Application Hosting

MediaLayer's application hosting environment is the product of years of experience in hosting PHP and MySQL based sites. We have engineered this service to provide the maximum performance and reliability using technologies such as LiteSpeed Web Server, Percona MySQL Server, and eAcelerator, along with custom OS-level performance enhancements. PHP and MySQL are the core of modern websites from blogs to e-commerce. Don't let poor performance hold back your web presence.

Plan Comparison
Features
FAQ
AppLayer DX
500 MB High Performance RAID-10 Storage (now pure SSD on US Servers)
10 GB Premium Data Transfer
3 Hosted Domains Powered by DirectAdmin.
Accelerated PHP 5 and Unlimited MySQL 5 Databases, FTP accounts, email accounts, etc.
Comprehensive feature list
  ORDER »
free setup, $9.95/mo
AppLayer LX
1000 MB High Performance RAID-10 Storage (now pure SSD on US Servers)
20 GB Premium Data Transfer
6 Hosted Domains Powered by DirectAdmin.
Accelerated PHP 5 and Unlimited MySQL 5 Databases, FTP accounts, email accounts, etc.
Comprehensive feature list
  ORDER »
free setup, $19.95/mo
AppLayer EX
2500 MB High Performance RAID-10 Storage (now pure SSD on US Servers)
50 GB Premium Data Transfer
12 Hosted Domains Powered by DirectAdmin.
Accelerated PHP 5 and Unlimited MySQL 5 Databases, FTP accounts, email accounts, etc.
Comprehensive feature list
  ORDER »
free setup, $39.95/mo

Disk Storage: Need more disk storage but wish to leave other resources the same? No problem, just contact our sales department for a custom plan based on the rates below.

Additional 500 MB: $4 per month
Additional 1000 MB: $7 per month

Flexible Data Transfer Billing: MediaLayer offers flexible charges for overuse of data transfer (bandwidth). Calculated at the end of each month, any overuse of data transfer is billed at the following rates (which are based on the total usage of the account):

0-100 GB: $0.50/GB
100-200 GB: $0.45/GB
200 GB and up: $0.40/GB

Therefore, there is no need to pre-purchase additional data transfer if your site is experiencing a spike in usage or otherwise going over your plan's allocation. The data transfer meter is reset on the first of each month.


Dedicated IP Address: With proper justification (i.e. to be used for an SSL certificate), we offer dedicated IP addresses for $25.00 per year.

Features Of All AppLayer Plans

DirectAdmin Control Panel

The powerful yet simple and easy to navigiate DirectAdmin control panel allows for full management of your hosting account, including everything from sub domains to MySQL databases. We have a demo of the control panel available here:

DirectAdmin CP Demo
» Username: demo_user
» Password: demo

LiteSpeed Web Server

Instead of Apache, we utilize LiteSpeed Web Server as a drop-in replacement. It is fully compatible with .htaccess and mod_rewrite, as well as common PHP and MySQL based scripts (such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc). LiteSpeed allows us to provide enhanced performance and resilience to high traffic within our hosting environment.

Percona MySQL Server

Instead of the standard MySQL server commonly used by web hosts, we are one of the few providers to implement the Percona release of MySQL which includes significant performance enhancements, specifically for InnoDB. This greatly benefits PHP and MySQL based applications, especially those which heavily rely on InnoDB such as Magento.

Accelerated PHP 5

We configure PHP 5 with Zend Optimizer, ionCube loaders, as well as eAccelerator. This means that not only do you experience the best performance, but also the greatest compatibility for encoded scripts with support for the two most used encoders in the industry.

No Limit on Features

We don't limit you on the quantity of MySQL databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, domain pointers, or sub domains. As long as you are within your plan's disk storage allocation, you can create as many of these as you need.

Global Locations

Our application hosting service is available in three continents, featuring multiple US Locations, Amsterdam, and Singapore. Available locations for each package are listed on our order form, where you can select your preference.

Daily Off-Site Backups

All hosting plans feature nightly off-site backups which are available in the case of server failure. We do also strongly recommend our customers to maintain their own backups to allow for maximum data security. Backups can be generated and downloaded through our control panel at any time.

Application Firewall

All servers feature a web application request filtering system based on mod_security which is custom-crafted to block common exploits of application vulnerabilities. To ensure maximum security, we recommend our customers to also keep applications up to date with new releases.

