Web-based Supplier Collaboration Creates Value With VendorServer

VendorServer creates value with web-based supplier collaboration.

An ETO (Engineer-to-Order) company manufactures highly engineered boilers and capital energy equipment used by utility companies. The firm faced key challenges including:

?    Reduce cycle times for proposals and products

?    Uncoordinated and lengthy purchasing process

?    Improve collaboration between engineering, manufacturing and suppliers

?    Lower cost of purchased goods

?    Tighten integration with the enterprise application

The business process for collaborating internally and with suppliers prior to implementing VendorServer? needed improvement. A seamless process to work with engineering, buyers and suppliers to shrink the lengthy and cumbersome supply chain cycle was imperative. The need to communicate with design, engineering, sales and suppliers to quickly turn opportunities into proposals, and proposals into orders and executable plans, was critical. The opportunity for miscommunication throughout the entire supply chain was significant with countless departments and external suppliers involved in the process and extremely complex purchasing activities.

The lengthy and involved designing, buying and building process is further complicated by time based milestones and the proper timing of materials that can extend beyond a year. The previous business process had many manual and disconnected automated purchasing systems limiting the ability to effectively manage the supply chain process. There were no provisions for supplier interaction beyond telephone and fax methods.

Without adopting a more strategic approach, the client was faced with higher costs, less accuracy, long lead times, higher carrying costs and lower customer satisfaction. The client created a 360-degree view of requirements for taking its supply chain and supplier collaboration to a new level to enhance business operations in an area with substantial payback.

Visibility Corporation (www.visibility.com) is a leading developer and supplier of business software solutions designed for the unique needs of project-based, engineer-to-order and to-order manufacturers. Visibility's Enterprise Application solutions help midsize manufacturers of complex products operate their businesses effectively.

VISIBILITY.net is an integrated ERP solution and more. Offering unparalleled functionality and integrated workflow, this browser-based solution cost effectively delivers the power of .NET-based Web services for use with either a Microsoft SQL Server? or Oracle? database. Conducting business any place, any time, any where is a reality, deployable with unprecedented flexibility.

Visibility
Jaclyn Aldrich
978-694-8000

Professional Markeeting Firm

Web Servers and Firewall Zones

Web and FTP Servers

Every network that has an internet connection is at risk of being compromised. Whilst there are several steps that you can take to secure your LAN, the only real solution is to close your LAN to incoming traffic, and restrict outgoing traffic.

However some services such as web or FTP servers require incoming connections. If you require these services you will need to consider whether it is essential that these servers are part of the LAN, or whether they can be placed in a physically separate network known as a DMZ (or demilitarised zone if you prefer its proper name). Ideally all servers in the DMZ will be stand alone servers, with unique logons and passwords for each server. If you require a backup server for machines within the DMZ then you should acquire a dedicated machine and keep the backup solution separate from the LAN backup solution.

The DMZ will come directly off the firewall, which means that there are two routes in and out of the DMZ, traffic to and from the internet, and traffic to and from the LAN. Traffic between the DMZ and your LAN would be treated totally separately to traffic between your DMZ and the Internet. Incoming traffic from the internet would be routed directly to your DMZ. Therefore if any hacker where to compromise a machine within the DMZ, then the only network they would have access to would be the DMZ. The hacker would have little or no access to the LAN. It would also be the case that any virus infection or other security compromise within the LAN would not be able to migrate to the DMZ.

In order for the DMZ to be effective, you will have to keep the traffic between the LAN and the DMZ to a minimum. In the majority of cases, the only traffic required between the LAN and the DMZ is FTP. If you do not have physical access to the servers, you will also need some sort of remote management protocol such as terminal services or VNC.

Database servers

If your web servers require access to a database server, then you will need to consider where to place your database. The most secure place to locate a database server is to create yet another physically separate network called the secure zone, and to place the database server there. The Secure zone is also a physically separate network connected directly to the firewall. The Secure zone is by definition the most secure place on the network. The only access to or from the secure zone would be the database connection from the DMZ (and LAN if required).

Exceptions to the rule

The dilemma faced by network engineers is where to put the email server. It requires SMTP connection to the internet, yet it also requires domain access from the LAN. If you where to place this server in the DMZ, the domain traffic would compromise the integrity of the DMZ, making it simply an extension of the LAN. Therefore in our opinion, the only place you can put an email server is on the LAN and allow SMTP traffic into this server. However we would recommend against allowing any form of HTTP access into this server. If your users require access to their mail from outside the network, it would be far more secure to look at some form of VPN solution. (with the firewall handling the VPN connections. LAN based VPN servers allow the VPN traffic onto the network before it is authenticated, which is never a good thing.)

Chris Weight is a writer for http://www.stekno.com , information for IT professionals

Why Do You Want A Good Web Design and Hosting On A Good Server...?

The answer is very simple for this question. Because a good web design attracts user and some time visitor loves the design and bookmark the same site for future visits or for future reference or might be interested in making the same web design for his clients or might be possible he/she will edit the same design. But this is true that your website must have a good design. Not only to attract the internet visitor but also helps in browsing the products & services, so that visitor can reach to the destination with the minimum number of clicks.

Web Designing - While audience creation, advertising and promotions drive traffic to a site, it's the design that either encourages visitors to explore or drives them away in frustration. A good design is, of course, aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, though, it engages visitors, makes it easy for them to navigate the site and compels them to explore the site further, purchase products and return another day. Attractive graphics that support the company's message are important. But large graphics that take a long time to load frustrate users. Many visitors won't wait long enough for the graphic to finish loading. Additionally, visitors are less likely to return to a site that has cumbersome or confusing navigational cues. Selection of a Web Designing Company is always a big game as far as your online business is concern. Web design differs significantly from design for other media. The most important difference is that the Web is interactive, incorporating hyperlinks and devices for immediate visitor feedback. Some sophisticated designs include dynamically generated pages that are custom-tailored to each visitor's interests, preferences and buying habits. To implement effective designs, our team of web designers and implementers has sufficient technical skills such as HTML coding, scripting and programming in addition to artistic skills. As the navigation reveals the structure and organization of the web site, It should provide a consistence and predictable way to find and focus on the information you want in the smallest possible number of clicks.

