Monthly Archives: February 2014
Website Uptime and Downtime Explained
February 11, 2014
When consumers are shopping for a website, email or specialized host, they’ll see uptime listed as a feature or perk. A lot of web hosts advertise their server availability as a way to lure in new customers. Uptimes of 95% or greater are typical for many hosts. This percentage refers to the amount of time that websites on the host’s servers are connected to the Internet, meaning that a customer’s website and other associated services — including email — are available to access.
To calculate percentages, companies compare the amount of time that their servers are accessible to the total amount of time in a specific period. Monthly measurements periods are common. Hosting customers can also use those numbers to determine the maximum amount of unavailability their website will experience during a given period. This is calculated by multiplying the number of minutes in the time period — a month in this case — by the server unavailability percentage and dividing by 100.
In the sample of 99.% time up, the equations is as follows:
43200 x .1/100 = 43.2
Thus, your website or email would not be available to edit or visit for just under 45 minutes per month, assuming that your host provides accurate percentages about how frequently their servers go down. However, your website might not go down at all.
As long as the configuration and connection work, a server should be up. All the websites and other services on that server should work if they are not experiencing specific issues. Some website owners extend the definition of server to time that their websites are unavailable specifically. While the server may be functioning correctly, a website might be down because of a script issue, maintenance or even a Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. If you’ve recently purchased a new domain or are moving between hosts, this could cause your site to be down for up to 72 hours.
The causes of website unavailability fall into several basic categories: configuration errors, hardware failure, hackers, natural disasters and maintenance. A good host monitors servers and fixes issues as soon as they arise. Hosts who keep redundant backups can also minimize downtime for your website. Many hosts offer a guarantee, often called a service level agreement, or SLA. If your website does go down more frequently or for longer than their advertised percentage, you may qualify for your money back.
Pauses in website accessibility can be minor, but they might also be serious if you sell items or serve ads on your website and require this revenue for your company. The longer your website is down, the longer you’re without this source of revenue. If it’s your only source of revenue, choosing a host that has the maximum amount of proven uptime is definitely essential!
Increasing Server Performance And Functionality
February 11, 2014
Enhancing overall server performance can help make sure that everyone in an office stays productive throughout the day. No one wants to work with server technology that’s laggy and has other issues. Network managers should take the time to revamp the performance that they get from their servers. Many businesses should consider purchasing all new servers for their office from time to time. This is an important investment that should not be ignored by anyone in charge of managing server operations. But there are some departments and teams that don’t have the budget to update their server technology regularly. They will undoubtedly be looking in to how they can use cost effective methods of getting more out of the tech that they have already.
Performance can actually be improved if the computers connected have improved hardware as well. Office managers should try to make sure that their team is equipped with high speed disk drives and CPUs. They may want to monitor performance on a few office computers to check to see if this is the case. This will give managers a clear picture of the performance that they are generating from the entire network. They may even want to talk to their employees about how they feel the system is working. They will likely be able to provide some valuable insight in to what should be improved over time. If you’re trying to increase the performance of your company website, sometimes it’s best to start with a baseline. There are a number of sites where you can check this. Neustar has a speedtest located here: http://www.neustar.biz/resources/tools/free-website-performance-test, and Dotcom-Monitor has one located here: dotcom-monitor.com/WebTools/website-speed-test.aspx
Enhancing the web performance in an office is often a top priority for many mangers as well. This is owing to the fact that employees are increasingly reliant on web connections to provide services and complete projects. Office managers should check in to changing up the network protocol that has been set up on site. Managers may also be able to switch up memory cards that they use, which will provide a boost to configurations. They should continually monitor the web connection that they are getting from these different types of changes. They should try to make these changes incrementally, since this will let them know what works as well. This will help direct all office managers across the departments in a company to follow suit.
If an office is using SQL servers, there are a few extra tricks that they might be able to use going forward. Slow I/O stats may actually be a main culprit for poor performance from the server network. If managers have their IT staff continually monitor I/O stats and other server performance issues, they should be able to increase performance and avoid other networking issues.