Suppose the user cannot access the desired content and service of your site at the right time. In that case, its negative effects will affect your business over time, and this is why Uptime is one of the most important features that should be considered when purchasing a virtual server. Or a dedicated server, pay attention to it.
Uptime is a very important measure that can affect important aspects of your website, such as ranking and conversion rate. This metric shows the percentage of time your server is up and running.
No matter how great the products and services of your website are or the content you provide to the audience is valuable, if the user cannot see them at the right time, it is of no use because, with low Uptime, opportunities for access, interaction and You lose the conversion.
So, take this criterion seriously and understanding the importance and effective factors in increasing Uptime is the first step you can take in this direction:
What is Uptime, and why is it important?
Uptime is an important criterion for measuring a website’s or online service’s reliability. The meaning of Uptime is the time that the site continues to be on the Internet and is available to users; that is, the system is running without shutting down or restarting. On the other hand, downtime shows the percentage of time that the server is down or turned off for any reason. This metric is used to show the performance of a server and can be measured by monitoring tools.
The measurement of this time is done as a percentage, and ideally, if a site has 100% uptime, it means that it does not experience any failure and disruption, which in the real world, this percentage is a little impossible because many factors can negatively affect the uptime percentage.
It doesn’t matter what your goal is in setting up a website, system or server, in any case, you should pay attention to this criterion because users can visit your content, products, or services as long as they have access to them.
If your audience cannot reach your website, your business will suffer. In addition to being unable to serve your website pages, on the other hand, there is also the possibility that Google or other search engines will recognize your website as an unreliable source, and this will negatively affect your website ranking.
What is the difference between Uptime and availability?
Although these two modifications are used interchangeably, they generally refer to different concepts.
Uptime is a measure of system reliability and usually shows the percentage of time your system or server has been up and running (past), But availability shows the possibility of a system working properly in the period when it is needed (future). When most team members work remotely, the importance of availability increases.
So Uptime looks back; shows the percentage of system readiness in a certain period, which usually takes one year to calculate the uptime percentage. So we understand that when a dedicated server or virtual server provider talks about Uptime, it has reached certain results by examining its performance in the past. There is no firm guarantee of what will happen in the future because of many factors, Which can cause disruption. For example, the same fire in the German OHV data center caused all its servers to fail. Such issues are not related to the quality of servers or provide support and are impossible to predict.
How to calculate Uptime
Uptime is calculated based on the Number of hours the server was up and running in a certain period and is shown as a percentage.
For example, if we consider this period as one year:
Number of hours per year / Number of server working hours = Uptime percentage
Number of hours per year: 24 x 365 = 8760
So, if the server or system is down for only 4 hours, i.e., the Number of working hours is 8756, the uptime percentage is calculated as follows.
99.95% = (8760 / 8756) x 100
Effective factors in server uptime percentage
Many factors can affect the uptime percentage of your website, and the most important of them is the provider you have chosen to buy a virtual or dedicated server, such as the strength and quality of the server’s hardware and software, geographic location, and server bandwidth. They have a much more effective role in Uptime.
Common hardware parts that affect the percentage of Uptime:
- Expandable and upgradable infrastructure
- CPU type
- Storage space
- Amount of Ram
So, suppose you enter into cooperation with a company that, in addition to providing affordable plans with excellent hardware, software, and network features, can meet your needs, on the one hand. In that case, it can upgrade your plan due to the increase in traffic and capacity. Yes, your work will be easier. You can easily maintain your server’s performance by striking the right balance between resources and cost.
Of course, software problems, viruses, network disruptions, and human error can also hurt Uptime.
Another important factor is the domain of the website. In this way, older domains usually have better Uptime because they have maintained their stability for a longer time and gained the trust of users and search engines.
The geographserver’s geographic locationo play a role in the Number of server failures. For example, servers located in high-traffic areas or more exposed to natural disasters tend to have lower Uptime.
Among other effective factors in uptime percentage, the following can be mentioned:
- Network bandwidth
- Number of HTTP connections
- Server processing and response time
- The Number and complexity of DOM elements of a website page
- Web browser type
- Protocols used to communicate between the server and the browser, such as SPDY, HTTPS, SSL and HTTP/2.
- …
Important tips to guarantee a high uptime percentage (99.99 percent)
Datacenter:
- Use several systems simultaneously so that the failure of one system does not cause the failure of the entire server.
- Different entry points should be included for the main power sources so that the desired service will not be cut off when one source is cut off.
- By complying with the requirements and using ventilation and cooling systems, environmental conditions such as humidity and temperature are controlled, and an optimal operating environment is provided for the server.
- To prevent the entry of unauthorized users, very precise access controls such as biometric controls and human traps should be considered for the data center.
- Disasters similar to OHV data center fires can be prevented by including fire detection systems and sensors.
- Avoid the risk of data connection problems by accessing multiple ISPs to provide high levels of connectivity.
Rack:
Servers should be kept in special cabins.
To avoid the effects of failure of one power supply on the rack, use a dual power supply.
Server:
To maintain the normal operation of the server when the power supply is interrupted, use a dual power supply.
Using RAID to store data in multiple hard drives ensures that data is not lost in case of hardware failure.
The use of cloud servers greatly affects Uptime because the data is stored on several servers.
As you know, when you are planning to buy a dedicated server or a virtual server, your role is only to determine the hardware power, the type of software such as the operating system, bandwidth, location, and the amount of access, and the percentage of Uptime that is in addition to the features of the plans. Is taken into account, it indicates the quality and performance of the data center, rack, and server, which is beyond your power to change the quality and performance of these parts. You have to decide which plan and how much Uptime you want.
If you are confused in this field and do not know how to trust the uptime percentage of hosting companies’ servers, we recommend that you do not go far and leave your worries aside for a few moments.
Ded9, as one of the most reliable companies in this field, providing the best and highest quality virtual and dedicated servers, assures you that thanks to great features such as a 1 GB port, NVMe SSD storage space, and dedicated resources. And powerful, you won’t notice a disruption in server performance, and will experience 99% uptime in the real sense.
Conclusion
The percentage of server uptime is one of the most important measures that can affect the performance of your website. Users and audiences who cannot access the desired page at the right time will certainly be discouraged from the entire website. This will be the beginning of negative ranking signals and, as a result, a drop in business performance. So by choosing a powerful server with a high uptime percentage, keep yourself away from the losses of a website that is always off and down.
Thank you for staying with us until the end of the article. We hope that reading this article was useful for you. If you have any questions, or requests and need guidance, you can contact us by registering your opinion so that we can answer you as soon as possible.