Web Site Development

When it comes to the website development, your Web Designing Firm must understand your business requirement and type of business or services you are offering to your customers. The quality of your services and the cost of the services or products. A good web design company can increase your web site traffic by offering a user friendly navigation in the web pages that facilitates user in finding the services & products. And once if user ready to purchase something from your website, my personal experience is, he bookmark the site. But only condition is he/she must got the best deal from your side. developing the web pages is might be a small task but arrangement or the content and intralinking of the web pages is always a important point. A Web Development Company first creates a complete rough website structure and then proceeds for the final structure which would be the best in nature with the design, pages, content arrangement, link color, and link names, CSS in the site, the color combinations and the use of the images. There is no question that when it comes to fast and efficient display of graphics on Web Pages, smaller is better. Techniques optimizing the color depth of the Web - friendly GIF and JPEG images for the fast download and applying simple height and width HTML tags are the secrets of our greatest site design. There are certain factors that search engines do not like. While keeping those factors into consideration, we will create an extremely search engines friendly website. The secret of great page design is to create a page grid, build tables, work with color and use type. Innovation & focus on the target visitor drives our creative team to custom design each site with a right combination of text layout, fonts, colors, backgrounds, pictures, animation?s, icons & bars. At UWS India we do not just develop web pages; rather we nurture your dreams into your website.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is like a supporting hand when it comes to any online business through a website. An excellent web server supports your website in term of web site speed, performance, executing queries, database queries sent by you or your potential customers, enquiry management with its security and best performance with maximum uptime. At any point of time if you or your visitor looks for your site or click on your site link form any location in the world, a good web server returns the response immediately that helps user to browse the site and choose the product & services he/she want. The identities of a good web server are... It must respond to each & every request sent to the server, minimum or limited domains hosted, updated with all new available features and all those features your site requires, security of the website and your database, maximum uptime, and all. You may choose a cheap hosting from any vendor if you are new in the online business through website but if you are a professional, you would not like your site to host on a discounted server with approx 2000 domain hosted or with bad performance. A good Web hosting Company can solve your this downtime, security, features, and performance problems.

Ultimate Web Solutions is an internet marketing company operating in New Delhi, India provides Website Designing, Website Development, Website hosting, search engine optimization, link popularity building and SEO friendly web design service, along with domain name registration. http://www.ultimate-websolutions.com/

Why do you want a good web design and hosting on a good server..?

The answer is very simple for this question. Because a good web design attracts user and some time visitor loves the design and bookmark the same site for future visits or for future reference or might be interested in making the same web design for his clients or might be possible he/she will edit the same design. But this is true that your website must have a good design. Not only to attract the internet visitor but also helps in browsing the products & services, so that visitor can reach to the destination with the minimum number of clicks.

Web Designing - While audience creation, advertising and promotions drive traffic to a site, it's the design that either encourages visitors to explore or drives them away in frustration. A good design is, of course, aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, though, it engages visitors, makes it easy for them to navigate the site and compels them to explore the site further, purchase products and return another day. Attractive graphics that support the company's message are important. But large graphics that take a long time to load frustrate users. Many visitors won't wait long enough for the graphic to finish loading. Additionally, visitors are less likely to return to a site that has cumbersome or confusing navigational cues. Selection of a Web Designing Company is always a big game as far as your online business is concern. Web design differs significantly from design for other media. The most important difference is that the Web is interactive, incorporating hyperlinks and devices for immediate visitor feedback. Some sophisticated designs include dynamically generated pages that are custom-tailored to each visitor's interests, preferences and buying habits. To implement effective designs, our team of web designers and implementers has sufficient technical skills such as HTML coding, scripting and programming in addition to artistic skills. As the navigation reveals the structure and organization of the web site, It should provide a consistence and predictable way to find and focus on the information you want in the smallest possible number of clicks.

Web Site Development

When it comes to the website development, your Web Designing Firm must understand your business requirement and type of business or services you are offering to your customers. The quality of your services and the cost of the services or products. A good web design company can increase your web site traffic by offering a user friendly navigation in the web pages that facilitates user in finding the services & products. And once if user ready to purchase something from your website, my personal experience is, he bookmark the site. But only condition is he/she must got the best deal from your side. developing the web pages is might be a small task but arrangement or the content and intralinking of the web pages is always a important point. A Web Development Company first creates a complete rough website structure and then proceeds for the final structure which would be the best in nature with the design, pages, content arrangement, link color, and link names, CSS in the site, the color combinations and the use of the images. There is no question that when it comes to fast and efficient display of graphics on Web Pages, smaller is better. Techniques optimizing the color depth of the Web - friendly GIF and JPEG images for the fast download and applying simple height and width HTML tags are the secrets of our greatest site design. There are certain factors that search engines do not like. While keeping those factors into consideration, we will create an extremely search engines friendly website. The secret of great page design is to create a page grid, build tables, work with color and use type. Innovation & focus on the target visitor drives our creative team to custom design each site with a right combination of text layout, fonts, colors, backgrounds, pictures, animation's, icons & bars. At UWS India we do not just develop web pages; rather we nurture your dreams into your website.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is like a supporting hand when it comes to any online business through a website. An excellent web server supports your website in term of web site speed, performance, executing queries, database queries sent by you or your potential customers, enquiry management with its security and best performance with maximum uptime. At any point of time if you or your visitor looks for your site or click on your site link form any location in the world, a good web server returns the response immediately that helps user to browse the site and choose the product & services he/she want. The identities of a good web server are... It must respond to each & every request sent to the server, minimum or limited domains hosted, updated with all new available features and all those features your site requires, security of the website and your database, maximum uptime, and all. You may choose a cheap hosting from any vendor if you are new in the online business through website but if you are a professional, you would not like your site to host on a discounted server with approx 2000 domain hosted or with bad performance. A good Web hosting Company can solve your this downtime, security, features, and performance problems.

Ultimate Web Solutions in India - Ultimate Web Solutions is an internet marketing company operating in New Delhi, India provides Website Designing, Website Development, Website hosting, search engine optimization, keyword analysis, pay per click management, link popularity building and SEO friendly web design service, along with domain name registration.

Learning ASP Series - Installing Personal Web Server

Welcome to the first chapter of your Basic ASP Learning Series.

I mostly communicate on a personal level, so it's better we acquaint ourselves in the beginning. My name is Amrit Hallan and I'm a web developer. I work through my web site - http://www.bytesworth.com. I'm not a nerd (and don't want to be) and most of my knowledge has come to me piecemeal through lots of hard work and interaction with my other developer friends. I don' t think it'd be fair to say that I'm an authority on ASP but yes, I have a few satisfied clients in my portfolio and I know enough to get you started. By the time you are through with these daily chapters, you'll have learnt enough to make a small shopping cart in ASP.

