FACT: Hardware fails with a probability of one.
Your business probably relies on at least one “office” computer and a website server to host your company website. If any of your hardware systems fail, are you prepared?
A website server failure can cost your company hundreds to thousands of dollars in lost revenue not to mention a loss of potential customers. But there are ways to help safe-guard against potential loss in the event of a failure. Where your website is hosted matters.
Here are some best-practices you should consider when choosing your hosting company:
- Uptime: Look for companies boasting consistent uptime of about 99.9%.
- Server Updates: Just as you would maintain a car, your website server needs routine maintenance. Having the latest security patches and updates installed on your server will allow your website to run at peak performance and minimize security breaches.
- *Regular Backups: Ensure your hosting provider runs routine backups. It’s too late to ask for a backup once the server has crashed. Ideally your web hosting company will provide onsite AND offsite backups. Onsite backups are pretty useless if the server facility is flattened in a hurricane.
- *Ability to Restore: What good is a backup if you have no way of using it? It’s like having a frozen dinner without the microwave. Make sure backups and restores are tested regularly.
FACT: PC’s can drop dead too.
Here are a few suggestions to help keep your PC ticking.
- Don’t fly without a safety net. Run regular backups on everything. Don’t just back up to another disk or computer within the same location. What if your place of business burns to the ground? There are plenty of online services that provide automated online backups of your system.
- Give your computer a break. Keeping your computer running 24/7 puts unnecessary wear and tear on the hardware. Reboot your computer every few days to clear the cogs. Or give it a night off.
*Some companies charge additional fees for regular backups and may charge another fee to restore the data. At Double Fox Websites, we run daily onsite and offsite backups. We regularly restore our backups to ensure that our backup-restore systems are functioning optimally. These services are included in all of our hosting packages.
