Monthly Archives: October 2015

30 Oct

Choosing the Best Dedicated Windows Hosting Services for Business

Last Updated on October 30, 2015 by Ruchir Shastri

Dedicated Windows Hosting for Your Business

There are plenty of businesses that rely on Microsoft Windows Servers to host special applications like ASP.NET websites, MS SQL server databases, Exchange email servers, Sharepoint applications, Navison erp system, failover active directory hosting,  etc. However, finding the right web host which can provide you with complete Microsoft Hosting Solutions has always been a challenge for end users. Let us overview some of the most important points to consider when you are shopping for the best dedicated windows hosting for your business:

1. Microsoft SPLA Partner

Microsoft allows using its licenses for production web based hosting servers through authorized SPLA partners only. These are volume licenses which have monthly recurring fee based on the number of physical or virtual processors in your server or number of user licenses. You will have access to full suite of Microsoft licenses through SPLA partner and is the only authentic way of using licenses in production hosting environment. Hence, as a first step, it is important to opt for a provider that will be providing you with authentic & valid licenses as per protocols laid down by Microsoft.

2.  Sales Engineering Team Who Understands Microsoft Windows Licensing

It is important that the sales engineering team of your windows dedicated hosting company is well aware of optimizing your license usage so as to ensure that you are not overpaying for your licenses along with ensuring that you are not missing on important terms of license usage which may pose an issue at a later stage. Microsoft licensing is not the easiest and there are bits & pieces to be taken from various parts of SPUR to come up with complete understanding of its licensing structure.

3. Microsoft Certified Technical Support

It takes a lot of efforts to understand underlying architecture of Windows server hosting products and it is best done by techs who have obtained Microsoft Certification for its products. You will need to have experts to review your website hosting server, database or hyper-v vps hosting servers on a regular basis to ensure that they are performing at the very best and also that they are completely secure with the latest updates / patches applied. Also, in case of any issues encountered, you will need an expert to fix them professionally to ensure that it is resolved in accurate & timely manner with assurance that the issue will not return again in future. It takes years of experience working with Microsoft hosting servers efficiently and hence you will need to consider reviewing the length of a windows server hosting service provided by your host.

4. Enterprise-Class Server Hardware

Microsoft products perform the best with ample amount of resources like CPU, RAM, SSD storage, etc. You will definitely not like to have various server components going out of service at regular intervals which will affect your business website or application severely. Hence, it is important to ensure that your prospective Microsoft host is using the best server hardware components which are attested to run in 24/7 environment. Enterprise servers from SuperMicro, Dell, etc. are recommended along with using Intel processors for efficient processing. It is also highly important to choose correct storage array for your server – best will be to opt for an enterprise SSD server as solid state drives will provide the best performance for your website & hosting. You will need to ensure that your host uses only enterprise-class components for servers for having a reliable server hosting experience. It is also worth considering that the hardware components used (raid controllers, addon cards, etc.) are compatible with Windows Server Systems so as to avoid any potential issues at a later stage.

We at Softsys Hosting have years of experience delivering the best-in-class Windows-based hosting coming with fully managed and self-managed servers, ultimate capacity and resources.

15 Oct

How to Choose a Hosting Plan for Your Web Store?

Last Updated on October 15, 2015 by Ruchir Shastri

If you are hosting a web store (ecommerce website), it is very important to choose a correct hosting plan from your hosting provider as it will directly affect your business. A few important points to consider are outlined below:

1) Hosting Company

You will definitely need to consider a web host which has years of experience hosting ecommerce websites and can help you in getting your store up and running 24/7. It is absolutely necessary to avoid a newbie host (less than 2 years in business) as you may end up with issues that are not sure of resolving quickly. Furthermore, you should also ensure that your prospective host has fully enterprise class server hosting infrastructure / data center to ensure that your website performs at the best of its ability at all times. A fully managed server is highly recommended since it will ensure that you have backups, security, monitoring & 24/7 support taken care of by the experts.

2) Security

Security is the key for all web stores as they are publicly available (including to hackers). You will need to ensure that your customers’ data along with credit card data are securely stored (with encryption & hashing). Also, database should not be publicly accessible with the appropriate firewall solution in place to keep it safe & secure at all times. The operating system & applications should be kept up to date with latest security updates / patches installed regularly. It is also highly recommended that you have DDoS protection included with your hosting plan since it will help to protect your server from widespread online attacks and ensure that your website stays online even in case of ongoing attacks.

3) Hosting Environment / Plan

For an ecommerce website / web store, it is recommended that you host it in a dedicated environment (VPS or Dedicated Hosting) so that your server node or operating system is not shared with other customers. Keeping an isolated environment helps in safeguarding your website against “bad neighbors” which may exist in a shared hosting environment. With VPS hosting or a dedicated server plan, you will be having total control over your server environment to be able to secure & configure it as per your requirements.

4) Scalability

In ecommerce business, you never know when your business will pick up and you may start receiving high amount of traffic which can typically happen during festival season or when you are running an advertising campaign or simply when your web store becomes very popular. During such a period, you might require more server resources to handle the traffic without affecting your website going down or becoming inaccessible for your end users. Scalable cloud, VPS hosting or dedicated servers can be an ideal choice in such case. You will be able to expand your server resources on the fly.

5) 24/7 Server Support & Monitoring

It is highly important that you have access to technical support from your hosting company on 24/7 basis through email / ticket or live chat based system along with emergency phone support. Things can break at times and it is best to notice & fix them ASAP without impacting your business. A robust monitoring solution from your web host should help in detecting faults or issues with your server and fix them proactively. Also, access to efficient team of system administrators will ensure that you have qualified techs who can fix server issues immediately at any time of a day.

Softsys Hosting offers premium class ecommerce hosting with fully managed VPS and dedicated hosting packages that are ideal for web stores of any size and functionality.