Most of the chapters will be organized in a linear fashion, so that you always have to work according to your previously acquired knowledge. Sometimes I'll sound like writing the entire chapter in a bulleted form, but that'll be just to keep the unnecessary (I mean that is out of the scope of this reference) stuff out.

I wish I could know your name too. But I don't know how many people are going to read this. If you want to let me know that YOU are the one at the moment reading this, you are welcome to send me a friendly message at mailto:amrit@bytesworth.com. I love to hear from people (ok, the word "people" excludes Spammers - they are not people).

Enough of my warming up. Here we go with the first chapter.

Installing Personal Web Server

==> Beginning of Chapter One From there, install the PWS on your computer. The installation
program creates a folder, inetpub in the directly you specify during the installation. This inetpub, further has a folder, wwwroot. So if you install your PWS on your C drive, the wwwroot path should be

C:INETPUBWWWROOT

All the files that you create, you store under wwwroot. What we generally do is, we create separate folders for separate projects under the wwwroot folder. So if I created bytesworth folder in wwwroot folder, the full path should be

C:INETPUBWWWROOTBYTESWORTH

And when I have to view the page on my browser, I'll have to type

http://localhost/bytesworth

as the URL.

After you've installed the PWS, it's icon appears on your desktop, and at the bottom right of your screen. Click or double-click on the icon. On the main window, you should see the message:

Web publishing is on. Your Home page is available at http://servername

The servername is the name you use instead of localhost. But if you are confused about this name game, just use localhost and it should always work if you haven't been naughty and messing around with your computer's basic setup.

Before you proceed further, open the Windows Explorer, go to c:inetpubwwwroot and create a new folder here by the name of "learnASP" (how boringly predictable! So you can name it something else). We'll be storing ALL our files in this folder.

Hence, whenever we want to run a newly created file, we'd type in the location bar:

http://localhost/learnASP/newfile.asp and press Enter.

Ok, next, click on the Advanced tab. Select Enable Default Document

In the Default Document(s) box, type the list of file names you would like to use as your default file once the name of your site is type in the browser.

If you have no idea what's the default file, it is the file that answers your call when you type a specific URL without a specific file. For instance, if I type http://www.bytesworth.com the file that actually gets loaded by default is DEFAULT.ASP. This depends on the setting. Some servers use INDEX.ASP or INDEX.HTML or INDEX.SHTML. It all depends on the file parsing set up on your web-hosting server.

Then click on the Edit Properties button, after selecting the Home folder. There are three select boxes, viz., "Read", "Execute", "Script". Select all of them. The selections tell the server that we want to execute server side scripts in our ASP pages. ASP pages won't run if the server can't read and execute them.

Close the window, and your PWS is running. Of course do not run two servers simultaneously. So if you installed the Apache Web Server and left it running, and then loaded PWS, there is going to be some problem for you to sort out.

Amrit Hallan is a freelance web designer. For all web site development and web promotion needs, you can get in touch with him at http://www.bytesworth.com. For more such articles, visit http://www.bytesworth.com/articles and http://www.bytesworth.com/learn.

Update Your Entire Website Instantly Using Server Side Includes

Imagine my plight... I have 100+ pages on my website and I have to change my e-mail address and the copyright info on all the pages. The reason...

My mail box is over-flown with junk mails.

My only option is to edit all my web pages offline and then upload each one of them again, not to mention countless errors I make in the process.

100+ pages is still a small website. Imagine what it will be like if my website had 1000+ pages?

Sounds scary right?

If you would like to avoid the kind of mess I'm in right now, you have one option. Start using "Server Side Includes (SSI)"

In technical jargon, Server Side Includes are directives which you can place into your HTML documents to execute other programs or output such data as environment variables and file statistics.

If your only intention is to manage your website more effectively and painlessly, it is more than enough if you learn one "Directive" of SSI - the "Include" directive.

In simple terms, SSI Include is a line of code which you can use in your HTML documents to include contents from other documents. In other words, change just one file (the Include file), and your ENTIRE SITE is instantly updated!

The basic syntax of an Include directive is:

Where PATH_TO is the "VIRTUAL" path to include file on your server.

Here's how to include your copyright info and navigation links using SSI Includes...

First, you need to check with your server administrator whether your server supports SSI or not. Most servers support them.

Second, you need to rename all your HTML files with extension .shtml

-----SIDE BAR-----
You can start with one file and if everything goes fine, rename rest of the files. -----SIDE BAR-----

To keep things organized, you can create a directory at the root level called "includes" to house all of your included files. Now create a HTML document with only your copyright and navigation links. Copy everything that is between the BODY tags of this document and paste it in a new file.

Save this file as nav.html or any name you like with extension .htm or .html. You need not save this file with .shtml extension. Now upload this file to your "include" directory which you created for housing SSI Includes.

To include copyright info and navigation links in a HTML document in your SITE ROOT, place the following code where you want the copyright info to be seen:

Now if you want to include copyright info and navigation links in a HTML document in a folder UNDER your site root, the code will change to:

...and so on.

If you want to change or edit your copyright info or navigation links, just edit and upload your nav.html file and the change will be reflected in all the documents (using the "Include code") instantly!

You can also create your website headers/footers using SSI Includes.

There are host of other cool things you can do with SSI. For more info on SSI, you can visit the following sites:

http://www.useforesite.com/tut_ssi.shtml http://wdvl.com/Authoring/SSI/Intro/index.html http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

Vishal Rao publishes an informative e-zine: iNet Profits. Subscribe to his e-zine and get his free e-mail course: "11 Killer Strategies To Explode Your Online Profits", by sending a blank e-mail to => sub@inetprofits.par32.com

Website Updates are a SNAP With Server Side Includes

If you ever had to make a change to your website that needed to be carried onto every page, you know what a tedious job it is.Well, have I got news for you. It doesn't have to be. Welcome to the world of Server Side Includes, also known as SSI. The best part about SSI is that it will make your life as a site owner 'oh so sweet.' You're going to want to kiss me after I give you the lowdown on this little beauty.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a site with over 50 pages and you need to add another link to your navigation bar. Can you imagine how long it would take you to open each page and update it? By putting your navigation bar into an SSI file, you would only open up that one file and update that -- and the change to your navigation bar will show up site wide. See how simple that was? By editing one file you have updated your entire site instantly.

The most common use of an include file is for your top navigation, your bottom text navigation, copyright, logo or any other piece of info needed to appear on all pages of your site.

So how do you create an SSI file? Glad you asked! An include file can be an HTML file or a simple text file. It should be whatever HTML coding you need for that element of your site, minus the or tags which should remain on your individual pages.

