#WebHosting Archives - Page 2 of 3

Reasons Home Improvement Service Firms Need a Website

Posted on 27/04/202016/06/2021 by Tushar

The home improvement service sector provides essential services to homeowners and landlords, covering everything from building and gardening to bathroom and kitchen installations. It’s a sector that includes interior design, decorating, window replacement, flooring installation and more. The demand for home improvement service also means that there is considerable competition, not just from other local companies but from national DIY chains that are adding design and installation to their retail services. This, together with the change in how consumers now shop for home improvements means its more important than ever for local suppliers to have a website. Here, we’ll explain why.

Online convenience

The reality of the modern market is that everyone looking for a home improvement service wants a convenient way to find it. This means they will begin by looking online. Some may find you in local printed directories or the classifieds, however, even if they do, they’ll want more information than the ad can deliver. The most convenient way to find out more is to visit your website and they will expect you to have one.

Having a website, first and foremost, means your business will appear in search results so more new customers can find you. From here, they can visit your site where they can easily access all the information they need to decide whether you are the right company for their project. Without a website, you make finding this information inconvenient, increasing the likelihood that customers will simply find a competitor that does provide that information.

An online showroom

Customers with home improvement projects want to be able to visualise the finished product and see the standard of installation work that your company can deliver. What’s more, they want to see this from the comfort of their own homes and before getting in touch.

A website enables you to provide a portfolio of your previous work and if you sell products like kitchens and bathrooms, a gallery of the items you offer. This will give them a clear idea of the standard of your services and the quality and design of your products. Such portfolios play a vital role in establishing leads with potential customers or in convincing them to visit your physical showroom.

Offer other online services

The modern website can do so much more than provide information about your products and services. There is now a multitude of website tools and add-ons that can be installed to provide exceptional customer experiences, such as price calculators, design and measurement tools and virtual tours of previous work. Indeed, virtual and augmented reality tools are increasingly used to help customers create the designs they want to achieve.

Customers also want the ability to book services online, such as reserving a slot for you to visit their homes or schedule the delivery of products. They also want the convenience of being able to pay online and have access to user accounts where they can see the progress of their order.

All these things can be achieved with a modern website. What’s more, they are available 24 hours a day, even when your physical business is closed, so that regardless of when a customer is looking, everything they need is always there.

These additional online services can make your business far more competitive in today’s market where 82% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.

Build your company’s reputation

Online reputations play a critical role in purchasing decisions. Customers no longer take a company’s marketing at face value and will look to verify what they say by checking out reviews and asking for recommendations on social media.

The star ratings, reviews and recommendations you receive are solely down to what your previous customers think. However, many companies getting excellent feedback fail to take full advantage of it. Although they can be found on Google, Facebook and sites like Trustpilot, these independent reviews that have so much influence on customers can also be linked to and displayed directly on your website.

If you have great reviews, let your visitors know by displaying them prominently on your site and providing a link to the independent site where they can read them for themselves. Here’s what we display on our website.

Such a move can immediately put cautious customers at ease and ensure them that your company and the work it does is highly regarded by its previous and existing customers.

Dispelling myths about websites

Some of the reasons business owners don’t have a website include the expense of building and running a site and the belief that they need highly technical skills to run one. This, however, is definitely not the case.

A business domain name (e.g. yourbusiness.co.uk) can be registered for around £10 – £20 a year, web hosting can cost from just a few pounds a month and the software used by the vast majority of the world’s websites is free. Such software, like WordPress, has been created to be used by those with only basic computer skills. Indeed, building a professional website is no more difficult than creating a PowerPoint presentation.

What’s more, at eukhost, you’ll be able to install WordPress with a single click and our 24/7 technical support team, knowledgebase and customer forum provide all the help you need to overcome any challenges. Our cPanel control panel also means you’ll be easily able to carry out any website management tasks and even automate many of them.

Conclusion

In the digital economy of the 2020s, having a website is essential for home improvement service businesses that want to stay relevant to today’s consumers and remain competitive. Hopefully, the points raised here will have convinced you of the benefits of creating a site and shown you that doing so is not an overly difficult or expensive process.

Which is Better for You: Managed or Unmanaged Hosting?

Posted on 22/04/202016/06/2021 by Tushar

If you have been looking for a hosting plan, you’ll no doubt have seen some packages described as ‘managed hosting’. If you are unsure what managed hosting is, how it differs from unmanaged hosting and whether it’s the right choice for you, this post will hopefully provide the answers you need.

The difference between managed and unmanaged hosting

Web hosting is the act of installing your website software and content on a web server so that it can be found and accessed over the internet. The web servers belong to your web host and are housed in a datacentre. Keeping your website or applications online is, therefore, a joint venture between the host and the website owner. The host takes care of the physical hardware and infrastructure and the website owner looks after the website software and content.

There is, however, a middle ground that can either be undertaken by the host or the site owner. This includes actions such as making backups, monitoring and optimising the performance of the server, installing and updating the server’s operating system and setting up and maintaining server security software, such as firewalls and malware and intrusion detection.

Managed hosting is when these things are carried out by the web host. Unmanaged hosting is when they are carried out by the customer.

