These days, having an online presence is essential, no matter what industry your business operates in. Many companies rely heavily on their websites for generating new leads and even bringing in profits through ad revenue and eCommerce sales. It's not surprising, then, that unexpected site outages can create problems for business owners and customers alike. Beyond frustration and inconvenience, website downtime can also impact your company’s bottom line. By having a better understanding of the real cost of downtime, you can take measures to better protect your business. The Average Cost of Downtime The cost of network downtime can vary greatly based on a number of factors. For example, a business that runs an eCommerce store is likely to lose more direct money due to site downtime than a company with relatively light daily traffic that only uses its website for informational purposes. On the other hand, even businesses without eCommerce sites can

Dedicated servers can be used for a variety of practical applications, including hosting websites, company emails, online games, and video streams. But did you know that dedicated hosting can also be beneficial for call centers? Specifically, a dedicated server can be used to place and receive high-quality phone calls through a Voice over IP (VoIP) system. Let’s take a closer look at how dedicated servers can benefit professional call centers across all industries. 1.     Customized Service Whether you’re looking for better-quality phone service for a small, privately owned call center or a large corporation, a dedicated hosting company can deliver. Unlike a traditional phone service provider, a dedicated server host makes it easy to fully customize your plan to suit your business’s specific needs. Dedicated servers come with a variety of customization options, giving you the flexibility you need to truly benefit from your hosting service. For example, you can

When most people think about dedicated servers, website hosting usually comes to mind – and for good reason. Web hosting is one of the most common ways in which people use dedicated servers. However, there are many other useful applications for these servers, from gaming to email storage and more. Let’s take a closer look at these uses and how they could benefit you. Dedicated Servers for Gaming Whether you’re a casual gamer or a professional streamer, having a dedicated server can help you take your gameplay to the next level. This application is especially useful for online multi-player games like Minecraft. When you use dedicated hosting for gaming, you’ll enjoy greater reliability and less lag, which can help you improve your overall experience. It's also a great way to exercise more control over your gameplay by hosting your own game with players of your choosing. Dedicated Servers for Email Whether

These days, there's no good excuse not to have your data backed up. This is especially true when you consider how frequent web attacks and data breaches are becoming. No matter how big or small your business may be, your sensitive information could be at risk. Luckily, with a data backup in place, you’ll have copies of your confidential information in the event that it’s compromised. What is an Off-Site Backup? When it comes to backing up your data, you have a variety of options. First, you can back up your information on a physical hard drive that you keep at your place of business or even at your home. Certain shared hosting plans also offer backups, which is a cost-effective option for many individuals. However, the best option you can select when protecting your sensitive data is an off-site backup on a dedicated server. With a dedicated server, you won’t have to share

These days, it's generally expected that all businesses (regardless of size) should have a website. Even if you're just preparing to launch your small business, your potential customers will expect to be able to visit your company website to learn more about the products or services you offer. One of the most commonly overlooked aspects of online business success, however, is web hosting. If you don't have the right type of hosting in place, your business revenue could be directly impacted. At the end of the day, a dedicated server will provide a number of benefits that a shared or free web hosting service simply cannot. Let’s take a look at how the web hosting you choose can affect your business’s revenue. Reliability Free and shared hosting plans don't come with any type of up-time guarantees or service level agreements. As a result, you'll most likely end up with slow-loading pages if

No matter whether they deal with home, auto, or health insurance, one fact remains – insurance companies handle sensitive data on a regular basis. From customer payment information to policyholders' personal data, insurance companies are trusted with a great deal of private and sensitive content. Unfortunately, with cyber-attacks and data breaches on the rise, many insurance companies (and their clients) are having their information compromised. More than ever, insurance agencies have a responsibility to take extra precautions when it comes to handling sensitive data. This includes revisiting their hosting plans to ensure they're as secure as possible. If your insurance business isn't already using a dedicated server, now is the time to make the switch. How Dedicated Servers Can Improve Security There are many ways in which dedicated server hosting can improve overall security, whether you're using a dedicated server host for your insurance company's website, email, or a combination of both. For

When you're looking to launch your first website, choosing the right web host is important. A great web host will provide you with the reliable server you need to ensure the best user experience possible. However, before you choose just any web host for your site, there are some common first-timer mistakes you'll want to avoid. 1. Not Understanding Your Options Start by making sure you have a solid understanding of what your hosting options are. There are two main types of web hosting used for most sites these days: shared hosting and dedicated server hosting. With a shared web host, you must share your server hardware and resources with other users and site administrators. You can save some money by going this route, but your site could also suffer reliability and latency issues if other websites on your shared server have high demands. Dedicated web server hosting, on the other

For many seeking a reliable hosting option that offers the advantages of dedicated hosting, a bare metal server can be a smart choice. In recent years, the popularity of bare metal servers has seen a huge increase – despite the fact that they have actually been around for decades. The potential uses for this hosting option are seemingly endless, making them an attractive option for businesses in various industries. What Are Bare Metal Servers? What is a bare metal server, anyway? Essentially, these refer to a basic computer hard disk with no operating system or software — just the physical server hardware itself. Unlike a traditional dedicated server, a bare metal server is more-or-less a blank slate. The advantage of this type of setup is that it’s fully customizable in ways that traditional dedicated servers (with operating systems and software already built in) are not. As a result, users can

What’s important to a hosting provider? Let's take a look at CloudieWeb, which provides cloud servers, VPS (virtual private servers), dedicated servers, web hosting and managed hosting. They offer great hardware and services with extensive support to their customers, including 24/7 live chat and live phone support. The company has primarily hosted their servers and website with ReliableSite since 2014, and has grown like never before. About CloudieWeb CloudieWeb is primarily a “cloud” provider, although they sell more other types of hosting services. Since starting their business with ReliableSite, CloudieWeb has hosted its website and 90% of its services at our New York City metro area data center. Between 2014 and 2015, the company has grown at a rapid pace and ReliableSite's dedicated servers have served as their backbone. The company prides itself on efficiency. By using ReliableSite’s infrastructure and services as the basis of their business, they are avoid major

Dedicated Server Case Study: Scirra Game Software When London-based brothers Tom and Ashley Gullen started Scirra in May 2011, they needed dedicated servers that would grow with their software company. Their main product, Construct2, already had a following from users on the original Construct platform. ReliableSite has provided dedicated hosting for their high-traffic website, as well as their product downloads and other game-related services from the beginning. "Good quality service is of extreme importance to us,” says Tom, co-founder of Scirra, “and ReliableSite has always provided this to us. Not only is the service great, but it's also excellent value for money when comparing it to other hosts and cloud based services. They give generous amounts of bandwidth and the 1 Gbps ports are brilliant!” About Scirra Scirra is a game development company, where both founders have backgrounds in development and design. Their main software, Construct 2, is a HTML5 game development