An easy way to make them is to design your web page and cut and paste the code you want into individual files and name them things like topnavigation.htm or bottomnav.htm. By giving them descriptive names, you'll know at a glance which file is which when it comes time to perform those updates.

After creating the files you plan on using as your includes, you'll need to open your web pages and insert a line of code where you want the SSI information to show up in your documents.

The code looks like this:

If your includes are located at the root level on your web server your path would look like this:

That's it. Pretty simple, really. After you get the hang of it you'll wish you would have learned about them years ago. They really do make global updating a snap.

Here are a couple of good sites to learn more about SSI:

Big Nose Bird-
http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

CGI Resource-
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Documentation/Server_Side_Includes/

New Breed Software
http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/unix/www/ssi/

Web Reference
http://www.webreference.com/programming/ssi/intro/

Before you start implementing SSI you need to ask your web host if they support them (most do), and also if they will need to be named with any special extensions. Some servers may require you to give them specific extensions like .asp (if it's NT) or .shtml (for many Unix servers). Although the majority won't, it's always better to ask first. Better safe then sorry.

By designing your website with server side includes you'll save yourself a ton of headaches when it comes time to updating your site. SSI is a Webmaster's best friend, so I suggest you spend some time getting acquainted.

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Web Hosting Server - What to look for

As with any service, the question of what to look for in server hosting packages depends largely on the goals you have. If you have a company in need of a server host, your needs are naturally going to be much different than if you are an individual looking for a server host.



To get a basic understanding of what to look for in server hosting packages, you should first understand what is meant by server hosting. On a very basic level, computers simply communicate with other computers in order to get information delivered to your screen. In order to view any Internet page - including this one - you either ran a search or typed in an Internet address and the page appeared. In order for the page to appear on your screen, your computer communicated the request to another computer. In this situation, your computer is called a "client" or "user" computer. The other computer is called the "server" computer. A server host is a company that provides some services for those server computers, usually in the form of housing the computers, maintaining hardware and sometimes even maintenance of programming.

If you have a company and are in the market for server hosting packages, you first need to make a list of your specific requirements. Amount of space, services and speed are probably among the most important aspects of what to look for in server hosting packages. As you decide what you want from your server host, you should consider not only the current needs but also the future needs of your company. Do you expect to expand some day? Are you going to need a bigger website with more features at some point? Sometimes, web hosts limit users to "static" websites, while others allow for interactive sites. Remember that an interactive web page will typically require more space but will be more likely to draw visitors to stop by again.

Especially if you have no one on staff who is computer savvy, server maintenance, website design and other services might be an important part of what to look for in server hosting packages. It could be a great benefit to you if you can describe what you want and be handed a finished project, ready to start serving customers. Remember that your business will not likely stay exactly the same and you might find yourself in need of additional services - interactive website design, increased security or greater flexibility in e-mail accounts. Finding a server hosting pack from a company that can provide any services you might need is important for a fledgling company. It's also a good idea to assure yourself as much as possible that the company you choose to be your server host can keep pace if your company does grow.

As you consider other things to look for in server hosting, remember that you are the customer and the company you are considering should have great customer service. You should read reviews on many of the major server hosts, and you can likely find others who are using that server host and will attest to the reliability (or unreliability, as the case may be) of the company's dedication to solving problems in a timely manner. After all, even the best hosting in the world isn't going to benefit you if you can't get problems solved.


Brian Thorn is an avid internet enthusiast who writes easy-to-understand articles about web hosting. Also check out: cheap web hosting package, internet service provider hosting and email domain hosting.

Have A Big Website - Worried About Server Load

Have we ever thought how big websites could be configured to handle massive amount of traffic? How thousands of businesses worldwide are facing challenges everyday to make sure there are no connection failures due to heavy load or congestion of traffic at the website.

The answer is straight, every organization will have to monitor and baseline amount of traffic by going for stress test to find out if the current hardware could be supportive enough to handle a specific amount of load. One such great software is the ?Web Application Testing? or WAPT, which is a great utility for any website?s sustainability. This software is load, stress and performance testing tool for web sites and intranet applications with web interface. WAPT is designed for MS Windows 2000/XP/2003 and Windows 98/Me operating systems. The question that should be asked is why should we consider WAPT or why should the organization consider Load or stress testing? We certainly believe, major performance issues would arise if stress test has not been performed.

This could very well mean that after the server reaches a certain level of concurrent connection made by visitors, it would consume its hardware resources to process every visitor?s request. If there is a lot to process, the server might give priority to web application than its local resource ending up in a system crash.

Thus, the goal of WAPT is very simple; it helps the organization?s web servers to become active at every stage of stress, whether it?s a web development or website traffic processing power. WAPT can perform a stress test by simulating several thousands of concurrent connections to check the web server/website performance and if it finds any bottlenecks it would warn and suggest fixing this issue by recommending the very next thing.
There are lots of new features added in WAPT 4.0
- You can use multiple virtual profiles to test a single scenario
- There is support for IP spoofing where each virtual user can run with individual and unique IP address
- Each Virtual can be configured with different username and password and is compatible with Windows Integrated Authentication or Basic Configuration.
- You can see and configure the type of reports even a test run summary report is generated
- There is command line interface available
- There is a support for persistent cookies
- All the test scenario and profiles are stored in XML format The Main features of WAPT 4.0
- You can have the application run and understand multiple languages
- There is cool recording feature which you can use to record any configuration and stress test simulations for later review or demonstrations as it supports playback of HTTPS/SSL 2.0 & 3.0 pages. You can also record the user connection speed using the keep-alive connections to a HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1 pages or even HTTPS/SSL pages.
- You can generate data for run-times on specific scheduled intervals by randomizing the delay between the page hits.
- It also has a support for proxy servers for HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 & 5 and supports cookies as well.
- All the authentication request can be handled using NTLM (windows Integrated Authentication) or using the basic authentication.
- If you would like to call the website by a different name, then you also have the facility to add custom host headers
- All this the scenarios can be configured using the user friendly Wizard
- You can choose the reports to be either graphical or in plain text along with full virtual server logs
A must tool for administrator or other user who would to maintain their website efficiently.

Ted Peterson writes for CoreDownload, a shareware archive where you can find utilities like WAPT to test your server.

Have a big website? Worried about server load ?

If you have a big website, then it happened more that once to see it moving very slow. There is a way to do some testing and find out is the problems are caused by the hardware, or by the website itself.

Have we ever thought how big websites could be configured to handle massive amount of traffic? How thousands of businesses worldwide are facing challenges everyday to make sure there are no connection failures due to heavy load or congestion of traffic at the website.