It needs to be understood, however, that not all managed services are the same. Web hosts can offer different managed hosting solutions to each other and provide different managed services for different types of hosting. At the same time, some of these managed services are included in the basic price of a package while others can be purchased as an add-on service. Some enterprises even choose to work with their hosts to create bespoke managed services that are tailored around their specific needs.

When to choose unmanaged hosting

Choosing unmanaged hosting can be less expensive than managed hosting, but its biggest attraction for businesses is that it gives them far more control over their hosting. Apart from keeping the machines running, they take responsibility for everything else. Companies that have very complex IT infrastructures and which often rely on legacy software can find it easier to manage their applications when they have this level of oversight and control.

Of course, to do this, these companies need to have the extensive IT expertise to undertake all these management tasks themselves. This is usually achieved through a combination of employing experts and buying in third-party technical support.

When to choose managed hosting

The vast majority of companies choose managed hosting because it is more convenient and because they lack specific server management skills. While running a website has got easier, thanks to the development of user-friendly admin panels in platforms like WordPress and through the wide range of functions offered in control panels like cPanel and Plesk, the workings of a web server have, for many companies, remained an area over which they have little knowledge. If you have never had an in-house server and employed someone who can run it, unmanaged hosting can cause real problems.

With managed hosting, you can forget all about the more complex issues, such as installing PHP modules, load balancing, database optimisation or troubleshooting a server issue when something goes awry.

Indeed, today, even companies that have the in-house expertise in place to manage their own hosting choose to opt for a managed hosting solution. With a shortage of IT expertise available in the recruitment market and those that work in the sector demanding high salaries, it is far more cost-effective, productive and convenient to hand server management to the web host so that IT staff are freed up to work on more business-focused projects.

What to look for in a managed hosting plan

What you need to look for depends upon the type of hosting you choose. If you have shared hosting, for example, the simple fact that multiple customers share space on a single server means no individual customer could be responsible for server management – it’s always carried out by the web host. However, even with shared hosting, you should look for other server management solutions being included in a managed package – these include website backups and 24/7 technical support.

For more advanced forms of hosting where users have their own operating system, you’ll need to look for automated backup solutions, real-time performance monitoring, updating of OS, control panel and other server software and security software management.

Conclusion

Today, the advantages and convenience of managed hosting make it the number one choice for businesses. It removes all the burdens of managing your server and the calamities that can happen when a lack of know-how causes issues. At the same time, it allows smaller companies to get on with running their websites and larger organisations to put their IT expertise to more productive use.

Why Do SMEs Need to Be Digitally Transformed?

Posted on 15/04/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Digital transformation is just something for big business, right? Erm, no! In fact, it’s not completely true that bigger organisations led the way: many of the early movers were the disrupter startups that were digital from the offset. Indeed, it’s being digital that enabled them to become disruptors and forced their larger competitors to react. Today, as more businesses and consumers shift towards digital technology, it’s more important than ever for SMEs to consider how digital transformation can help them stay relevant and competitive. Here, we’ll examine why.

Reacting to change

Shifting consumer behaviours, the evolution of new ways of working and the constant roll-out of new technologies means SMEs are consistently having to adapt quickly to change. Not only are more consumers moving online; they are demanding digital services that provide better customer experiences. Employees, meanwhile, are increasingly seeking to work with companies that enable them to work flexibly and away from the office. To acquire and keep new customers and talented employees, and keep up with competitors, SMEs need to be able to adopt new technologies quickly, for example, deploying remote working platforms for staff or personalisation engines for customers.

To do this, they need to be agile, and its digital transformation that enables this. In particular, it’s the adoption of cloud technology, an infrastructure that allows companies to deploy new servers and applications instantly and which provides them with all the scalable resources they need to undertake their workloads. Indeed, by migrating to the cloud, SMBs eradicate the need for expensive, in-house infrastructures, making them even more agile and putting them on a level playing field with their larger competitors.

Taking advantage of AI

Artificial intelligence is starting to permeate all areas of business operations and its easy accessibility means it’s increasingly being utilised in all sectors. Today, SMEs can use AI for a myriad of purposes. It can help find better ways to procure products or materials, make industrial processes faster and more efficient, monitor machine and system health, provide data insights that identify new opportunities in the marketplace, streamline logistics, deliver human-like chat conversations with customers and identify risk, whether that’s financial risk or risk to life.

A key element of digital transformation, AI is something most SMEs can gain enormous benefit from. The good news is that adopting AI is no longer the major technological leap it used to be. Its popularity means there is a growing number of both open-source and proprietary AI applications that are designed to integrate with company systems – the majority of which are cloud-based. For SMEs that have migrated to the cloud, such technology is merely a click away.

Cyber defence

Being an SME doesn’t protect a company from cyberattack, nor does it remove the obligation to comply with regulation and ensure that data is safe. For this reason, SMEs need to develop a robust security strategy and put disaster recovery and business continuity plans into place.

Though ransomware attacks grab the headlines, there are various other ways companies can fall victim, such as through hacking, phishing, malware infection and DDoS attack. Data can be stolen, systems taken offline, websites taken control of and money syphoned from company accounts. It’s a serious issue: 60% of companies that fall victim to a cyberattack fold within 6 months.

