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    Making a Crash Plan for Your Website

    October 22, 2015 — by Andreas — 0

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    You might not think you need a crash plan for your website, but emergencies and strange situations can crop up at any time.

    Paul Capizzi, vice president of technology for SBLI USA, shared the issues his customer-facing websites faced in August 2003, during a widespread blackout.

    “We had a good plan in place, but when the power is down for that long and you don’t have a redundant data center, there’s only so much you can do,” he said.

    It is impossible to completely prevent an outage, but businesses should take care to have a crash plan in place. Using technology and the assistance of hosting partners, you can ensure that downtime is minimal, and unnecessary downtime is non-existent. This helps you quickly restore service, too, so your customers will not deal with connectivity issues for long. Overall, a crash plan should be in place to minimize the impact an outage will have on your business and your clients.

    In Capizzi’s case, redundancy was the way to go. His company hosts its own sites and data center, has multiple ISPs, and backups for web servers and battery power. This keeps customers connected to the website and meets all of the demand on the business websites, as well as ensuring reliability and data protection.

    How can you justify a crash plan, and the infrastructure needed to prevent an outage? You first must consider how much your online operations impact your business revenue. If downtime directly translates to lost sales, or lost customers, it is easy to tell that you should have a plan in place. If you aren’t sure how your website impacts your business overall, conduct a study to be able to properly value your online presence.

    Options for infrastructure can be complex, like Capizzi’s, or you can simply ask your web host for a static page that will display a message indicating your site is down but will be back, branded with your company information so your users still feel connected to you instead of reaching a generic error page. This is likely a good solution if your website solely exists to generate leads and give customers basic information – if they encounter the static page they may simply try again later, or find another way to get in contact with the company.

    However, if you rely on your website for business transactions, downtime will cost revenue and customers, as well as time and money spent on restoration. If this is the case for your company you will want a more robust crash plan than a static page!

    Your first step should be performing regular, daily backups of the systems your website accesses. Don’t trust the backups to be safe and complete without testing them – be sure to actually check your backups to ensure they are working correctly and contain the data you need. You can do this easily, by uploading a file, deleting it, and requesting that your hosting company retrieve it. The host should be able to do this quickly, and if they cannot, you may have a problem. You should also backup your site on your own, regularly, so you have multiple options for restoring.

    Be aware of what your hosting options cover and make sure you are working with a provider who has a good track record for up time. Choose a responsive, reliable host, and you will be glad you did so if you need assistance in an emergency. You will want a host that can respond to your issues as quickly as possible, and work with you to get your website up and running before it causes problems for your customers.

    While choosing a hosting provider, consider whether you want shared hosting or a virtual private server – shared hosting is less expensive but poses security issues for data and customer orders. You can contract with various ISPs or hosting companies, or single-source your web host with one provider. Single-sourcing is less reliable for availability, so working with multiple vendors is a good way to protect against points of failure.

    Log and monitor your data yourself, instead of simply relying on your web host. Be sure to maintain clear, comprehensive logs – note any changes to the site, who made them, and when, as you will need all of these details if you are faced with a restoration following downtime. Monitoring your data through a dedicated service is a good way to know if you are experiencing outages in certain locations.

    If you do experience an outage, this is where your crash plan comes into play – don’t panic, but be sure to implement it as soon as possible. Your first contact should be your hosting company, which can look into the issue on their end and determine if it’s a hosting problem or something on your end. You can take this time to reach out to clients and other contacts and let them know that your site is down, giving them an estimated restoration time if you have that information. It’s important to continually update your customers so they know what to expect, without inundating them with information. Make your updates available to whoever wants or needs them.

    You can contact IT professionals for greater assistance, if you are out of your league or have reached the end of what you can do on your own. This may cost more money, but remember that every minute your site is down translates to long-term impacts on your business. Paying for emergency services is one way to get your site restored quickly and effectively, so you can get back to work without losing your client base permanently.

     

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    What to Know Before You Buy New Hardware

    October 15, 2015 — by Andreas — 0

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    Hardware is something companies go through on a regular basis – no matter what you do, if it involves a computer or Internet network, you are always going to need to budget for upgrades, replacements, and new purchases. There are countless options on the market, and many new server vendors, so it can be complicated and challenging to determine exactly what IT hardware options will work for your business.

    There are numerous factors to consider. What can you afford? You should be aware that inexpensive is not always better – sometimes you pay less and get less quality, without the customer service and guarantees that can turn a problem into a solution quickly. You get what you pay for, so it may be wise to invest a bit more into a company that can help you out along the way. Developing a good relationship with a vendor is a great way to make high-quality hardware affordable in the long run.

    You also need to consider whether a general purpose server or application-specific server system is appropriate for your company, based on what you do. Do you want to stick with Tier-1 rather than Facebook’s Open Compute Project (OCP)? It can be challenging to make these decisions, especially if your company is growing and changing.

    If you are struggling with buying new hardware, and are not sure exactly what you need to tailor your server specifications to your business, you aren’t alone. Companies in many industries are dealing with the same issues. Take your time to research hardware options, and if you find you are lacking the knowledge and time you need to do this, don’t be afraid to outsource. In the end, you should be focused on getting the best hardware, for a reasonable price, from a quality, customer-oriented server vendor.

