Domain and DNS Management:
Onega are members of Nominet, the organisation that is responsible for .UK domain registrations and domain space governance.
As members and tag holders (a registrar) we can register domains on a client's behalf and help to manage and maintain these.
We can also provide the same services for other domains like .com and .eu, for example, but where we get the choice we'd lean towards .UK domains as these have very good governance, the protection of the UK government and associated security infrastructure. Nominet are based in the UK (near Oxford), have helpful staff, and if you ever need it, a very fair Dispute Resolution System.
Good management of domains involves getting things right in the first place and Onega staff can help to answer questions such as 'What domains should I register for my business?' and ensure that critical DNS services are well maintained.
A couple of our blog posts are well worth reading on the subject also:
http://www.onega.net/blog/2015/6/4/the-importance-of-using-secure-dns-servers
http://www.onega.net/blog/2016/3/15/saints-and-sharks-in-dns-on-dot-uk
http://www.onega.net/blog/2016/3/8/march-planned-engineering-and-service-updates
http://www.onega.net/blog/2016/03/2/bono-pastore
Please note that .UK registrations are subject to Nominet's Standard Terms and Conditions - see http://www.nominet.org.uk/go/terms for details.
To ensure that things are clear, please note the following key terms related to .uk domain registrations:
Charges:
.UK Domain registration costs £10 per year Ex VAT to register or renew a domain. This would include .UK, .CO.UK, .LTD.UK .ORG.UK etc. Longer term registrations are available (up to 10 years max) and we can quote for these at the time of renewal or registration after discussing what is best for you. Longer registrations are more cost effective and also involve less admin as the years can fly by.
Renewals:
We will do our best to contact you in good time ahead of a domain registration renewal to discuss if you'd like your domain renewed or not. We can also set an auto renewal instruction to reduce risk of a renewal being missed. We generally email and phone before renewal is due so that we check what you'd like to do and action accordingly. It is important that your details be up to date with contacts and addresses with us so that we or Nominet can contact you if and as needed.
If you would like to contact us about your domains at any time then please feel free to call us on 020 7536 6350 Opt 2 (Support) and we'll be happy to discuss.
Cancellations / Non Renewals / Transfers:
If you'd like to cancel a domain or not to renew then just let us know and we'll action as appropriate. There are no charges for cancelling or transferring a domain (from our end at least). Once we've actioned an instruction to transfer a domain for you then we can't be held responsible for what happens with your domain from there, but we can help you to the best of our abilities should you need any assistance (the latter would be at our standard support time charge rate if not covered under a fixed price maintenance contract you have with us).
DNS Management:
It is important to note that Domain registration and DNS management are two different things, though closely related to each other. Domains are registered with Nominet or such other domain registry as appropriate for the domain for .com .london .eu etc. There is then the DNS (Domain Name Services) system which allows for creation of Zone files which say what the DNS entries are for your domain and where these point.
Typically you'll have entries for an active domain which say where your website is (the www. record), how email should get to you (e.g. an MX record which points to your Office 365, Email Server, or Mimecast mail filtering service etc. ), as well as records for VOIP and Skype For Business (ex Lync) communication etc.
For best practice, we now setup client DNS Zones on Amazon's AWS Route 53, which means that for each domain, you have four redundant best practice DNS servers, so that your vital DNS services are highly available, reliable and resilient.
We charge £5 ex VAT per month per domain (typically we'd bill this in advance at £60 + VAT annually for ease of admin for all) for the DNS hosting service, and this includes the setup cost, changes, and running of the service. If you turn into the next Ocado or Reddit and have very high traffic levels there may be extra charges for this traffic but these are pretty nominal in the scheme of things and likely to be entirely academic to 99.9% of clients in the real world. We'll flag this with you should that (happy challenge) come to pass.
Setup with DNS like this, your services should be as close to 'best practice' and bomb proof as far as possible. The underlying DNS servers are on different networks, at different data centres and physical locations etc.
Domain and Certificate Management Online StoreFront: Clients can now register and renew domains directly via the link below: