Why Should Hosting Companies Monitor Uptime?
It is fun when you have someone to blame on. The idea is good for a catchy caption like the above one but not for the business’s reputation. Therefore, it is very important to explore the reasons behind the downtime and fix them right away.
Uptime, or the absence of downtime, is crucial for your clients to engage their users without interruption. The server issues equally affected business houses, big and small. When you are on a shared platform, such interruptions are inevitable. For example, despite being a significantly large player in the cloud industry, Amazon has suffered huge losses because of downtime. The solution lies in adopting more reliable cloud solutions that enable better Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
What is uptime?
In simple terms, it is the time for which the website is functional and accessible for the visitors. Usually, the uptime is measured in percentages. 99% is considered an ideal value for uptime. Even though the value is very much near 100%, there is ample time when the website is down, which can significantly affect the website’s performance. For example, a 1% downtime comes down to 1.5 minutes a day. Depending on the time of the day and the amount of traffic a website gets every day, there is a good chance of leaving an unpleasant experience for users.
What are the causes of downtime?
Apart from maintenance downtime, which constitutes the 1% deficit in uptime, other reasons have to be considered and attended to for the smooth functioning of hosting services.
1. Hardware failure: A major disruption can happen with hardware too. Power outages, motherboard crashes, hard-drive failure can contribute significantly to downtime. If you do not see it coming, it will only make things worse.
2. Cyber-attack: Cyberworld is a dynamic area where things change at lightning speed. It is very important to update your safety measures constantly because certain cybersecurity loopholes might cost you dearly.
3. Traffic overload: Overwhelming website traffic might give you good vibes, but it carries a warning sign with it. Upgrading to larger servers can save you from impending doom.
Significance of uptime for hosting companies
High uptime rates are not only important for individuals and businesses but also for web hosting service providers. Uptime rates are one parameter that your clients can judge your performance. It provides insights into how smoothly your services are running. Maintain high uptime helps in retaining your clients. Good monitoring practices can help your client’s website rank better on Google, generate revenue, and build a good brand reputation.
It is not always the server problem that turns your system down. Network glitches like routing issues at the ISP level, broadband connection issues such as a cached website can be at work while you keep looking elsewhere. You can use the Ping command or go for free online services like site24*7.com to find if your website is down really due to server issues. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the organized web-hosting providers, you cannot prevent certain episodes of downtime.
What should you do for a high uptime rate?
• Choose a web hosting provider that works for your specific needs. Not all uptime guarantees are the same, and uptime shouldn’t be your sole deciding factor.
• Choose the right website uptime rate. A 0.01% difference in uptime rate has a huge impact on overall downtime.
• Keep an eye on the uptime rate. Monitoring tools such as Jetpack, AlertBot, etc., can be employed as manual monitoring takes a lot of effort.
• Avoid human errors such as rough handling of servers and improper code review.
• Last but not least, choose a web hosting company with a good customer support system.
At cloudbox99, all the stakeholders can rest assured with optimum uptime, a suitable cloud sharing system, binding Service Level Agreements, optimum uptime rates and an instantly responding customer care system.
