Zen Internet (www.zen.co.uk), an Internet service provider, announced that it would offer a new Shared SQL Hosting service. The new service would give customers the opportunity to create, manage and maintain their own Microsoft SQL databases on Zen Servers at the company’s Internet Data Centre, which provides world-class connectivity and first-tier access to high quantity bandwidth. Zen’s servers can maintain multiple and distinct customer databases. Since Zen Internet is a Microsoft partner, the company can provide the full version of the service as a dedicated resource for serious database users with no set up fee.
The new service is intended for customers who are managing large databases or databases that receive a significant number of queries and who need to integrate these databases with MS Windows-based hosting technologies using ASP, .NET and IIS. The new service is a scalable solution, which will include Microsoft SQL Server 2000, unlimited bandwidth (no limitation on data transfer of traffic between the web server and the shared SQL server) and 50MB of upgradeable hard disk space. The pricing for the new service starts at ˆ300 per year.
Ian Buckley, marketing manager at Zen Internet, said that there were very few products of this kind currently available and Zen Internet believed that this solution, back by consistently high standards of the company, would meet a real need in the marketplace.
Zen Internet said that customers using Microsoft SQL databases could update and change data in real time, without the need to download and upload entire databases after modifications. The solutions also offers scalability and according to the company. Was more robust and offered better performance when handling queries and updates compared to the typical limited versions usually available with shared hosting packages (Access, MySQL).
Zen also provides similar solutions for low-end users managing small databases of less than 15MB or low activity databases. Zen’s servers support MS Access in the MS Windows environment and UNIX users have access to MySQL working on Cobalt RAQs.
The minimum contract period for the Shared SQL Hosting solution is one month. The company charges no setup fees and provides operational service within four hours after the order. The price is determined according to database quotas and starts from €25 a month for 50MB to €250 a month for 5000MB.