The answer is straight, every organization will have to monitor and baseline amount of traffic by going for stress test to find out if the current hardware could be supportive enough to handle a specific amount of load. One such great software is the ?Web Application Testing? or WAPT, which is a great utility for any website?s sustainability. This software is load, stress and performance testing tool for web sites and intranet applications with web interface. WAPT is designed for MS Windows 2000/XP/2003 and Windows 98/Me operating systems. The question that should be asked is why should we consider WAPT or why should the organization consider Load or stress testing? We certainly believe, major performance issues would arise if stress test has not been performed. This could very well mean that after the server reaches a certain level of concurrent connection made by visitors, it would consume its hardware resources to process every visitor?s request. If there is a lot to process, the server might give priority to web application than its local resource ending up in a system crash.

Thus, the goal of WAPT is very simple; it helps the organization?s web servers to become active at every stage of stress, whether it?s a web development or website traffic processing power. WAPT can perform a stress test by simulating several thousands of concurrent connections to check the web server/website performance and if it finds any bottlenecks it would warn and suggest fixing this issue by recommending the very next thing.

There are lots of new features added in WAPT 4.0

- You can use multiple virtual profiles to test a single scenario

- There is support for IP spoofing where each virtual user can run with individual and unique IP address

- Each Virtual can be configured with different username and password and is compatible with Windows Integrated Authentication or Basic Configuration.

- You can see and configure the type of reports even a test run summary report is generated

- There is command line interface available

- There is a support for persistent cookies

- All the test scenario and profiles are stored in XML format

The Main features of WAPT 4.0

- You can have the application run and understand multiple languages

- There is cool recording feature which you can use to record any configuration and stress test simulations for later review or demonstrations as it supports playback of HTTPS/SSL 2.0 & 3.0 pages. You can also record the user connection speed using the keep-alive connections to a HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1 pages or even HTTPS/SSL pages.

- You can generate data for run-times on specific scheduled intervals by randomizing the delay between the page hits.

- It also has a support for proxy servers for HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 & 5 and supports cookies as well.

- All the authentication request can be handled using NTLM (windows Integrated Authentication) or using the basic authentication.

- If you would like to call the website by a different name, then you also have the facility to add custom host headers

- All this the scenarios can be configured using the user friendly Wizard

- You can choose the reports to be either graphical or in plain text along with full virtual server logs

A must tool for administrator or other user who would to maintain their website efficiently.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Mircea Ionescu writes for CoreDownload, a shareware archive where you can find utilities like WAPT to test your server.

Is Your Website Secure On A Shared Server? Part 1

Security aspects of a shared web hosting server have always on the forefront. And, with almost 90% of websites being hosted on shared servers, the security considerations are not uncalled for.

Also know as virtual hosting, shared hosting has been the favorite of small and medium size enterprises. Owing to the fact that shared web hosting works out to be cheaper than hosting on dedicated servers. That?s because a website shares a server with other websites in a virtual environment. But, does that make it vulnerable to hacking? That?s the million dollar question. To understand the security aspects of hosting on shared servers, we will have to first understand the different modes of shared hosting.

Types of shared hosting

• Domain based shared hosting:

It works on the Virtual Private Server (VPS) technology and provides each website with a unique URL, even though they are hosted on a single server. The VPS technology achieves by creating effective partitions in the server and gets them to act as individual servers.

• Name based shared hosting:

In name based shared hosting, a websites name appears as a subset of the service providers name. Example of such service providers are geocities, blogspot etc.

• Directory based shared hosting:

With respect to directory based shared hosting, the customers website will be mentioned as a directory in the host domain name. The most important point that comes through with shared hosting is the relative lack of a dedicated IP address. That?s because most of the web security apparatus are applicable on the IP address level. That?s the reason why, dedicated severs are capable of providing a more secure environment; as they guarantee a unique IP address.

The other blockade with shared server security is the relative difficulty encountered in implementing SSL certificates.

Search Engine marketing expert, Tarun Gupta is one of the most prolific writers in the internet marketing domain with his articles being published in numerous search related websites and newsletters. He is the founder director of web development and web hosting services company BrainPulse.com.

Is Your Website Secure On A Shared Server? Part 2

SSL certificates The secured socket layer (SSL) technology provides strong encryption of HTTP packets during their transfer through the World Wide Web. However, in order to encrypt; a SSL certificate from a trusted certification authority like Verisign or Twate is necessary.

Shared hosting and SSL certificates SSL can undoubtedly provide a lot of security on the server side. Most of the encryption done is on the 128 bit level, which in its own right is very secure. But, when it comes to securing websites on shared hosts the real problems surface as the SSL technology requires an IP address ( with port number) and most shared websites don?t have one!

To overcome this problem many ISP?s have come-up with shared SSL certificates. But, this quick fix solution actually undermines the importance of SSL certificates as, with a shares SSL certificate the credibility and trustworthiness of a certificate comes under the scanner.

However new methods are being developed at a rapid pace whereby Genuine SSL certificates would be provided to websites operating on shared hosts and with the evolution of IPv6 (The new generation of Internet Protocol) the scarcity of public IP?s would also be addressed to a certain extent).

Other practical methods to ensure security on shared servers

• You should have complete information about the types of scripts and software installed on the server. As applying unproven or substandard codes by others using the server might affect you too.
• Enquire about the security audit procedure employed by your host. That?s because the frequency of review can be the deciding factor between succumbing to a security threat and overcoming it.
• The most important action you can take on your part is to use very strong password for your website. As using easy to crack password would make your website as open as a stadium in front of hackers.

When we talk of the World Wide Web and its secure nature, we have to understand that nothing is fool-proof. Recent times have seen hackers breaking in to some of the most secure websites. That?s why, the trick here lies in keeping up with the times and heeding to the latest of security updates. A web hosting provider who does that can provide a great deal of security to your website even if it?s hosted on a shared server.

The Author Search Engine marketing expert, Tarun Gupta is one of the most prolific writers in the internet marketing domain with his articles being published in numerous search related websites and newsletters.

He is the founder director of web development and web hosting services company BrainPulse.com.

Monitor the Uptime of Your Websites and Servers. Downtime is Expensive!

There are companies, which websites are essential for their business success, as they are generating the most or the whole of the company?s revenue. Maybe also you belong to them. When this kind of website (server) is down, your business is affected. If your website is hosted by another company, you probably have some sort of ?uptime? guarantee. Nevertheless, what exactly is uptime and how do you measure it. The basic definition of uptime is the period of time when your site is up and running, being accessible and able to satisfy customers.

