mattwservices.co.uk - Server Configuration / Hosting / Support

@MattW just made my community more awesome, here's how.

I contacted Matt on the first of this month (Oct 1), my community is on a managed VPS - but managed in the sense that I don't have to take care of majority of the things but they won't step in for third party software (I don't think any managed provider would do that, unless stated), I was looking into methods to make the most out of my VPS, and I'm not gifted with the skills required to manage a server so I started looking on XenForo, found Matt and read really good reviews, ended up starting a vague personal conversation with him.

I wasn't sure of what I wanted when I contacted him, was it server management? Was it optimization? Was it a server move? I myself was confused, had to sort out a few things and when everything was in the right order, I informed him of my exact requirement - that is optimizing my current server to run my XF installation most efficiently.

Although I require more resources (RAM) he worked along and did his best with what I currently have, within minutes had most of the backend updated (PHP, MySQL, LiteSpeed, Memcache) and installed OPCache - gave me two pages where I can monitor these services and basically worked his magic on my VPS.

There was a drastic improvement, not slight - not noticeable, just plain drastic. My community has never responded or loaded so fast and so smoothly, the first time I resolved a report after Matt worked his magic - I was literally jumping :D Because it just responded so quick.

Basically; Matt worked his magic and my community loads much faster. Currently he continues to monitor my server for any tweaks to be made further or if things should be maintained as is. My users are happy, I'm happier. Hiring Matt was worth it, his professionalism and his approach even made someone like me (a person who doesn't know much about server management) to understand a lot. He even fixed a mistake I made with my Memcache setup.

If you are looking for someone to optimize your server so that your XF installation runs smoothly, Matt is your guy. I'm happy I won't need to worry about troublesome things like switching hosts - I just need to wait for my current provider to up the VPS packages and I'll just upgrade, if it weren't for Matt I'd have to take the drastic step of leaving the host I trust and wish to stay with.

I don't think this post even does justice to his service, anyways - keep it up Matt. Will be troubling you once more whenever I happen to up my VPS package.

I'll edit this post and update the before/after results after a while - with two really busy days coming up I'm eager to see the before/after results :D
 
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Just to post an update after 2 "peak" traffic times passing.

Previously, every Wednesday & Thursday's our server load would be anywhere between 4 - 8, and there would be visible lag/delay for a long duration.

Now, after Matt has optimized the server, over the span of 2 Wed/Thus, the highest server load has been 2.5... 2.5!!! From 8 to 2.5, now you can imagine how much smoother the community actually loads! If I had a GB of more RAM and if my VPS were on SSD, I'm sure the server load would be even lower. But oh well, that will come with time!

Can't speak enough on how big of a help Matt has done for us, and I thank him again :D
 
Normally, I wouldn't buy into people's comments just because I want to experience it myself. But seeing that the people that this guy is working with are running a big board, makes it very tempting.

Matt, I sent you a message. I'm willing to adjust to a dedicated server/vps if it means it could improve everything. But I just have a question, so for 30 days, we only have 1 hour in total with you?
 
Blast said:
Matt, I sent you a message. I'm willing to adjust to a dedicated server/vps if it means it could improve everything. But I just have a question, so for 30 days, we only have 1 hour in total with you
Click to expand...
I've just replied to your PM. Basically yes, for the reduced recurring fee. You are more than welcome to purchase more time though.
 
Update:

@MattW is saving me big $$$. As his client, now that he switched my server to Nginx, I no longer have to pay my hosting company for cPanel, managed services, or LiteSpeed Webserver. My site speeds have never been faster, and my dedicated server loads have never been lower. My server costs are down by nearly 50%.

I've hired other people/services in the past to help with my sites and servers. Matt is the very best, and his rates are more than reasonable. Can't recommend Matt's services highly enough.
 
Steve F said:
Just popping in to give big thanks to Matt for helping out @Russ and myself on our VPS server. @MattW was truly a pro at communication and knows exactly what he is doing, will definitely be using his services again very soon!
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Just a follow up after using @MattW 's services now for around 2 years on/off.

