The Importance of Downtime Management

Recently a major service we use (not naming names) went down for almost the entire day. We get that downtime can happen unexpectedly. However, this didn’t stop the fact that we had no access to several core functions our team use daily. Thankfully all issues were resolved within a day, their downtime management could have been better.

This does highlight why having resilient hosting, with enough redundancy is important though.

 

A Good Example of Things Out of Your Control

Here is part of the (modified to keep names private) email we received explaining the issue mentioned earlier:

What happened?

The application and website are securely hosted on AWS, which normally provides an exemplary level of service.

Unfortunately, AWS incorrectly believed there was an administrative issue with our account that temporarily suspended all access.

As AWS only provides ticket-based support with minimal escalation options this took longer than expected to resolve.

                                                                                                                                                       

Will this happen again?

Access has been reinstated, and we’re in the process of rectifying with AWS their information.

Additionally, we now have a dedicated point of contact in place to ensure any issues in the future can be resolved more promptly.

We do not expect this particular issue to happen again.

We know that access to your processes and tasks is critical to how you manage your business.

 

Why Mention This?

You may be wondering, why mention any of this?

We’re not looking to name & shame anyone. We of all people know that things can go wrong unexpectedly and we have tried to improve our own downtime management.

Instead, we thought it would be good to highlight the importance of making sure the service providers you use have the appropriate measures in place for when things do go wrong. Here are a couple of key things we think you should have when downtime occurs:

 

Clear Communications

Ideally, you want clear & prompt communication with your service provider. Often a lot of the frustration in these situations can come from the lack of information about why you can’t access the services you need – especially if the service in question impacts your customers.

Some transparency, in a timely manner, goes a long way in our experience.

 

Estimates and Updates

From our own experiences, we’ve found that providing regular updates about how the solution to the issues is coming along, helps a lot with managing frustrations and the feeling of waiting around.

If possible, getting estimated times when a fix might be in place can do wonders. This means you can let your customers know when they can expect for normal services to resume.

However, from first-hand experience, these estimates can often change as work is done, so take them with a pinch of salt. Sometimes fixes are quicker than expected and sometimes things are more complicated than first thought.

 

What We Try to Do at HA Hosting

As much as we’d like to avoid it, downtime does happen to us sometimes. When it does, this is what we like to do:

• Updates the Status Page, addressing the downtime.
• Regular updates to the status page, giving progress reports on any fixes and what the actual issues were in the first place
• When possible, try to give rough timeframes of how long a fix might take
• Update timeframes as and when we know it might take longer

The reason we like to make use of the Status Page is that it gives all our customers one place they know they can go to. This means we can update it quickly, and get on with fixing the issues at hand.

 

You can find the Status Page by clicking here or find it at any time by going to the top of the Homepage of the HA website.

How to Save Money with Colocation Hosting

Colocation Hosting

As you may know, Colocation can be a very powerful form of Hosting. It lets you have all the advantages of having your own servers but without the huge upfront costs of infrastructure set up & also means you don’t have to worry about maintaining uptime.
A good Data Centre will do its best to make sure that your Colocation Hosting has great uptime, via expert management of power, cooling, network, and security.

Start Saving Money on Your Colocation Hosting

There are a couple of different ways in which you can save a bit of money with your Colocation Hosting.
– Pay-as-you-go power
– Energy-efficient servers
As you know electricity is getting more and more expensive. One way to help mitigate some of these costs would be to look at setting up your Colocation hosting with a Data Centre that uses a ‘Pay as You Go’ power system.
This is as exactly as it sounds. You are only charged for the power you use. Sounds simple right?
This requires the Data centre to have the systems in place to take regular readings, and then work out how much to charge. The downside to this is that you can have a variable monthly bill, depending on what you use your server for.

As mentioned earlier, another way to reduce the cost of your Colocation is to invest in a more energy-efficient server. This will simply mean your server overall will use less power for the tasks it needs to perform. Typically, these are more modern machines, and possibly more expensive initially to buy.