The opposite, when your site is not accessible, it is down. And that is how you measure downtime. Faulty routers, malfunctioning LANs, or a loss of electrical power typically causes most of the downtimes; only rarely are caused by a natural disaster. Most often, it is caused by failures from the telecommunications company or an application failure, not a fire, flood or other catastrophe.

The cost of downtime calculation of course depends on many factors, like the products and services you provide, the size of your company, the number of online sales, etc. Even if you do not sell any products or services online, there is still a cost of downtime, but then in terms of damage of reputation etc. Calculate the cost of downtime is difficult and varies from one company to another. There is no ?average business?, so the statistics that quantify the cost of downtime for average businesses are not helpful.

The cost of downtime include direct costs such as the labor charges for a team of technologists who had to resolve the outages. The indirect costs are much more difficult to calculate and include potential lost revenue, reductions in worker productivity, damaged reputation with customers and in the marketplace, lost future sales and the cost of storing unsold goods. Financial analysts and accountants at your company can help you come up with the factors for your particular business.

If your website is generating profit for your business, you will for sure monitor it by an external monitoring service. The on-line market offers you to choose from different services to get uptime reports, statistics and get notifications as soon as your website is down. You can not let your customers to inform you about your own downtime.

To understand the importance of being aware of downtime, and to be alerted as soon as possible when a problem occurs, have a look at these numbers:

• According to a report by Cumulus Research Partners website downtime, caused by problems such as network failures, costs European businesses more than ? 5 billion a year.
• In the automotive industry downtime is often worth some $1.000 a minute.
• According to a recent study conducted by ARC Advisory Group, accounting for nearly five percent of total North American production, more than $20 billion is lost each year due to unscheduled downtime. Clearly, the traditional "fail and fix" approach to maintenance is no longer a viable MRO strategy.

Many hosting providers guarantee 99 % uptime. 99 % uptime sounds good, but means that your site could be down more than 3.5 days a year, and in today's Internet that is unacceptable. Comparing to that, 99.9 % uptime is much better, but with 8 hours and 45 minutes of possible downtime do not have to be always enough. The table below shows the percentage of uptime and the related downtime per year.

99 % .......... 87 hours, 36 minutes (more than 3.5 days) 99.9 % ....... 8 hours, 45 minutes, 36 seconds 99.99 % ..... 52 minutes, 33.6 seconds 99.999 % .... 5 minutes, 15.36 seconds 99.9999 % .. 31.68 seconds

As you can see, a 99 % uptime may not sound too bad, but it can cost you quite a lot of loss in revenues.

There are more than 30 uptime monitoring websites worldwide, while some of those have also affiliate partners. Among those are: Alertra, AlertSite, Dotcom monitor, InternetSeer, Jaguard, RedAlert, SiteUptime, WatchMouse, WebsitePulse and others. Almost all of them offer some prepaid packages based on monthly fees, varying by number of possible monitored sites (servers), additional services and by the complexity of the service. The price of their basic prepaid package is $5 - $40 per month. For this price you can monitor only 1, or maximum of 3 devices, choose from quite a lot of protocols, allow to send notifications to multiple contacts via e-mail, IM, pager or SMS, allow to choose between daily, weekly, or monthly reports by email and of course uptime performance and statistics available on-line. The Professional packages can go up to $180 per month or even higher.

There are just two completely free 24/7 monitoring services: Montastic and mon.itor.us.

Montastic?s biggest advantage is simplicity of the service, while it offers just basic service including real time monitoring and alerting by e-mail one contact person ? the registred user, or by RSS feed, when the website is down and when it is back again. It allows to monitor only http websites, limited to the number of 100 (what is not a limit at all), checking it every 10 minutes from two different locations.

Meanwhile mon.itor.us provides network, website and server monitoring service supporting 11 protocols with possibility to monitor unlimited number of devices and alert unlimited number of contact persons by e-mail, RSS feed, IM message, pager or SMS. There are also other remarkable features as personalized interactive interface, where you can add server performance and availability tests, set daily, weekly or monthly reports sent by e-mail. Tests are performed from 3 geographically distributed servers, and they are always adding more interesting features as they are still in beta version.

Peter Cernak works at Sourcio. The company develops mon.itor.us and offers a wide range of IT services and Open Source solutions for small and medium-size businesses.

Monitor the Uptime of Your Websites and Servers

Websites are nowadays used to do business and earn profit. If you belong to those who own such a website or just planning to start on-line business, you will have to monitor the uptime of your websites or servers. Do not let your clients to let you know about your downtime.

There are companies, which websites are essential for their business success, as they are generating the most or the whole of the company's revenue. Maybe also you belong to them. When this kind of website (server) is down, your business is affected. If your website is hosted by another company, you probably have some sort of "uptime" guarantee. Nevertheless, what exactly is uptime and how do you measure it. The basic definition of uptime is the period of time when your site is up and running, being accessible and able to satisfy customers.

The opposite, when your site is not accessible, it is down. And that is how you measure downtime. Faulty routers, malfunctioning LANs, or a loss of electrical power typically causes most of the downtimes; only rarely are caused by a natural disaster. Most often, it is caused by failures from the telecommunications company or an application failure, not a fire, flood or other catastrophe.

The cost of downtime calculation of course depends on many factors, like the products and services you provide, the size of your company, the number of online sales, etc. Even if you do not sell any products or services online, there is still a cost of downtime, but then in terms of damage of reputation etc. Calculate the cost of downtime is difficult and varies from one company to another. There is no "average business", so the statistics that quantify the cost of downtime for average businesses are not helpful.

The cost of downtime include direct costs such as the labor charges for a team of technologists who had to resolve the outages. The indirect costs are much more difficult to calculate and include potential lost revenue, reductions in worker productivity, damaged reputation with customers and in the marketplace, lost future sales and the cost of storing unsold goods. Financial analysts and accountants at your company can help you come up with the factors for your particular business.

If your website is generating profit for your business, you will for sure monitor it by an external monitoring service. The on-line market offers you to choose from different services to get uptime reports, statistics and get notifications as soon as your website is down. You can not let your customers to inform you about your own downtime.

To understand the importance of being aware of downtime, and to be alerted as soon as possible when a problem occurs, have a look at these numbers:
- According to a report by Cumulus Research Partners website downtime, caused by problems such as network failures, costs European businesses more than ? 5 billion a year.
- In the automotive industry downtime is often worth some $1.000 a minute.
- According to a recent study conducted by ARC Advisory Group, accounting for nearly five percent of total North American production, more than $20 billion is lost each year due to unscheduled downtime. Clearly, the traditional "fail and fix" approach to maintenance is no longer a viable MRO strategy.