The growing sophistication of cyberattacks means criminals can now buy ransomware as a service or brute force software with built-in AI. As a result, SMEs need advanced tools to defend against them. The adoption of these tools is also a key element of digital transformation. Providing this level of security in-house, however, is not only expensive but requires expertise and this puts it beyond the means of many SMEs. In the cloud, however, both the expertise and advanced technologies like next-gen firewalls, intrusion and malware prevention, etc., are part of the service. Companies will also find that vendors provide backup, disaster recovery and business continuity solutions to help them recover swiftly should the worst happen.

Data storage

Data is essential for digital transformation as it provides the information that applications need to process in order to deliver improvements. Today, businesses gather huge quantities of data, not just from customers and their online activity, but from the monitoring of machinery, vehicles, IoT devices, LED lighting systems, energy usage, inventory systems and more. For digital transformation to work, finding the right storage solution for all that data is essential.

SMEs will need to centralise data in order to control access, create customer journeys and ensure employees have access to the latest versions of documents and files. As data grows, businesses need expandable storage rather than having to go through the risk or rigmarole of upgrading to a bigger server whenever capacity is low. That storage also needs to be secure. Cloud storage is ultra-fast, can be expanded easily, has security features like encryption and access control, and is more cost-effective than buying dedicated servers. Crucially, being in the cloud, it enables remote workers to access data wherever they have an internet connection.

Conclusion

More SMEs are undergoing digital transformation than ever before. Indeed, to stay agile and adapt to change, it is becoming a necessity rather than an ambition. It is, however, a necessity that brings with it many rewards. The starting point for digital transformation lies in the adoption of cloud technology, as it is cloud infrastructure with its robust security and cost-effective pricing, on which the applications, tools and platforms of digital transformation are best run.

4 Essential Features a Website Must Have in 2020

Posted on 12/04/202012/06/2021 by Tushar

When it comes to running a website, you can’t afford to keep still while your competitors are making those all-important improvements. Advancements in hosting and web design, changing customer expectations and shifts in search engine algorithms are just some of the challenges that webmasters have to tackle to keep their sites fit for today’s marketplace. Here, we’ll look at what we consider to be the essential features of a website in 2020.

1. First-class hosting

Your choice of hosting package underpins every aspect of your website’s performance on the internet. A modern solution, like VPS hosting, for example, can ensure your site is always online, loads quicker on users’ devices and that it can handle spikes in demand without performance being affected. At the same time, a good web host can also provide you with exceptional security and backup solutions, improved compliance with regulations, reliable business email and 24/7 technical support to help you quickly tackle any problems which may arise. It can also make it easier to manage your website and your business with the use of advanced control panels like cPanel or Plesk.

With a first-class host and hosting package in place, a website can rank better in search engine results and reduce the number of visitors abandoning the site, while improving its reputation for being a reliable and secure place for people to visit and shop.

2. Mobile first design

Smartphones have become the most popular way to search the internet, with people browsing on them for twice as long as they do on laptops. Improved public wi-fi and 4G and 5G networks mean they are increasingly used when out and about to find local businesses or to search for information. At the same time, many more people are using mobiles to shop. According to analysts, GlobalData, mobile shopping is the fastest growing area in UK retail and will account for 40% of all UK online spending by 2024, with a value of over £33 billion.

With smartphones becoming such a key technology for consumers, website owners have little choice but to adapt. While responsive websites have been around for years, many earlier themes were geared up to create a desktop site and then simply repurposed this for display on mobile. This way of working, however, doesn’t always provide the mobile user with ease of use or best display. Today, it is important to develop a website where mobile use takes precedence; what Google calls the mobile first approach.

3. Personalisation

Personalisation has become one of the most important features of contemporary websites and provides benefits for both the user and the business. The process begins when a user signs in and, once done, the website transforms into one which is unique for that person. What they are presented with are the products, offers and information they most likely want to see. This improves their user experience, makes them feel valued, encourages engagement and generally makes them more interested in what’s on offer.

For the company, not only does this mean you are far more likely to make a sale; it also gets customers coming back over and over. It’s a technique that Amazon has mastered and which virtually every other online business wants to emulate.

While major companies invest heavily in advanced technologies, such as AI and product recommendation engines, to implement personalisation, it is possible to do it on virtually any website. There are numerous WordPress plugins, for example, that can personalise the website’s content and product recommendations, many using AI recommendation engines that analyse users browsing histories, etc., to ensure that those recommendations are highly relevant.

4. Ease of use

Customers expect every aspect of a website to be easy to use. This includes the fast-loading, mobile-friendliness and personalisation mentioned above, as well as a raft of other important features. Key here are simple navigation, so that whatever the user wants to find, they can do so quickly, and advanced product search, so that results can be filtered by size, colour, price or brand, etc. The checkout process should also be simple, without the need to fill in lots of information and with payment options to suit the user’s preferred payment methods.