What impacts how much power a server uses:

• Age
• Older servers are generally less efficient, so use more power. This also means they run hotter and require more cooling.
• CPU usage
• If a server is carrying out complex calculations it will use more CPU and therefore more power. However, a high proportion of servers are idle for a lot of the time.
• Hard Drives
• A server with a lot of busy hard drives will use more electricity than one with a similar amount of SSD (Solid State Drives)
• Temperature
• A server that is running hot will spin its fans at a higher speed and this will mean that it uses more electricity. This can be caused by missing or failed fans, poor airflow, or obstructions at the front or back.

 

Calculate Your Costs

We’ve provided a tool you can use which will give an estimate of how much you can expect a 1U server to cost, with differing amounts of power usage.
Click the link below and feel free to see how much you could expect to pay, and possibly save, on your Colocation.

Calculate Your Colocation Power Costs

 

Get in Touch

Contact us via our website

 

What is Single Server Colocation Hosting?

So, we’ve chatted about Colocation before and it’s one of the core services we provide here at HA Hosting. But what exactly is Colocation?

 

A Quick Rundown

Colocation is a service where a provider will offer the facilities to hold your physical servers for you. They will provide power, internet, temperature management, and security, to make sure your server stays running as much as possible.

They will often have rack space available, to which your server(s) are installed. You are then given the appropriate information and means to access your server 24/7.

The biggest benefit is that you can have the benefits of having your servers but without the huge costs of setting up your server room. This is often ideal for IT companies who have a lot of servers but don’t want/have the room to store them all in-house.

Colocation services are usually paid for month by month.

 

What’s the Benefit of Single Server Colocation Hosting?

The biggest benefit is that you can have the benefits of having your servers without the upfront/ongoing costs. Setting up and managing a server room is expensive after all.

This is usually much better for businesses that don’t need to necessarily have their services immediately on hand.

Another benefit is that the facilities/process are specifically put in place to ensure constant uptime/access. On top of this, the conditions of the server and server room are monitored by experts. So, if anything goes wrong you can be informed straight away as well as fix the issue as soon as possible.

Any decent Data Centre will have the appropriate security measures in place to make sure your servers stay safe. We can’t speak for others, but our Colocation is protected by:

• 24/7 CCTV
• Controlled-access areas (restricted by designated key fobs)
• Number-locked colocation racks.

To go with this, we follow the ISO27001 framework to help ensure data security. The security of your data shouldn’t be something you should have to worry about!

Another benefit that people forget about is that it means your servers are kept off-site from you. This means in the case of any fires/floods/theft, that your data/servers are kept safe. Meaning your services can stay up and consistent no matter what.

 

Isn’t Colocation Expensive?

You may think initially yes. However, when compared to the costs of keeping and managing your server facilities the cost is significantly less. It’s no secret that constant server maintenance can be expensive. The hardware alone can cost a small fortune. Also, if your business means you need those server facilities for it to operate, then it’s usually worth the investment.

 

Want to Know More?

This blog post has just gone over some of the basics of Colocation. If you would like to know more about Colocation you can take a look at our Colocation page on our website, which will tell you a lot more about it. From tech specs to overall usage.

Also, if you have a specific question about Colocation or want to know if it would be right for you, you can get in touch with us here. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can, hopefully giving you the information, you need.

Feel free to follow us on social media if you want to keep up to date with what we’re up to.

LinkedIn

 

Choosing what backup software to use can be complicated. There are many factors to consider and unfortunately, there is no one ‘best choice’ as every person’s or business’ requirements will be different.

With that being said, here are a few pointers to get you in the right direction. You can use some of these prompts to help you start making a shortlist of the software that would be more suitable for you.

Does it Backup What You Need it to?

• Operating Systems?
• Storage Devices
• Virtualization

Where Do You Want to Backup to?

• Local Network
• Own Remote Site
• Rest of the World

Advanced Features Such as DR & BC?

• Features that are ‘nice to have’
• Features that would present sales opportunities

Licensing Costs

• Is The Pricing Reasonable?
• Is The Licensing Easy to Understand?
• If Monthly – Is There a Minimum Commitment? Minimum term or spend?