Many hosting providers guarantee 99 % uptime. 99 % uptime sounds good, but means that your site could be down more than 3.5 days a year, and in today's Internet that is unacceptable. Comparing to that, 99.9 % uptime is much better, but with 8 hours and 45 minutes of possible downtime do not have to be always enough. The table below shows the percentage of uptime and the related downtime per year.

99 % ........ 87 hours, 36 minutes (more than 3.5 days)
99.9 % ...... 8 hours, 45 minutes, 36 seconds
99.99 % ..... 52 minutes, 33.6 seconds
99.999 % .... 5 minutes, 15.36 seconds
99.9999 % ... 31.68 seconds

As you can see, a 99 % uptime may not sound too bad, but it can cost you quite a lot of loss in revenues.

There are more than 30 uptime monitoring websites worldwide, while some of those have also affiliate partners. Among those are: Alertra, AlertSite, Dotcom monitor, InternetSeer, Jaguard, RedAlert, SiteUptime, WatchMouse, WebsitePulse and others. Almost all of them offer some prepaid packages based on monthly fees, varying by number of possible monitored sites (servers), additional services and by the complexity of the service. The price of their basic prepaid package is $5 - $40 per month. For this price you can monitor only 1, or maximum of 3 devices, choose from quite a lot of protocols, allow to send notifications to multiple contacts via e-mail, IM, pager or SMS, allow to choose between daily, weekly, or monthly reports by email and of course uptime performance and statistics available on-line. The Professional packages can go up to $180 per month or even higher.

There are just two completely free 24/7 monitoring services: Montastic and mon.itor.us.

Montastic's (http://www.montastic.com) biggest advantage is simplicity of the service, while it offers just basic service including real time monitoring and alerting by e-mail one contact person - the registred user, or by RSS feed, when the website is down and when it is back again. It allows to monitor only http websites, limited to the number of 100 (what is not a limit at all), checking it every 10 minutes from two different locations.

Meanwhile mon.itor.us (http://mon.itor.us) provides network, website and server monitoring service supporting 11 protocols with possibility to monitor unlimited number of devices and alert unlimited number of contact persons by e-mail, RSS feed, IM message, pager or SMS. There are also other remarkable features as personalized interactive interface, where you can add server performance and availability tests, set daily, weekly or monthly reports sent by e-mail. Tests are performed from 3 geographically distributed servers, and they are always adding more interesting features as they are still in beta version.

Peter Cernak works at Sourcio (http://www.sourcio.com). The company develops mon.itor.us and offers a wide range of IT services and Open Source solutions for small and medium-size businesses

Website Updates are a SNAP With Server Side Includes

If you ever had to make a change to your website that needed to be carried onto every page, you know what a tedious job it is.Well, have I got news for you. It doesn't have to be. Welcome to the world of Server Side Includes, also known as SSI. The best part about SSI is that it will make your life as a site owner 'oh so sweet.' You're going to want to kiss me after I give you the lowdown on this little beauty.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a site with over 50 pages and you need to add another link to your navigation bar. Can you imagine how long it would take you to open each page and update it? By putting your navigation bar into an SSI file, you would only open up that one file and update that -- and the change to your navigation bar will show up site wide. See how simple that was? By editing one file you have updated your entire site instantly.

The most common use of an include file is for your top navigation, your bottom text navigation, copyright, logo or any other piece of info needed to appear on all pages of your site.

So how do you create an SSI file? Glad you asked! An include file can be an HTML file or a simple text file. It should be whatever HTML coding you need for that element of your site, minus the or tags which should remain on your individual pages.

An easy way to make them is to design your web page and cut and paste the code you want into individual files and name them things like topnavigation.htm or bottomnav.htm. By giving them descriptive names, you'll know at a glance which file is which when it comes time to perform those updates.

After creating the files you plan on using as your includes, you'll need to open your web pages and insert a line of code where you want the SSI information to show up in your documents.

The code looks like this:

If your includes are located at the root level on your web server your path would look like this:

That's it. Pretty simple, really. After you get the hang of it you'll wish you would have learned about them years ago. They really do make global updating a snap.

Here are a couple of good sites to learn more about SSI:

Big Nose Bird-
http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

CGI Resource-
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Documentation/Server_Side_Includes/

New Breed Software
http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/unix/www/ssi/

Web Reference
http://www.webreference.com/programming/ssi/intro/

Before you start implementing SSI you need to ask your web host if they support them (most do), and also if they will need to be named with any special extensions. Some servers may require you to give them specific extensions like .asp (if it's NT) or .shtml (for many Unix servers). Although the majority won't, it's always better to ask first. Better safe then sorry.

By designing your website with server side includes you'll save yourself a ton of headaches when it comes time to updating your site. SSI is a Webmaster's best friend, so I suggest you spend some time getting acquainted.

Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com "Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made" Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting! Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers pick up some Fantastic bargains. Go now.

What Kind Of Dedicated Server Is Right For You?

I've thought about this question many times as well when trying to decide between various dedicated server specs. This should be all based on the intended use of the server. Is it being used for hosting clients? Is it being used to host your own sites? Do any of the sites being hosted have the potential for using large amounts of CPU, or perhaps bandwidth? These are the types of questions you should be asking yourself when deciding which server you should select. For example, if you're using your server to host an image hosting or file hosting website, then those are known to grow very quickly. Within a few days your hard drive space, and bandwidth being transferred can literally go through the roof. The next thing that occurs is your server starts to slow down, and the other sites hosted on the server also slow down, and you have to be looking to upgrade the server.

It's usually best to try for a medium. Not too much and not too little. It doesn't make sense spending $300/month for a server and your hosting a site that transfers little to no bandwidth, and doesn't use much of the resources. If that's the case then you should consider a Virtual Private Server rather than a dedicated server. On the other hand if you're going to be hosting multiple active websites then by all means choose a server that's good from the start that exceeds your current needs which will allow it to grow without issues.

I should note that if your running MySQL, Mail, DNS, and Apache or IIS all on the same server, then it's wise that the server has a healthy set of ram, hard-drive and a powerful CPU. Each of those applications can be very intensive and will try to dominate each other for the resources. Do not expect to purchase a server with only 256 MB Ram and try to run all those applications on the server. You'll need a lot more than that to keep the server stable. This goes out mainly to anyone looking to start hosting client's websites using the server. You can have many angry clients if your server slows down tremendously based on packing too many applications on a server with poor specs.