Customers also expect finding information to be easy. This means providing FAQs or knowledgebases, while making it simple to get in touch and get speedy replies. Today, many websites feature chatbots, which have replaced live chat to customer service reps with interactions with AI-enabled software. Although the AI takes time to train, unlike a human, it can work around the clock and chat to multiple consumers simultaneously, answering the vast majority of queries that they ask of it. Importantly for generating sales, it can also initiate conversations and make product recommendations.

Conclusion

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the features a website should have, what we have included here are those four which we think are essential to help websites perform well in the modern marketplace. First-class hosting, mobile first design, personalisation and ease of use are vital to ensure your website meets modern user expectations and can compete with other sites.

The Smart Business Choice: Managed Hosting

Posted on 24/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do everything in-house. You wouldn’t deliver your own letters, service your company vehicles or rewire the offices; you’d pass those tasks on to expert third parties like the Post Office, a garage or an electrician. Surprisingly, not every company uses the same logic when it comes to the complex matter of managing their IT infrastructure. There are, however, several advantages of moving away from a DIY approach and opting for managed hosting services and in this post, we’ll explain what they are.

Managed hosting – the basics

Managed hosting is a service designed to alleviate the server management burdens faced by in-house IT staff so that they can focus their time and efforts on business-related projects. Offered by leading service providers like Anteelo, it provides companies with all the hardware and computing resources they need (servers, high-speed storage, network, RAM, bandwidth, CPU, etc.) and provides a flexible range of management services which reduces the time, money and effort needed to carry them out in house.

With the hardware being housed securely at the service provider’s datacentre and its expert IT staff taking care of management, admin and technical support, companies find it easier and more cost-efficient than operating their own system on-site.

Range of managed hosting services

Different service providers offer different ranges of service. In general, however, the typical managed hosting package will include datacentre operations such as server housing, site security, national grid and back-up power, air-conditioning, building maintenance and IT engineers, etc., together with hardware and networking.

Aside from managing the infrastructure, other aspects of the provision will include the operating system (including updating and patching), application infrastructure, application installation, real-time server monitoring, performance optimisation, Next-Gen firewalls, intrusion prevention and remote backups. In addition, there is expert technical support on tap, 24/7.

Many hosts offer a flexible range of services, extending beyond those mentioned above to include such things as application management. Here at Anteelo, it is even possible to create bespoke IT solutions to meet the precise needs of your organisation.

Versatile uses of managed hosting

Managed hosting is ideal for a wide range of computing scenarios, offering practical solutions for website hosting, running legacy applications, extending company infrastructure and more. By providing single tenancy hosting, it is also beneficial for companies which need outstanding IT performance, significant data storage and which wish to make use of data analytics. Many organisations also use it to back up data and for disaster recovery.

The single-tenant hosting that comes with managed services also provides better compliance for organisations which need sensitive or personal data stored securely.

Aspects of managed hosting to consider

Aside from the information mentioned above, when looking at different managed hosting solutions, organisations should also consider the following aspects:

High availability: If you are hosting mission-critical apps on your managed service, it is crucial that they stay online all the time. Make sure you opt for a provider which guarantees 100% uptime.

Control panel: Although a managed solution, there are still aspects of your IT that you will need to take care of in-house, such as managing user accounts. A quality control panel, like Plesk or cPanel, will make this much easier to do.

Firewall: Not all firewalls offer the same level of protection. Next-Gen firewalls, like FortiGate, offer the most advanced protection from a wide range of threats.

Port speed: Port speeds of 1GB offer the network performance needed for faster loading websites.

High–performance: Whether carrying out data analytics or handling thousands of customer requests simultaneously, you want hardware that can perform exceptionally, such as Intel Xeon CPUs and SSD hard drives.

Full root access: You should have total control of your server, so make sure your provider enables full root SSH / RDP access.

Technical support: IT issues happen for a variety of reasons and when you least expect them. For this reason, 24/7 expert technical support is absolutely essential to help you get things sorted in the quickest possible timeframe.

Conclusion

The range of services included in a managed hosting package can make it more expensive than unmanaged hosting, however, it can work out significantly cheaper than managing your system in-house. You won’t, for example, need to spend capital on hardware or pay for overheads such as server housing, IT staff time, power or insurance. Aside from the savings, many of the technical headaches caused by IT management will be taken care of on your behalf, freeing up your staff for more critical tasks. In addition, you’ll benefit from tighter data security, enhanced compliance and servers which perform better.

Cloud Computing : 6 Most Common Applications

Posted on 20/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Cloud computing has become very popular for businesses. As of 2018, over three-quarters of enterprises were already using it and more are adopting it every day. If you haven’t considered it yet, that’s possibly because you’re not sure what you can use it for. To give you an idea, here we’ll show you the six main ways it is being put to good use.

1. Big Data analytics

Today’s businesses collect vast amounts of data on all manner of things: customers, operational processes, logistics, machinery health, product condition and much more. The value of that data comes from making sense of it, using it to come up with solutions to problems or discovering new opportunities. To do this, however, you’ll need to conduct Big Data analytics and this requires the use of substantial computing resources, often over short periods.

Those resources would be incredibly expensive if you had to purchase them and for much of the time would stand unused. Convincing the finance director this was the wisest use of the company’s money would be a difficult challenge. The advantage of cloud computing is that its pay-as-you-go pricing means you can access all those resources for the times you do need them but not pay for them when you don’t. This way you can carry out Big Data analytics whenever you need but do so affordably.

