Whatever you do online you rely on a provider’s server infrastructure, whether you’re updating Facebook, sending a tweet, reading your emails or running your online store. When these services don’t work it is frustrating, if your eCommerce store fails to function it affects your business and can affect your bottom line.

Even if you don’t have your own website good hosting can help boost your eBay listings if you host your product images or design online.

It is vital to invest in your server setup but there are a number of factors that are often overlooked that can affect your business:

Downtime

This is the most obvious issue that people look at, what is the server down time? Often hosting providers quote figures such as 99% uptime but what does that actually mean?

Note: Often service providers do not count planned maintenance as downtime.

Hosting providers apply a number of methods to combat down time:

Backup power, Uninterruptible Power supplies and backup generators

– these cover short power outages however they are not fool proof – batteries run out, fuses blow and generators run out of fuel. These also do not cover hardware failure such as a hard drive failing.

Backup servers/ multiple servers –

Additional servers that either run in tandem with the main server or kick in if the main server fails. These cover one off machine failures but fail if the entire data center fails.

Multi-location data centres

– this is a technology Frooition employ it maximizes uptime as there are multiple servers running in multiple locations across the globe. If one center goes down then another data center takes over seamlessly.

Dedicated servers –

a lot of cheaper hosting shares your server with other users, this increases the chance of a virus or configuration bug taking your site down. Using shared hosting can also slow your site down due to “noisy neighbors” – this is where a user sharing your server has a lot of traffic or does a lot of processing uses the majority of the server’s capability leaving you with a slow site.

Backup’s, Data Integrity and Security-

If your hosting company does suffer downtime it is important that your data is backed up so it can be fully restored.

Multiple servers limit the chance of downtime and should create multiple copies of your data so loss is minimized.  Hosting companies should also create regular backups of your data; the best hosting services create a snapshot of the entire server including operating systems and configuration files so your entire server infrastructure could be replicated in a different location without hassle.

Your hosting company also needs to be secure; if your data is stolen from the server you may be liable so it is important to ensure you are covered against this. Many website and payment providers require PCI compliance which is a certification that the server has been tested for security weaknesses.

Frooition’s multiple server infrastructure uses the latest encryption technologies to keep data safe; servers have full snapshots several times a day to ensure no data is lost. Frooition’s servers are also frequently subjected to strict penetration tests by a third party company to ensure the security is cutting edge.

It is always advisable that you keep a local copy of any files in case the worst should happen.

Bandwidth/Data Transfer restrictions –

Cheaper hosting providers often enforce restrictions to limit their costs.

The bandwidth or data transfer is the size of the page/image loaded multiplied by the number of times it is loaded – for example a 1mb image that is loaded 100 times in a month would use up 100mb of data transfer.

If your hosting has a bandwidth cap of 1 GB (1,000mb) then it can easily be used up in a month, if it is used up the site will cease to function and you will lose sales. In terms of eBay listings your bandwidth will run out at your busiest time resulting in a bad listing without images.

Frooition do not enforce data transfer restrictions on any hosting services.

Site speed –

Cheaper hosting tends to provide slower site loading speeds, this is due to the number of people connecting with a server, the capacity of the outgoing connection and the specification of the actual server.

The distance to the server also makes a difference for site load speed, the closer to a server you are, in theory, the faster the site will load, however a user in Scotland loading a page on a server in London may actually go via Europe and the United States before receiving the data.

Frooition use Multi-location data centers and edge technology to ensure that your data is sent from the closest server using the most direct route. Frooition also leverage site caching so you aren’t reloading the same files unnecessarily.

Latency –

latency is slightly different to site speed although it does affect site speed. Latency is the delay in the server fetching the information and sending it to the client. This is less about connection speeds and more about server specification.

In short a faster processor and more ram will shorten the latency of the site.

Auto-scaling means that if the server load grows the infrastructure automatically activates an additional server to help share the load. Once the load reduces the servers are reduced to save energy and costs.

Frooition also use a Content delivery network with caching to again reduce latency.

In Summary

There are a lot of hosting providers available with a number of different specifications so it is important to shop around and get the right balance of performance, reliability and cost.

Frooition continually reinvest in the latest technology to ensure a top level service.

For more information about Frooition services visit https://www.frooition.com today!