IT budgets tend to be shrinking, which is an undeniable fact of life that lots of businesses have to deal with. What can be controlled, however, is just what a company does with the amount of money it does have. While implementing redundant systems may not be within a company's budget right now, monitoring the systems which are in place is a crucial step toward protecting a company from the losses it may suffer due to unplanned website downtime. If you need to minimize the lost profits that website downtime can cost, there are specific steps that must definitely be taken and certain policies that need to be placed into place.
Planned Downtime
Planned downtime that occurs due to things such as updates and maintenance is, to some extent, under your control. You can plan that downtime round the hours your website experiences minimal level of traffic, so any profit loss will undoubtedly be minimized. You can even notify customers of the planned downtime in advance so they can make purchases or conduct business accordingly. What that leaves you with is unplanned downtime, and the way you plan that downtime can mean the difference between your failure and success of one's site.
Website Monitoring Service is a Must
When it comes to minimizing profit loss due to website downtime, the name of the game is speed. You should know about the downtime as quickly as possible so you can head to work fixing the problem in a timely manner. That means implementing an internet site monitoring service to alert you the moment any website downtime happens. The sooner you know about the downtime, the sooner it is possible to go to work to get your site back up and running.
What to Do WHILE YOU ARE Notified of Downtime
Which means you have quality website monitoring service set up. You receive a text message or a telephone call telling you your site has gone down. How fast you obtain that site ready to go depends on several factors including the reason for the downtime, what failsafes you have set up, and the attitude of one's IT staff.
If your site monitoring service notifies you of downtime that's being caused by your hosting provider and you have backup hosting in place, it is possible to simply redirect your DNS. If your website monitoring service notifies you of downtime the effect of a software or hardware failure on your end, you will definitely need your IT department to fix the problem as quickly as possible. The attitude that the employees have regarding downtime will have a significant impact on how quickly they work to get the site back online.