2. File storage

While it’s true that you can store your files in many places, what makes the cloud so appealing is that files can be accessed, edited and shared anywhere with an internet connection and this opens up a variety of opportunities for mobile working, collaboration and even improved security.

What’s more, the cloud provides high-speed, high-availability access as well as offering scalability to increase or decrease storage as demand requires – again paid for on a per-use basis.

3. Testing and development

Developing a new application or platform in-house can be an expensive and long-winded process. It involves significant spending, time and staff involvement and requires the procurement, installation and configuration of hardware. This means it takes longer to complete a project and can put your company at a disadvantage with competitors.

Cloud computing can make testing and development quicker, less expensive and less complicated. This is because there are various pre-existing and perfectly suitable cloud environments already built and ready to use out of the box.

4. Disaster recovery

Lots of companies use the cloud as the solution for their disaster recovery needs. Continuous backups of your servers in the cloud mean that you’ll no longer need to pay for a separate, redundant DR site of your own. Not only is recovery much cheaper, it’s also far quicker, ensuring your business is back online in no time at all.

5. Data backups

Traditional methods of backing up data have tended to be complicated and time-consuming, often requiring portable drives or even tapes being shipped to remote sites for storage. This is also a technique that can back-fire if the drives are too small for the data or are discovered to be defective.

Cloud-based backup is far easier to carry out and more secure. You can schedule backups to meet your needs; store them remotely on virtual servers, knowing that if the physical hardware hits a problem the data is still available; they can be encrypted for increased security and checked to make sure the data is not corrupt. And as with all cloud storage, you can have as much space as you need without fear of running out.

6. The Internet of Things

The internet of Things is beginning to transform the way we live our lives and increasing numbers of enterprises are making use of it. An IoT system works by collecting data from large numbers of connected sensors and uses this to make intelligent decisions – often using artificial intelligence and machine learning.

To take advantage of the IoT, the cloud is needed to analyse that data and make insights from it. A smart traffic system, for example, can monitor traffic conditions across an entire area, discovering where issues arise and using AI to quickly reroute or slow down vehicles in order to prevent a hold up. This kind of intervention would be almost impossible to gather without the capabilities of cloud.

Cloud’s scalability is also important for IoT. As a company grows, so might the number of IoT devices it sends and receives information from. More devices mean it will need larger computing resources and this can be achieved quickly and easily in the cloud without the need for significant capital investment.

Conclusion

Cloud enables businesses to do many things that, without it, they would find more expensive, overly time-consuming or beyond their in-house IT capabilities. From basic solutions, like storing files and backing up data, to highly sophisticated processes, such as Big Data analytics and IoT data processing, the potential of the cloud is enormous. Indeed, what we have discussed here barely scratches the surface and there are even more developments yet to come.

Is It Time to Switch to a PCI-Compliant Server for Your eCommerce Store?

Posted on 16/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

If you intend to take payments for goods or services on your website, you’ll be required to comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) regulations. These are the security standards that companies which store, process or transmit payment card data have to meet. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what they are and explain why you need a PCI-compliant server.

What PCI-compliance entails

If you want your company to accept online card payments your server environment and eCommerce application have to comply with PCI DSS. This is the case even if you use a third-party payment processor. Failure to comply can have a significant impact, including ongoing fines or in the worst-case scenario, being prohibited from taking payments and thus finding your company unable to trade.

The standards you have to meet for PCI compliance are detailed and rigorous. They require you to build and maintain a secure network, protect cardholder data, maintain a vulnerability management program, implement strong access control measures, monitor and test networks on a regular basis and maintain an information security policy.

Ensuring these standards are met requires many other operations to be put into effect, such as the installation and maintenance of an appropriately configured firewall, the use of strong (non-vendor-supplied) system passwords, the encryption of cardholder data during transit, the secure storage of cardholder data and the use of anti-virus software. In addition, you’ll need to update and patch applications, restrict both system and physical access to cardholder data and create unique IDs for individual staff so that you can track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.

It is obvious from this that the PCI DSS standards are stringent and the responsibility for implementing and maintaining them, as well as evidencing compliance, falls with the eCommerce company and any third-party service providers they use.

The challenges and solutions of PCI compliance

eCommerce companies face two major challenges when striving to comply with PCI DSS regulations. Firstly, is the cost of building an in-house system that meets the standards and, secondly, they often lack the expertise to attain compliance. A solution that makes compliance easier and less expensive to achieve is to use the services of a PCI-compliant hosting provider that can offer both the server infrastructure and the necessary expertise.

At eukhost, for example, we are geared up to ensure our data centres, networks and operations are PCI DSS compliant. Aside from ensuring robust physical and system security of all our data centres, all our VPS, cloud servers and dedicated servers are PCI compliant-capable. In other words, we are able to carry out all the necessary configuration changes needed to meet PCI compliance upon request.

