December 2012 | Snel.com

Three great reasons to use dedicated servers

When you're looking for solutions for your website, chances are you'll have a few options available when it comes to the servers you use as a platform. Although most people recognise the need for high-quality hosting services, they may find what is available confusing, with one of the main decisions being between shared hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPSs) or Dedicated Servers.
While shared and virtual solutions may be adequate for smaller users and those with less demanding requirements, if you really want to take full control over your web server, a dedicated solution is the best way to go. In fact, technology news provider Sys-con.com highlighted three key reasons why you should choose a dedicated server over a VPS alternative.

Power of a Dedicated Server

If you opt for a solution from SnelServer.com, you'll be able to build your own dedicated server to your exact requirements. This means you can choose exactly how much memory and storage capacity you need, as well as the number and size of the processors.

This gives you the freedom to ensure you get a solution that meets your unique power requirements, without you having to pay extra for capacity you don't need. It also means you can scale up your system as and when you require without having to miss a beat.

Resources

Unlike shared hosting services, the entirety of your dedicated server's capacity and bandwidth is allocated to your own services, so you'll never have to worry about high traffic from other users affecting your website.

Privacy

Similarly, not having to share services means you're able to get the peace of mind that your data is secure and private, something that could be crucial in the current environment. As Sys-con.com's article explained: "In a world full of frights and perils, Windows dedicated Servers and Linux dedicated servers provide the end user with security and lots of resources." These are just three of the great reasons for opting for a dedicated server in order to give the control and security desired by businesses today, so why not see what SnelServer.com can offer your organisation.

Oracle Java ‘most vulnerable software’

If you're looking to set up dedicated servers or a Cloud VPS to be used as the base of your data center, you need to be thinking carefully about the software solutions you add to it in order to make your life as easy as possible. For many enterprises, one of the most commonly-used solutions is Oracle's Java platform, which can be used to create powerful applications for business computing and web servers. However, it seems the popularity of this is being increasingly recognised by criminals.

Most frequently exploited by cybercriminals

This is because research conducted by Kaspersky as part of its 2012 Security Bulletin has revealed Java has become the most frequently exploited software by cybercriminals in the past 12 months. This has seen it overtake the previous most vulnerable software, Adobe Reader, which slipped back to second.

In 2011, Adobe Reader was responsible for 35% of all exploit-related incidents, while for Java the figure was 25% and Microsoft Windows 11%. But in 2012, Java jumped to 50%, with Adobe Reader falling to 28%.

Used by criminals

What this might mean for you is that you could be leaving your business open to malware, as exploiting known vulnerabilities in software is one of the most common ways to access networks and place malicious programs on a network. Kaspersky explained: "Cybercriminals exploit applications or software that has unpatched security vulnerabilities, which exist because either the individual or business have failed to patch their vulnerable applications with the latest security updates from vendors."

Therefore, if you're using software such as Java, it's vital to ensure you always have the lastest version and update it with new patches as soon as they become available. If you don't do this, you're leaving yourself open to problems that could have a potentially disastrous impact on your business' network.

Now obviously this isn't the only thing you need to be taking care of to make sure your operations are safe. For example, it was recently observed by CIO.com that taking steps to keep websites free from vulnerabilities is hugely important to small firms, as they have limited resources available to them and might be especially targeted by criminals because of this.

Why should you consider Windows Server 2012 Essentials?

If you’re a small business looking to run your data center on dedicated servers, your choice of operating system is clearly going to be an important decision.

Small businesses might not be able to justify investing in Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition, but happily, this isn’t the only option if you want to use Microsoft technology as the basis for your data center.

If you’ve got fewer than 25 users of your network, you should look at Windows Server 2012 Essentials. While you don’t get access to features such as Microsoft Hyper-V with this, information website ServerWatch said you should find it does offer all the vital tools to get your firm up and running.

New capabilities

For example, it does offer a number of new capabilities that weren’t present in previous editions of Small Business Server, such as the ability to hook up to Microsoft’s cloud services, like Azure and Office 365.

This could be important for many businesses in the coming years, as news publication Windows IT Pro stated Microsoft’s vision for the future is a ‘cloud OS’ environment where much of a network’s operations are hosted remotely.

Simple management

ServerWatch also noted one of the great things about Windows Server 2012 Essentials is that it comes with an easy to use Dashboard interface that lets an administrator take complete control of all crucial management functions.

This offers an intuitive graphical user interface with point and click controls that can help users find information, view warning messages and perform some of the most commonly-used actions.

It was noted: “The management tools are designed to make it easy for anyone to administer the system with a minimal amount of experience.”

The publication concluded that although the product is more limited than the Standard edition, the access it provides to Microsoft’s cloud offerings makes for a solid product that’s capable of meeting the basic server needs of any small business.

