When you are looking for a hosting solution, one important thing to take into consideration is the location. If you are mostly aiming at the European audience, a great solution would be United Kingdom VPS Servers. Why and what do you have to consider when looking for a United Kingdom VPS? That’s what we are going to have a look at in today’s article.
What things are affected by the hosting location?
If you are new to web hosting and you don’t know why it’s best to look for a specific location for your server, let’s have a look at the factors affected by it.
First, your target audience. If you are aiming at the audience of some specific geographical region, it’s best to look for a location in the closest proximity to it. If your target audience is not one specific country, then it’s also a good idea to choose a location that is equally close to all countries you’re going to target. Why? The distance affects the latency. The less latency, the better page loading speed. The higher page loading speed, the higher SEO rankings, let alone the individual experiences of every single user of your service. Moreover, search engines tend to provide users with sites that are hosted physically closer to them, which is another benefit of choosing the right location.
Second, the legislation. Different countries have different laws and the internet is not a neutral territory in this regard. When starting a website, an important point you have to pay attention to are the regulations regarding online businesses, what kinds of services are permitted hosting, and which aren’t, which are fees and taxes, and so on. Make sure to coordinate your type of online business with your future hosting location.
Third, the data center. Any website is hosted on physical hardware which is stored at some place. Unless we deal with some companies’ own servers, the latter are located in data centers – special facilities used to house servers. The data centers may differ from each other, providing different quality of hardware and its maintenance. When looking for a server location, make sure that it’s in a safe and high-tech data center. Let’s have a bit closer look at the factors to consider when choosing a data center.
What to consider when looking for a data center?
When looking for a data center, study carefully, which conditions it offers. Here are some things that you have to keep in mind:
Security. The security of your and your users’ data is first and foremost provided by the security of the data center. Storing data in a vulnerable data center may result in data loss, data breaches, sabotage, etc. The security of a data center is provided by the measures it takes to protect its hardware from natural disasters, fires, intrusions, and other major force circumstances. Make sure to check if only authorized personal are allowed to access the servers.
Compliance. Every country has its legislation and modern legislations do address digital issues as well, regulating for example how certain data is to be treated, how certain transactions are to be performed, etc. To avoid certain legal problems, you should make sure that the data center complies with certain standards. We’ll give you a couple of examples of regulations that apply to hosting on certain territories or globally:
The first one is HIPAA, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which is a United States act of congress that regulates how health-related data is to be treated in order to protect it from fraud and theft. If you are going to have your business in the USA and have something to do with health-related data, then make sure that the data center in question complies with this act.
Another one, SSAE 18 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements no. 18) is the Generally Accepted Auditing Standard governing whether the data center complies with different certifications. It gives a kind of guarantee that the facility in question meets the standards of security and risk management and is thus safe to cooperate with.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS is the general standard for protecting credit card information from major card schemes to reduce credit card data theft and fraud.
Uptime and performance. Make sure that the data center provides sufficient infrastructure for your website to operate efficiently and constantly: whether there are sources of uninterrupted power supply, backup generators to ensure uninterrupted uptime, whether the servers are provided with modern high-tech equipment and not with cheaper and older alternatives.
Why choose United Kingdom VPS hosting?
If we choose between different European locations, the United Kingdom is of the most beneficial ones. The first reason was already mentioned – its close proximity to the whole of Western and Northern Europe together with the best proximity to the USA among the European countries, which makes it a kind of hub between Europe and America.
Another perk of the UK as the location for your hosting is the legislation, which is in many ways beneficial for the development of internet resources, especially if we take Brexit into account, which has liberated online entrepreneurs in the UK from various restrictions that are in force in the rest of Western Europe, making it also easier for your if you aren’t a resident of any EU-member country.
As for the data center, HostZealot provides servers in Interxion data centers in London, which is a highly technological and highly secure facility located literally in the heart of European business, surrounded by the offices of hundreds of corporations. This advantageous neighborhood will give you additional options for developing your business through corporate interconnection.
The Interxion data centers correspond to the highest standards of security, with 5 layers of physical security, including perimeter fence, mantraps, fence, security gates, CCTV, and locked cabinets. The power supply is built based on N+1 configuration guaranteeing you the maximum 99,999% of uptime together with 8 biggest CDNs and numerous IXPs. The whole of the data center’s equipment is maintained in controlled climate conditions, with an average temperature of 18 to 25 °C and a redundant air conditioning power supply. This data center is sure to provide quality hosting of your website together with an extremely efficient location.