There are different levels of PCI compliance and the solutions put in place will depend upon the level your business is obliged to achieve. Most eCommerce sites, for example, have to meet either the SAQ A or SAQ A-EP levels. These are required for companies which process payments via a third-party payment gateway, such as Stripe or PayPal. As customers are transferred to the payment gateway to carry out these kinds of transactions, no card information is stored or transmitted by our servers. As a result, your compliance burden is dramatically reduced.

Putting the compliance process into action

To determine the exact requirements of making a server PCI compliant, your hosting vendor will need to know the application you are going to use and the level of PCI compliance you are required to meet. Here at eukhost, we carry out the following as standard:

Ensure you have a firewall enabled and have a robust firewall policy implemented.
Ensure that you have an SSL certificate installed and correct cyphers are set up.
Ensure that encryption is enforced for all services.
Disable any software which is not required to provide service.
Enable and configure intrusion prevention.
Enable an application firewall
Enable and configure anti-virus and anti-malware services.
Ensure logging and log retention policies are in place.
Apply an access and password policy.
Ensure a backup policy is in place and that backups are encrypted.

Once you have these features, plus any others you require, put into place, you will then be able to arrange for a PCI compliance assessor to undertake a compliance scan.

Remember, overall responsibility lies with the company

While a PCI DSS compliant vendor can help you comply and do so more economically, the ultimate responsibility lies with the company. Standards, such as assigning unique user IDs and maintaining an information security policy, which are carried out in-house, also have to be achieved. Furthermore, companies also need to ensure that any third-party hosting services they use also comply with the regulations.

Conclusion

PCI DSS is one of the most important regulations that an eCommerce company has to comply with. Designed to protect the consumer, it has a stringent set of requirements and is rigorously policed. One of the most effective ways to help you achieve compliance is to use the services of a hosting partner that has experience and expertise in PCI compliance and can provide the compliant server environment required.

Which Operating System is Best for You: Linux or Windows?

Posted on 14/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Whether you use shared hosting, VPS, a dedicated server or the cloud, when it comes to hosting your website or other applications, your choice of operating system (OS) boils down to either Linux or Windows. Which you choose depends on the needs of your business, the applications you wish to run, your technical expertise and your budget. In this post, we’ll take a look at both OS to see their advantages and disadvantages.

The Windows Server operating system

With Windows, you know you are getting an operating system created by the world’s leading software company, Microsoft. However, as a proprietary software with professional support, it comes with a cost. Linux, on the other hand, which is open-source and community-developed, is free.

Relatively simple to set up, Windows is more or less a complete solution, offering the flexibility of remote desktop access with the intuitive user-friendliness of a graphical user interface. Additionally, and unlike Linux, it provides this without the need to undertake command-line programming.

Those companies using other Microsoft software, such as Office 365, find obvious advantages in using Windows, as the native OS is fully compatible, out of the box, with other Microsoft applications. The same goes for using Microsoft SQL databases. Indeed, these are incompatible with Linux unless you use a Windows emulator – and to do this you would still need to buy the Windows OS and the database software. As this is the case, it can make more sense for Microsoft SQL users to stick with Windows.

Similarly, Windows is the solution for those organisations that need to use scripting frameworks, such as ASP and ASP.NET, as the embedded scripts in an ASP can only run on Windows servers. Linux is unable to processes these scripts before a user’s page can load.

The Linux operating system

Linux benefits considerably from being open-source and this has enabled several operating system distributions to be developed, including Fedora, Ubuntu and CentOS. Additionally, and unlike Windows, developers can take its freely available source code and make any changes or enhancements to its software functions, which not only helps users to eradicate bugs and vulnerabilities, but to edit features in order for it to do new things and work with prototype applications.

From a financial perspective, being open-source means there is no software licence to pay for and so, in comparison to Windows, using it is more cost-effective as your provider won’t need to charge you for it.

While Windows is compatible with Microsoft software, Linux works with most open-source software, like WordPress, meaning software licencing can be less expensive across the board. What’s useful is that Linux also enables users to run Microsoft programs as well, giving it a broader versatility, including the ability to use legacy applications which require a Windows emulator – though obviously, the user will need to pay for using any proprietary software.

Linux servers also offer other advantages. Their applications generally aren’t as resource-hungry, making them less liable to become sluggish under heavy workloads, and if needed, the servers can be modified without rebooting.

Another advantage is that Linux is more secure than Windows. This is simply down to the fact that, as the World’s leading OS, Windows has become the main target for hackers. The vast number of PCs using Windows just means there are more Windows computers to attack and so this makes it a more attractive OS to target.

Other considerations

Generally, Windows is easier to install and manage than Linux. However, as many companies are now making use of managed server hosting, this task is increasingly being done by the hosting provider. However, it may be a consideration for those purchasing an in-house system.

The same logic applies to technical support, which together with updates and patching comes included with a Windows package. If you use a Linux OS, in-house users will need to provide their own support or buy it in. Of course, this isn’t the case where the server is hosted for you, as with both systems, technical support, updating and patching will be included in the hosting package.

Conclusion

Windows and Linux are both excellent operating systems that have their own advantages and constraints. Your choice depends on the applications you use now and intend to use in the future, your expertise and familiarity with the systems and whether they provide you with the means to achieve your business goals. Pricing is also a consideration; however, if Windows is the best option in terms of what you need to achieve, then it is worth paying for.

