Web Server Uptime
Site-owners, who are running or planned to launch mission-critical websites like an e-commerce, need to consider many vital elements and there is one at the top of the list after security and that is web server uptime. Much has been said about it and you have seen this term everywhere on the web hosting sites but you are still curious about it. Read the whole story to learn maximum about it.

"Uptime", in the web hosting industry, is the time when your site fully operates and visitors can view as well as use it. On the contrary, "Downtime" is the time when it is not. Uptime and Downtime are measured in percentages.

How vital is uptime and downtime for your business sites?
Very vital - downtime means loss of revenues. In today's competitive world, this factor matters for your businesses’ survival. Therefore, it becomes critical to choose a hosting provider that ensures a high uptime guarantee; the higher it is, the better it is. An uptime guarantee of 99.5-99.99% is possible as well as realistic; this is best you can get.

How can you identify best deal?
Here are few tips:

• Analyze through getting your host’s uptime record. Read the part of the contract addressing their uptime guarantee; normally, it is included in the Service Level Agreements.
• Do they have disaster plans, redundancy and backups?
• Before making an agreement, re-check and make sure you will receive an uptime guarantee.
• Are they reliable regarding refunding and crediting downtimes?

Just finding a right host is not the whole task; you will also have to continuously monitor your site’s uptimes and downtimes to determine are you getting what you have paid for and this will tell you whether they’re keeping their promise or not.

Bandwidth Monitoring
Bandwidth monitoring is one of the most vital activities of any network administrator and so of yours if you are doing this job. You should have an ability to monitor bandwidth usage patterns throughout the whole day and across the whole week. By using a powerful bandwidth monitoring tool you can get real time alerts if the bandwidth usage of any link is not good and getting “unusual”. The state of being "not good and unusual" is different for different links and you should be able to setup the thresholds according to the usage pattern of every link.

A better level of bandwidth management is only attainable through better bandwidth monitoring. Web administrators regard bandwidth monitoring as an essential part of their strategy towards tracking and justifying their website’s expenses. Traditionally, there are two areas required to carry out bandwidth monitoring; first one is the monitoring tool which identifies bandwidth level, and second is the labor employed to devise solutions to problems.

There is one inverse correlation that cost increases with the complexity of the bandwidth monitoring utility. Naturally, the more detailed reporting tools come with high price tags though it is just initial cost. The more expensive one will provide the more detailed information, and an administrator will have to spend more time fixing them to attain maximum performance. However, it doesn’t make sense to invest highly for an advanced tool if you are not intended to do anything with the detailed information it gives. Finally, bandwidth management is an unavoidable task in a professional network management. Through a little learning you can easily learn to stay on top of your network issues.