In any event, be smart. Only you will know the reason why you're looking for a dedicated server. Key in on the question points I mentioned. Weigh the pros and cons, and you'll make the right decision.

More insightful articles and information can be found at http://www.dedicatedserversearch.com

Update Your Entire Website Instantly Using Server Side Includes

Imagine my plight... I have 100+ pages on my website and I have to change my e-mail address and the copyright info on all the pages. The reason...

My mail box is over-flown with junk mails.

My only option is to edit all my web pages offline and then upload each one of them again, not to mention countless errors I make in the process.

100+ pages is still a small website. Imagine what it will be like if my website had 1000+ pages?

Sounds scary right?

If you would like to avoid the kind of mess I'm in right now, you have one option. Start using "Server Side Includes (SSI)"

In technical jargon, Server Side Includes are directives which you can place into your HTML documents to execute other programs or output such data as environment variables and file statistics.

If your only intention is to manage your website more effectively and painlessly, it is more than enough if you learn one "Directive" of SSI - the "Include" directive.

In simple terms, SSI Include is a line of code which you can use in your HTML documents to include contents from other documents. In other words, change just one file (the Include file), and your ENTIRE SITE is instantly updated!

The basic syntax of an Include directive is:

Where PATH_TO is the "VIRTUAL" path to include file on your server.

Here's how to include your copyright info and navigation links using SSI Includes...

First, you need to check with your server administrator whether your server supports SSI or not. Most servers support them.

Second, you need to rename all your HTML files with extension .shtml

-----SIDE BAR-----
You can start with one file and if everything goes fine, rename rest of the files. -----SIDE BAR-----

To keep things organized, you can create a directory at the root level called "includes" to house all of your included files. Now create a HTML document with only your copyright and navigation links. Copy everything that is between the BODY tags of this document and paste it in a new file.

Save this file as nav.html or any name you like with extension .htm or .html. You need not save this file with .shtml extension. Now upload this file to your "include" directory which you created for housing SSI Includes.

To include copyright info and navigation links in a HTML document in your SITE ROOT, place the following code where you want the copyright info to be seen:

Now if you want to include copyright info and navigation links in a HTML document in a folder UNDER your site root, the code will change to:

...and so on.

If you want to change or edit your copyright info or navigation links, just edit and upload your nav.html file and the change will be reflected in all the documents (using the "Include code") instantly!

You can also create your website headers/footers using SSI Includes.

There are host of other cool things you can do with SSI. For more info on SSI, you can visit the following sites:

http://www.useforesite.com/tut_ssi.shtml http://wdvl.com/Authoring/SSI/Intro/index.html http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

Vishal Rao publishes an informative e-zine: iNet Profits. Subscribe to his e-zine and get his free e-mail course: "11 Killer Strategies To Explode Your Online Profits", by sending a blank e-mail to => sub@inetprofits.par32.com

Five Steps To Choosing A Dedicated Server Host

I'll like to first point out that each step listed below is not necessarily in the order of importance as I deem each point to be just as important as the other. Choosing a dedicated server host is a very critical aspect of your business online. To put it simple, it could make or break you. Issues ranging from downtime, slow support, a very slow network can all kill your website and revenue FAST! I've outlined five points that you should consider when selecting a host for your dedicated server.

1) Reliability

This is not something you can actually know by just looking at their website, so you'll have to do a bit of research. It's always a good idea to do a search about the host to find any reviews from past or current clients. To do this, simply search using Google for keyword phrases using the company name. For example, Rackspace review or EV1Servers review, or you can even take a step further, by reviewing the support forums of the host if they have one. There you can easily find as much information as you need. How does this help with regards to reliability? Simple, it can show how fast they respond to complaints and issues by reviewing what past or current clients have said, and postings in the forums can show how they handle customer feedback.

2) Cost

We are all looking for a cost effective deal. It's important that we factor in quality over cost when choosing a dedicated server host. Selecting a $29/month server may not be the best option if it's backed with poor support and perhaps your server built with recycled hardware. Take note, this is not saying that cheap dedicated server hosts produce low quality service, but I'm saying that in 8 times out of 10 you do get what you pay for. Do price shopping and take note of each host's price along with their server specs, bandwidth, network, and support guarantees. Review each and then you'll be able to figure, which one is truly the most cost effective. Is it really worth it to have a $29/month server with only 256 MB RAM which may be slow and unresponsive if hit with a spike in traffic? It's going to be up to you to weigh those options.

3) Support

This is crucial for issues such as downtime, ddos attacks and general issues dealing with your server. It is important that you communicate with the support team before purchasing a server. Why? Simply because you want to test their response before investing any funds. If you would rather not send an email or call before making your purchase, if the site you're thinking about has a support forum, you can register and post your technical question there or review the questions asked prior to get a better idea of how solid their support technicians are with regards to answering questions.

4) Longevity

This is usually not listed as a priority as many startup dedicated server companies are solid, but it's usually a best bet to track the length of time that a company has been in business. You can do a whois of the host's domain name to see how long a host has been in business. It can be a good indication that they're in for the long haul if they've been around for awhile. This is not to discredit choosing a new company, as many solid server hosts are started regularly who go on to be huge successes. Simply use your best judgment when reviewing if to go with a host that's been around for years instead of one that's now getting started. I should point out here, that in some cases newer hosts will fight harder for your business and give you an overall better support in the beginning in some cases as they really treasure your business. It's really a toss up here, that's where your natural instincts for decision making will have to be the deciding factor.

5) Network

A fast upline provider is very important. Unfortunately not all networks are fast, secure and of high quality. When choosing your server host, it is important that you find out who is the backbone provider, i.e which company is feeding their connection to the internet. Not only do you want to know which company, but you also need to know what's the speed and maximum burst that can be achieved. Many networks have crumbled due to starting with too small of a connection causing all the servers hosted to literally crawl when traffic spikes occur. In addition, you'll need to find out if your server will be automatically behind a firewall or if that's an optional service. Every network should offer the ability for firewall protection but not all offer it as a standard inclusion. Do not overlook this, as if any attacks on your server do occur, and you are not behind the firewall your server can crash.

This is obviously not a total guideline, but a brief overview of what you should look for when choosing a host. In most cases, just using common sense and asking questions will help you make the right decision. Above all else, when choosing a host, if you follow the steps above, you'll be making an informed decision instead of taking the gamble just based on what you've read on the host's website.

More information can be found at http://www.dedicatedserversearch.com