Why Is Personalisation So Important in Online Business?

Posted on 09/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Personalisation is not the latest trend in online business. In fact, it has been around for a while. It is, however, becoming the norm, with more and more companies adopting personalisation as a strategy. Those who haven’t yet begun to use personalisation not only fail to reap its benefits; they risk losing customers and sales to their competitors. Here’s why you should consider personalisation for your business.

Why personalisation is important

Today we are bombarded by marketing messages. We find them on websites, social media, emails, television, radio, on the sides of vehicles, on street hoardings and tons of other places. There are so many fighting for our attention that, despite the millions that are spent on them, the majority go ignored. Personalisation has been proven to make customers take more notice and take more action, vastly increasing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

To give some substance to that claim, a recent article from SmarterHQ showed that over 90% of consumers would be more likely to buy from a company that provides them with relevant offers and recommendations. What’s more, they also discovered that, in 2019, more than 70% of customers only engaged with marketing messages that met their individual interests.

Since companies like eBay and Amazon started introducing personalisation, consumer expectations have increased. Indeed, if a website doesn’t offer relevant suggestions, almost half of its visitors will head to Amazon before making a decision. Overall, 70% of consumers feel marketing is too impersonal and 36% want even more personalisation than at present. Importantly, where personalisation makes buying less expensive or easier, 90% of consumers are willing to share their data to obtain those benefits – and it is that data which makes personalisation achievable.

The value of data

Websites are able to obtain vast quantities of valuable data from their visitors. This gives marketing departments the ability to know when people shop, what and who they shop for, how much they spend and even why and how they shop. This, however, is just the tip of the data iceberg. Today, businesses go way beyond tracking website behaviour and create end to end journey maps that collect the data on every single interaction an individual has with the organisation, including customer service interactions, emails and responses, product ratings and reviews, social media interactions and so forth. This helps the company to know their customers better than ever before and thus provide them with a far better customer experience.

The insights gained from analysing such data can help a company procure the products their customers want and market them in the most effective, personalised ways. It can even help them send out marketing communications via the customers’ preferred channel and do so at the time that will have the greatest chance of a call to action being followed. And, of course, when the consumer arrives at the website, they’ll be greeted personally and find all the products they are most likely to be interested in and be given offers which are both relevant and appealing.

How to add personalisation capabilities to your website

The growing demand for personalisation means there are an increasing number of plugins, tools and third-party services you can use to help implement it. The key tool is a Customer Relationship Management application that will enable you to do the essential collecting, tracking and analysis of your customer data as well as providing you with the ability to personalise recommendations on the site and send personalised marketing communications. Chatbots are another popular AI tool that act as personal shopping assistants to recommend products based on customer data.

Personalisation tools vary considerably in price. The WordPress Repository has several highly rated plugins with free and premium versions. More advanced tools dealing with bigger quantities of data can cost hundreds of pounds per month. A third-party provider will cost even more but will take the burden of managing the system off your hands and remove the need for in-house technical expertise.

Don’t forget your hosting

Do remember that if you choose to offer personalisation, you will need the capacity to store all the data you are collecting and the processing power to run the apps that will analyse it. This means you may have to consider a more powerful hosting solution for your website, such as VPS, dedicated server or cloud.

At the same time, collecting large quantities of personal data means you will be obliged to ensure its safety and so you may need to enhance the security features that you use to protect your website and online storage.

Conclusion

Personalisation is becoming a necessity for competitive businesses, especially in the eCommerce sector. Offering personalised interactions improves the customer experience and makes marketing strategies far more effective. To do this, however, you need the right tools to collect and analyse the data and to generate the personalised content. You also need the hosting capabilities to deliver personalisation and maintain data security.

Hosting Perplexity? Explained: the Different Types of Web Hosting

Posted on 28/01/201919/06/2021 by Tushar

Baffled by all the different types of web hosting? Unsure what they all are or which is the right one for you? You’re not alone. To help, this post will look at each different type of hosting and explain what they are.

What is web hosting?

Before we discuss the different types of hosting, it is helpful to understand what hosting is and why you need it. Essentially, your website is a set of files that you are sharing over the internet with other people. As a website, you want these files to be accessible all the time and easily found by anyone looking for the information you publish. To make this happen, your website content and the software that makes your website work have to be installed on a special kind of computer called a webserver. A webserver is connected to the internet 24/7 and enables your web pages to be downloaded to someone’s browser for viewing or interacting with. The webserver, therefore, is where your website is hosted and the company that provides the webserver is your web host or service provider.

The other important thing to mention is the operating system. Generally, all hosting is either run on Windows or Linux operating systems. While Windows is the most popular operating system for home computers, most website software is designed to run on Linux. When purchasing hosting, you will need to choose the operating system that your software needs.

Here’s an overview of different hosting types.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is the cheapest and most popular form of web hosting and is suitable for small business or personal websites. What makes it inexpensive is that the web host takes one large server and divides up the storage space for many different users. In effect, you will be leasing a small slice of a large hard drive.

