We have a small number of customers who remain on a non-Helm hosting account. It is no longer financially viable for us to maintain these non-Helm accounts. Because of this we will be migrating all non-Helm customers over to our Helm set-up.

As a non-Helm customer we will contact you directly regarding your domains and the migration process. This will occur over the next few weeks.

The non-Helm accounts are hosted on a third party system which we have no administrative control. Because of this we will be unable to retrieve your FTP / email or database passwords. Therefore we will either set-up new accounts with a common password (which you can change yourself) or request password details.

We have prepared a FAQ below which should answer questions you may have.

What package will I move to and what will it cost?
All customers will be moved on to the BRONZE package at a cost of £50 per year (ex VAT). Details of this package can be found here. Renewal date of the package will be one year from the date of migration. Customers wishing to upgrade to a higher package should contact us for an upgrade cost.

Why can you not leave things as they are?
A lot of customers have already migrated from the old system to Helm and are enjoying the extra benefits of free spam and anti-virus protection on email as well as advanced web site control. This has left us with a very small number of clients on the old third party system. This is now having a substantial financial cost which we can not sustain. 

Will there be any downtime of my website?
Downtime will be limited to a few minutes while DNS requests are redirected from one server to another. Some ISPs may have cached DNS records which may mean a slight delay before content is served from the Helm servers for customers using these ISPs

Will I lose any emails?
We will change the DNS records only after email accounts have been created on the new system. This will prevent any emails being lost. The old email accounts will remain in place for a few days and we suggest you check these accounts as well as your new accounts just in case any emails are sent to the old system.

What are the new email settings?
For details on how to check your emails on the new system please gheck out our support article here
For instructions on how to change your email passwords on the new system please check the support article here

Do I have to make any changes to my domain or nameservers?
If you domain is using the nameservers ns.aguk.net or ns.aguk.co.uk then you will not need to make any changes. However if your domain is using alternate nameservers then we will contact you to provide details of what you need to do.

What will happen to my site statistics?
We are unable to transfer existing web site statistical date to our new set-up. However the new Helm system use the much more advanced SmarterStats system which will provide greater statistical information for your domain.

What happens if I have more than one account on the old system?
We will do our best to identify where this is the case and contact you. The Helm system allows you to host multiple domains on the same account which can save you money. Alternatively if when we contact you we have not detailed all of your domains then you should respond and let us know.

I already have a Helm account can you migrate the domain to this?
Yes we can migrate your domains to your existing Helm account simply let us know the details when we contact you. Since all our Helm packages are not domain limited you can add as many domains as you want to your package.

Will the move cause any of my scripts to break?
We will do our best to ensure this does not happen however it is possible some scripts may not work as expected on the new system. We recommend you check each page of your site once the migration is complete for any errors.

What Operating System are the Helm accounts?
The Helm cluster runs Windows 2003 servers. All languages available on the Unix servers are available on the Windows servers including PHP / Perl / MySQL.

Why have you not yet contacted me about my migration?
We anticipate the process taking up to 8 weeks so please bear with us.

How will I know when my domain has been migrated?
We will email you to inform you of the completed migration.

I do not want to move to your new system can I move to another web host?
We understand that some customers will not like the changes. However we assure you that the move is necessary and will lead to a much better hosting experience. But if despite this you wish to move to a new host then we wish you all the best. We will make any IPS Tag change requests free of charge.

I have more questions what do I do?
You can either email support@aguk.net telephone us during working hours on freephone 0800 231 6301 or post your question below.