Do You Need Your Backup Software to Overcome a Specific Scenario?

Internet Backup

When was the last time you checked or updated your backup software?

Having a backup solution in the first place is, of course, a positive thing. It adds a layer of resilience to your business, ensuring you can recover from any incident with speed. This is a great practice to have in place and means you can focus on running your business and providing your services to your clients.

However, just having a backup solution isn’t enough in the long term.

 

Looking after a backup solution can be complicated. It involves several different components, that all need regular attention, maintenance, and updates. 

Client machines, Backup Servers, and Storage devices all need to be kept up to date with the latest software and security patches. Some will also need an Operating System that has the latest patches. Hardware devices will occasionally need firmware updates. 

Why You Should Be Doing Backup Software Updates

The older a software gets, the more of a security risk it can be, due to the software’s code being exposed to the public for longer. This potentially gives people with malicious intent more time to work around the security in the coding.

Updating your backups software helps to mitigate this.

Another benefit of having all your backup infrastructure on the latest versions is that components will talk to each other in the most efficient manner, which can give you better performance. 

Combined this will give you the best Reliability, Security, and Performance for your backup solution.

  

What Should You Check For Updates?

Below is a small summary of some of the key areas you might want to make sure are updated to the latest versions. Bear in mind, you might need to check compatibility issues between the versions for different parts of your infrastructure.

Client Machines 

• Client backup software or agent
• Operating System
• Anti-Virus
• Security

Backup servers 

• Operating System
• Backup software
• Anti-Virus
• Security

Storage devices 

• Operating System / Firmware
• Anti-Virus
• Security

If your backup software is not up to date, then you should consider a managed backup service. These services are aimed at helping Service Providers deliver backup services to their own clients. Typically, the updating, monitoring, and reporting will all be done by the Managed Backup Provider.

 

Backup Update Checklist

We have created a free resource that gives some information on updating your backup, and also gives you a checklist, that you can use. With the goal that if you can tick off every element on there, then most aspects of your backup should be up to date!

You can get this checklist here: https://hahosting.com/backup-up-to-date/ 

Should Your Domain Be In Your Name?

A Website Domain is a massively important part of your business, especially in today’s age where online business is bigger than ever.

So does it really matter what your Domain Name is called? From a purely technical level – no. No matter the name it will work as any other domain would. However, the major aspects to consider are branding, memorability, and to an extent, SEO.

 

Branding & Memorability

This arguably is the most important aspect of your domain name. Does it match your business’ current branding?

Typically the way to do this would be to have your domain name be the same as your business’ name. For example, Apple’s domain name is ‘Apple.com’. This sounds obvious but you’d be surprised how many websites don’t do this. This helps with your overall branding due to consistency and the repetition of the same name will make it more likely for prospects and clients to remember.

Consistent branding across all of your platforms and marketing will make the experience for the customer less jarring and confusing. They’ll always know when they’re on your site or looking at your content. Don’t underestimate the power of strong branding!

This could also be used as a time of self-reflection. Perhaps seeing a crazy long website address will make you realize if you need to re-brand your business’ name.

 

As another small benefit, having a matching name as to what appears on your website content will be good for SEO. Again this is about consistency, Google will recognize more usage of the same name. Of course, you want to be the first search result when someone does a search for your name directly right?

 

What Should I Call My Website Domain?

As long as your domain name is recognizable as relating to you or your company it will most likely be fine. Generally, the shorter, more readable, and more memorable a domain name is, the better. To use the Apple example again, imagine if instead of apple.com, their website was called applephonesandmacs.com…Not exactly easy to remember.

Often this will come down to how you want your brand to be seen. Major international brands will spend a lot of time and money making sure that they own all international versions of a domain name e.g:

• apple.com                   
• apple.co.uk
• apple.es              
• apple.cn
• apple.de

 

Email Domain Name

If possible it is important to get your email domain to be in your own name too. This is for mostly the same reasons as above. Having your own email looks a lot more professional in someone’s inbox too. For example, let’s compare:

[email protected] vs [email protected]

The second option looks more like a personal email account, rather than a business. Just something to consider.