While this slice can be big enough for all your website’s files and data, the downside of shared hosting is that you also have to share all the other web server resources, such as RAM and CPU. If lots of other users have busy websites, there may be times when your website is affected and loads slowly or performs poorly on people’s devices. It is similar to having too many programs running on your computer and finding that they lag or freeze.

Specialised shared hosting

Today, lots of web hosts offer specialist forms of shared hosting. In many instances, this is done by configuring the web server so particular types of website software can perform optimally. You may, for example, see WordPress, Joomla, Magento or Drupal hosting and these packages will also include other features to improve the hosting or make things easier for users of those types of software.

Additionally, some hosts offer shared hosting with particular types of control panel, such as the cPanel hosting here at Anteelo. cPanel is a leading control panel whose user-friendly interface and comprehensive range of tools make it a breeze to manage your website. You may also find shared hosting packages that are specially designed for business users or bloggers.

VPS

A virtual private server (VPS) is the next step up from shared hosting. It uses clever virtualisation technology to create several small, virtual servers on a single physical server. The difference between shared hosting and VPS is that your VPS is completely independent of all the other VPS on the physical server, so you don’t have to share resources or endure the issues this can cause. You even get your own operating system.

The other chief difference is that a VPS package is much bigger than a shared hosting package. In essence, it is like a mini dedicated server, giving you substantially more storage, CPU and RAM. This makes it ideal to run large websites, multiple websites or other types of application for your business. The surprising thing about VPS is that they are cheap, costing from as little as £15.59 a month (at time of publication).

Dedicated server

With shared hosting, a user gets a small share of a large webserver. The term ‘dedicated server’ simply means that you get that entire server dedicated for your own use. This provides you with enormous amounts of disk space together with substantial processing power and RAM. This is ideal for bigger businesses that need to run large websites, store lots of data and run critical business applications which need to be online all of the time. Compared to VPS, these can be much more expensive solutions.

Cloud hosting

The cloud is a vast network of interconnected servers hosted in huge data centres. Using virtualisation, websites can be moved instantaneously from one physical machine to another, even across geographical locations. This means if there is a problem with the physical hardware, a cloud-hosted website or application will never go offline.

Cloud’s virtual technology also means that companies that need extra computing resources at a moment’s notice, can instantly have it at their disposal – and in enormous quantities. What’s more, the cloud is paid for on a pay as you go basis, so you only pay for the resources you need as and when you need them. You can scale up or down at any time.

Accessible over the internet, cloud hosting brings with it many of the benefits of connectivity – flexible working, working from home, collaboration, etc. It’s scalability also makes it ideal for carrying out big data analytics or making use of technologies such as AI, machine learning or the Internet of Things.

There are three different types of cloud hosting: public, private and hybrid. Public cloud is where the hardware, software and other infrastructure are shared with all the other cloud tenants and managed by the web host, whereas in a private cloud those resources are used exclusively by you. Hybrid cloud is where a company makes use of both private and public solutions, often with dedicated servers included in the mix.

Managed hosting

Managed hosting is not a different type of hosting solution but a feature of many of the above. It is a service provided by the web host to manage your server for you. This will typically include looking after the physical hardware, ensuring the server is working optimally and updating the operating system on your behalf. For certain types of hosting, this form of server management is included in your package.

Enterprise hosting

Some companies have extraordinarily complex IT needs which require bespoke hosting and support solutions. Service providers, like Anteelo, have the infrastructure and expertise to offer these tailored solutions, often referred to as enterprise hosting.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is a wide range of hosting solutions available, ranging from the basic shared hosting needed to run a small website to the complex solutions needed by large companies to run a range of critical applications. Hopefully, this post will have given you a clear idea of what these types of hosting are and which is most relevant to you.

Online convenience

An online showroom

Offer other online services

Build your company’s reputation

Dispelling myths about websites

Conclusion

The difference between managed and unmanaged hosting

When to choose unmanaged hosting

When to choose managed hosting

What to look for in a managed hosting plan

Conclusion

Reacting to change

Taking advantage of AI

Cyber defence

Data storage

Conclusion

1. First-class hosting

2. Mobile first design

3. Personalisation

4. Ease of use

Conclusion

Managed hosting – the basics

Range of managed hosting services

Versatile uses of managed hosting

Aspects of managed hosting to consider

Conclusion

1. Big Data analytics

2. File storage

3. Testing and development

4. Disaster recovery

5. Data backups

6. The Internet of Things

Conclusion

What PCI-compliance entails

The challenges and solutions of PCI compliance

Putting the compliance process into action

Remember, overall responsibility lies with the company

Conclusion

The Windows Server operating system

The Linux operating system

Other considerations

Conclusion

Why personalisation is important

The value of data

How to add personalisation capabilities to your website

Don’t forget your hosting

Conclusion

What is web hosting?

Shared hosting

Specialised shared hosting

VPS

Dedicated server

Cloud hosting

Managed hosting

Enterprise hosting

Conclusion

Delivering excellence, collaborating across time zones.

Take a look at our global hideouts.​

Contact

India (HQ)

Atlanta, USA

London, UK

Dubai, UAE

Melbourne, Australia

Surabaya, Indonesia

India (HQ)

Atlanta

London

Dubai

Australia

Indonesia

Take a look at our global hideouts.