Installatron Applications Installer

Our application hosting plans feature a software which allows automatic installation of over 60 applications in just a few clicks. It also assists with keeping installed applications up to date.


PLANS
Will you help me in the transition from my previous host?

Our team can migrate existing website content and databases. After your account is activated, simply contact support@medialayer.com with the login details of your old account. Our typical turn-around time for migrations is 24 hours (separate from account activation time).

How long does account setup take?

Application Hosting accounts are typically activated within a 24 hour period due to manual fraud verification to prevent abusive users from gaining access to accounts, which in turn protects other customers on the server.

Which operating system do you use on your servers?

We use CentOS 5 x86_64 (64 bit).

What PHP and MySQL version do you offer?

The majority of servers run PHP 5.2.x and MySQL 5.0.x. Some newer servers have PHP 5.3.x and MySQL 5.1.x available. If you are interested in this, please contact sales@medialayer.com.

How do I request a specific data center?

Locations with available slots are posted in a drop-down list on our order form.

What is the average support ticket response time?

A typical support ticket response time is within 30 minutes, 24x7x365.

Do you offer custom plans?

Certainly. Please see our Custom Solutions page for more information.

Do you sell domains?

At the present time we do not offer domain registration, as we have chosen to focus on our hosting service. However, some domain registars we recommend are Internet.BS and DynaDot.

Do you include a shared SSL certificate?

Yes, we do offer a shared SSL certificate, which will work based on sub domains of medialayer.net. For Application Intensive and Dedicated Server accounts, we have a separate anonymous domain available. This type of SSL certificate is functional even without a dedicated IP assigned to the account, however it cannot be combined with a separate SSL certificate in the same application hosting account.

Is LiteSpeed Web Server compatible with mod_rewrite and .htaccess?

Yes, LiteSpeed Web Server is designed to be fully compatible with both mod_rewrite and .htaccess.

What is the default PHP memory limit? Is it possible to increase it?

The PHP memory limit defines the amount of memory a PHP script may use in its execution. For example, each time a PHP based page is requested by a visitor, that particular execution would fall under the memory limit. Our default memory limit is set to a generous 128MB. It is technically possible to increase this, however that is unnecessary for the vast majority of applications.

Do you offer phone support?

At this point in time, we do not offer phone support. We have found ticket/email based support to be the most efficient, allowing our staff to multi-task and provide faster response times. For emergencies, we do have an emergency ticket status that can be used, along with an emergency email address which is distributed in our welcome messages (upon registration of a new account). It should also be noted that we monitor our servers 24x7, and are generally aware of server-level issues prior to a ticket being opened.

Do you provide SSH access?

All of our solutions feature SSH access on a custom port, which is included in our welcome email. If you ever forget this port, you may contact support to request it as well.

Do you perform daily backups?

We do perform daily backups which are intended for restoration in the case of server failure. However, you should also be performing your own backups for cases where you have an issue that is isolated to your account (for example accidentail deletion of a file, etc.). It is possible to generate backups within the control panel and then find it within the "backups" folder of FTP, which can then be downloaded to your local work station. Since we provide SSH access, some of our customers have even written their own scripts using utilities such as 'rsync' to perform remote backups. The more backups you have, the safer your data will be, so we highly recommend pursuing this.

Can I upgrade my plan at any time?

Yes, it's possible to seamlessly upgrade between all of the application hosting plans, you simply need to contact support to request the upgrade (or extra resources), and it is then billed to your acccount. To upgrade to other solutions such as a cloud server (Application Intensive) or dedicated server, there would be a migration required. In that case, you should contact sales to discuss the best upgrade path.

What is the limit on concurrent MySQL connections? Resource usage?

Our application hosting servers are configured to limit database connections to 100 on a per user basis. It is extremely unlikely that this limit would be reached under regular usage, even for a very popular website - it's simply in place to prevent abuse (i.e. flooding the server with malicious connections). We do separately monitor account resource usage, and will advise you in the case that your usage is inordinate. We would only suspend an account in an extreme situation where it is required to restore service for other customers on the server, or for an Acceptable Use Policy/Terms of Service violation.

What is your average server uptime?

Historically our application hosting servers have maintained an average uptime of above 99.9%. This includes scheduled maintenance and unexpected interruptions as well. We strive to continue maintaining the highest uptime possible.