.tv domains will change from £38.99 to £39.99 per year excluding VAT

There will be no changes to domains not listed above, including .com domains. These prices have been kept as low as possible, and are still cheaper than a number of the large UK domain registrars, especially our prices for .uk and related domains, which are significantly below the renewal prices of the large registrars.

Hosting plans, servers, SSL certificates and other services are not affected. We have never increased the price of our hosting services for existing customers, and this will not be changing. Only domain prices are affected, due to the registries increasing the costs to us.

As always, should you have any questions regarding anything in this newsletter, or need any assistance with any aspect of your service with us, please do not hesitate to contact us via the helpdesk at https://support.liquidsix.com.

Kind Regards,
The LiquidSix Team

Customers will no doubt be aware of the current COVID-19 pandemic in many countries around the world. You will probably have heard from many companies via email about their preparations and any effect on their business. We have decided not to send a statement out via email, to avoid annoying customers with more notices, but are posting here instead for those customers looking for the information.

The pandemic is not currently affecting any of our operations. As we already utilised home working and can manage all servers remotely, there is no impact at this time. All customer service remains unaffected. All of our major suppliers are also operating normally and have procedures in place that they are keeping us up to date with.

Should the situation change, we will update the information here, or send an email to customers if the information is urgent.

If you have any questions about this, or any other aspect of our services, please do not hesitate to contact us.