Maximising Revenue By Opting For Higher Availability With A Web Host
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by: Dirik Hameed
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Word Count: 495
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 Time: 3:27 PM
It may seem trite but many customers ask themselves why high availability is an important quality in a web host. The short answer is that continuous, uninterrupted service is valuable, both financially and operationally. Network downtime results in lost revenue opportunities for businesses and severely impairs the operational integrity of public sector and volunteer or non-profit organizations. UK webhosting helps organizations to minimize the disruptions and losses caused by interrupted network service.
One of the main benefits provided by a web host is high continuity of service. Most providers make strong claims regarding their ability to maintain continuity of service with little or no downtime. These claims should be scrutinized carefully. In particular, it is important to be clear about the meaning or definition of several terms.
In the first place, the distinction between scheduled and unscheduled downtime is important. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, scheduled rather than unscheduled downtime arguably causes the most disruption to service. This is because scheduled downtime is non-discretionary in the sense that it cannot be avoided. This can be a problem for some hosts unless they have sufficient slack capacity to use to maintain service to clients during the scheduled period.
Scheduled downtime may involve routine repair and maintenance, installation of new more efficient units, replacement of outdated capacity and so on. It also often involves the installation of a new software patch to existing system software. That patch installation usually requires a reboot or a modification to the existing system configuration to ensure the new software takes effect.
Unscheduled downtime typically arises from a physical malfunction like a hardware or software failure, power outage, failed CPU or RAM components, a temperature related shutdown, physically disrupted network connections, security breaches, or various other software, middleware, or operating system failures.
Some suppliers exclude scheduled downtime from their reported uptime calculations. Excluding scheduled downtime does of course raise the availability reported by the host. This makes their performance appear more favourable. They argue this exclusion is justified because this scheduled downtime is non-discretionary or beyond the control of the host.
For example, a week has 168 hours and a four week period has 672 hours. Each four week period may require 10 hours of scheduled server downtime for routine maintenance. A web host may report 100 percent availability during that four week period even though it may have had to discontinue operations for 10 hours during the scheduled maintenance period.
Some suppliers maintain operations by staggering scheduled downtime across their capacity. The staggering is designed to ensure that the host always has sufficient capacity to maintain service to all clients.
In summary, it is easy to see why high availability is an important quality in a web host. High availability means high operational uptime and this in turn allows maximized revenue earning potential. Put another way, high availability is equivalent to low redundancy. This is financially important for many businesses and operationally critical for various public services (like GPS). Web hosting can help avoid lost opportunities.
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