Needed Matt's help again yesterday, as always gets the job done quickly and accurately. No doubt we will continue using his services :)
 
Steve F said:
Just a follow up after using @MattW 's services now for around 2 years on/off.

Needed Matt's help again yesterday, as always gets the job done quickly and accurately. No doubt we will continue using his services :)
Click to expand...

I think he goes above and beyond the call of duty as supplier of hosting, yesterday i was having problems with emails and he found issues with the way I'd (not) configured Amazon SES, went in and sorted it out.

I don't think many hosting companies would do that.
 
I had used Matt's services last year, and we recently moved hosting providers to a new server which had better specs than our old, and I wanted Matt to perform his magic to make the most out of the shiny new server.

He is the best at what he does, after he worked his magic (which is magic to me, coz I don't even know how he does it!) there is quite a noticeable improvement in performance. If you want your servers optimized to run your XF Board at 100% - Matt is the guy.

Apart from his quality service, he is also a really humble and awesome human being. Keep it up Matt, you have me as a customer who'll keep returning! :)
 
I just want to post a small follow up;

After Matt performed the initial optimization, there were a few (only 4) SQL errors, I reached out to him and he sorted it out instantly. Kudos to him for that, he is really helpful :D

And today, we had 3,000+ visitors online for over 5 hours, and currently (at the time of this post) still have over 1,500+ visitors online (250 of which are registered members). During this period, the server has not lagged or performed poorly for even a second. We set a new record for ourselves for the most visitors online today - and I'm so happy that apart from having a decent server & provider I got Matt to optimize my server because I think without him doing what he does best our servers wouldn't have been able to take the load so well.

The CPU Utilization never crossed 150% (we have access to 4 cores, so we can go up to 400%) and the server load didn't cross above 2.00.

Once again Matt, thank you for your awesome service.
 
Thanks for bumping this thread as I have also used MattW a while ago and cannot say enough about his professionalism and due diligence in undertaking the work. He optimised a new setup for me a while ago, setup monitoring and just made my life easier so I wouldnt need to worry about it. Cannot say enough about his great work.

A pleasure to deal with and ill be contacting him again to do more work for me. Highly recommended. If you are thinking about using him, dont look no further as he is THE man.
 
I asked if @MattW could help me with the following:

* Install a new VPS from scratch, and optimize it.
* Move my current site and all it's content to the new server.
* Update all the software to the latest versions.
* Install a backup service to another VPS (Backupsy).

Of course he could, and he did this lightning fast. I didn't time it, but I'd say the totalt time my site was unavailable for posting was like 5-6 minutes.
Matt is very humble and helpful. He goes the extra mile and the communication is great.

Couldn't be more happy and I really recommend others to get help from @MattW, I know that I will reach out to him again anyway... :)
 
The is the 2nd time I used @MattW services. Recently he did a server move for me and optimized the new server for xenforo. The site is running great and noticeably faster. Downtime was very minimal. I was quite surprised. This guy knows his stuff. Great communication throughout the process. Goes above and beyond. 100% recommended.

Thanks @MattW !
 
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Just wanted to say how pleased I am with MattW service yet again :) Matt has been providing server and xenforo services management for us for the past 9 months and within that time has helped with any problems we have encountered instantly when asked.

Lately we have been suffering from massive slow down on our forum, Matt made some suggestions and has moved our site today to new hosting with the minimum of down time - the site is now running faster than ever. So impressed.

Trustworthy, great communication and a pleasure to deal with. If you are looking for help with xenforo/server optimisation - he is the man to contact for sure.

Thanks Matt
 
I run a network of 4 forums, and some random websites hosted on one server.

I'm currently paying a server management guy to run the server.

Would Matt be able to take over that role? As I know jack about servers. But run some big boards. (2 of the 4 are 1m+ posts, one other not far behind, one newish).
 
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