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    Microsoft may be forced to disclose the e-mail to USA, stored in Ireland

    September 18, 2015 — by Andreas — 0

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    This month the American police and Microsoft met in the courtroom. The case concerns about US technology companies will be forced to disclose the data on servers located abroad.

    In this specific case police want Microsoft to disclose e-mails belonging to a person involved in a drug investigation. Microsoft says no to this and refers to the servers is Ireland, where the European legislation does not have to give out any information.

    “If the authorities wins this case, this can lead to large consequences for the entire cloud industry,” says Peter North Beck, a lawyer at the law firm Delphi to IDG.

    “This may mean that those who signed an agreement with US cloud companies can not feel confident that their information not be disclosed. Although it is in agreement that there is European legislation in force. There is an uncertainty one must consider, a risk assessment must be done, he says. ”

    Today, many Swedish authorities and municipalities is using American cloud services with the view that the service is protected by EU law but now all that is changing.

    “It will be a difficult situationt for companies too. They must comply with EU law in their contracts, while they have to follow the US and disclose data if authorities require. Laws against each other, “says Peter North Beck.

    The case has been on the map before in American courtroom and twice before Microsoft has lost. It becomes a negative decision in this case could mean the end of American cloud services in Europe.

    It can not be excluded, but we have to hope that it does not go that far. That in turn would mean a competitive advantage for Swedish and European companies. But it remains to be seen, says Peter North Beck.

    Miss Hosting, we protect all of our customers’ data and all servers are located in Sweden. We help everyone from private individuals and small companies to leading corporate groups that want to prevent the communication of a sudden end up with competitors or becomes publicly available. Protect your information and select a reliable supplier today!

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    Perfect time to change your host

    August 28, 2015 — by Andreas — 0

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    Is it time to change your web hosting company? Right now is the perfect time to do so, Miss hosting is offering FREE migration from your existing hosting company to any of our VPS solutions or Dedicated servers.

    Not only do we take the hassle of migration off your hands we have some of the most competitive pricing in the industry, check out any of our Dedicated server or VPS solutions for the deal of a life time.

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    What to Do When Your Customers Have Been Blacklisted By Google

    August 12, 2015 — by Andreas — 0

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    Being blacklisted by Google is not a rare occurrence – recently, the company blacklisted over 11,000 websites during the outbreak of SoakSoak malware, which attacked WordPress sites using a popular plugin. Whether it’s hack attacks, malware problems, or other security issues, Google is quick to shut down any potential problems with its blacklist.

    This can pose many problems for hosting providers! Customers may not always understand how or why they have been blacklisted by Google, even though it regularly does this to hundreds of sites every day. Your customers may be quick to blame, and that blame could fall on you. It is probably not your fault that the customer’s site has been blacklisted, but your customer will be looking to you for solutions. To provide good service, and be as helpful as possible, you should work to assist your customer in dealing with a Google blacklist problem.

    The best thing you can do is get started rehabilitating the site and getting it removed from the blacklist, as soon as possible. This could take hours, or weeks, depending on how bad the damage is. Google itself will work to remove the site from the blacklist once it meets the right conditions, but that process can take at least 10 hours, ranging up to a whole day. This equals lost revenue for your client, and ill will all around.

    To find out if your customer is actually blacklisted by Google, it is important to do some diagnostics first. You can use Google’s Webmaster Tools to find out if the site is on the list, or take a look at the Abusive Hosts Blocking List which can give some information about why the site may have been blacklisted. MX Toolbox and BlackListAlert.org can give out more information.

    According to Google, once a site has been restored, services like Wget, cURL, or Fetch as Google will work to verify that the site is in good shape.

    There are different ways to approach restoring the site based on this information. One of the quickest way to return things to normal is to restore from a clean back-up. A malware infection needs extra work, but if that isn’t the case for your client, a simple back-up restoration can do the trick. Make sure you offer back-up services as part of your hosting, so you can work to restore a site quickly for whatever reason is necessary.

    There are a few options for back-ups. You can offer your clients a managed services approach, which puts the onus on you to have a plan. As a hosting provider you will offer protection against threats, damage mitigation, and account restoration. You will need to allocate your own resources, from hardware and software to security, to be successful with this approach, and it will come at a cost to your customer as a result. If you are working with large businesses who have room for managed services in their budget, this should not be a problem, as the ability to restore quickly and get off of the blacklist is certainly worth it to a company of this size!

    Self-service back-ups are easier to handle for some customers, whether due to their budget, or their own robust IT skills and resources. You can assist your client with this by providing a cloud-based option so they can still have a back-up, but manage it on their own terms. This is a less expensive solution so it may prove to be quite popular with many clients, who will appreciate the lack of expense, the quick response time, and the level of control.

    You may wish to offer additional support, available at an extra cost to clients who choose a self-serve option. This way, if they get in over their heads or simply need an extra hand, you can provide it without losing your own money and time.

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