Toughening the defences of your Linux server

These days, keeping your network activities safe from attacks is vital, as we're being warned all the time that cyber crime and malware is constantly on the rise. Obviously, having strong anti-malware software in place is a must, but if you're using Linux-based dedicated servers or Cloud VPS, there are several things you can do to keep your system safe. Some of these have been highlighted this week by IT World. The publication noted its tips are intended to apply specifically to servers running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, but most of its suggestions can be used on almost any Linux-based distribution, as well as many Unix options.

Keep your software lean

The internet news provider explained the more applications you have installed on a server, the more potential vulnerabilities you open yourself up to. Therefore, for the best protection, it was recommended you restrict the tools you add, maintain what is clearly required and actively keep an eye out for new vulnerabilities.
It added: "The more critical a server, the less tolerance you should have for anything beyond the essential services."

Encrypt your data

Ensuring any information passed over a network seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people are still using protocols that don't encrypt key details such as passwords.
It was noted it's not difficult for an individual to download and use tools to monitor this data and capture sensitive information, so it you aren't taking basic precautions, you've only got yourself to blame if you suffer a breach.

Maintain user accounts

IT World added you need to keep a close eye of who has access to your servers. It stressed the importance of deleting or at least disabling unused accounts as quickly as possible - ideally as soon as an individual leaves an organisation or moves to another project.

Related to this, you also need to create and enforce a good password policy. On RHEL, there are inbuilt password complexity controls that will ensure they users do not pick weak passwords for themselves - for example by mandating on minimum length and a mix of character types.

It was noted these are just some of the basic general principles you need to be following, as there as many things you can do to keep your servers secure.

Top HTML5 sites of 2012 highlighted

If you're looking to set up a website on a server, these days it's clear one of the best solutions is to take advantage of HTML5 technology. Over the last year, this has taken some huge leaps forward, driven by better support from the latest web browsers and a push by the World Wide Web Consortium to raise awareness and improve its capabilities.

There's so much you can do with HTML5 to make your site stand out, but with such a range of features available, where do you start? If this is something you're wondering, perhaps you might like to take a look at a few of the sites that have been highlighted by web developer publication .net magazine as some of the finest examples of the technology.

HTML5 as a development standard

The publication picked out several major sites from around the world that used HTML5 successfully from the ground up as the standard for their site. These included barackobama.com, the home page for the US president's re-election campaign. "Built by a team of industry vets, it uses semantic elements, data- attributes and schema.org and is built on HTML5 Boilerplate," .net stated. If you want to see how to make a clean, easy to navigate site, this was said to be a great example.
Eslewher, the UK government was praised for its Gov.uk site, which aimed to bring information and services from all its departments under one portal. Frontend developer of the project James Weiner observed: "HTML5 is where everything is going, so it was the logical choice."

Multimedia and interactivity

However, some of the key benefits of using HTMLs are its multimedia capabilities and the way it can seamlessly integrate interactive elements into a web page due to tools such as Web Audio API and WebGL. Websites highlighted by .net for the way they do this included music app JAM with Chrome and online game HexGL, a browser-based project based on the famous Wipeout title.
The publication added 2012 saw HTML5 become undeniably the new standard for web design and predicted this is only set to improve. It stated: "We're just getting started: expect 2013 to rock the browser even harder than this year. It's a great time to be developing for the web."

How can you make use of big data?

One of the key trends in IT over the last 12 months has been the rise of big data, which it has been said could lead to huge changes in the way firms do business. By adequately analysing and evaluating the information firms collect from their customers, it's said to be easier than ever to identify trends and patterns early and react accordingly. In the past though, it's been mainly thought of as a solution only for large enterprises. After all, it takes up a large amount of resources to not only store, but process this data. But this may no longer be the case. Dedicated servers are affordable enough for any firms, while the applications needed to analyse the information are also more freely available than ever.

'New democracy' for data

Business and financial management solution provider Intuit said technology advances are driving in a new era of "data democracy" that enables businesses of all sizes to make smarter, better informed decisions thanks to the wealth of extra information available to them. Partner at Emergent Research Steve King added: "We are at the onset of a data revolution that will provide new and meaningful ways for data-empowered consumers and small businesses to connect and engage with their communities, make decisions and simplify their lives."

What does it mean for you?

While this might seem complex, what it could mean in real terms for your business is an ability to spot changing or emerging trends quickly and alter your operations to take full advantage ahead of your rivals. It could also allow you to identify any weaknesses in your current activities - for example if you're an ecommerce firm, it could highlight where in the shopping process potential customers abandon their carts. This can let you zero in on a problem and fix it before it costs you any more sales. Intuit added consumers will also benefit from big data, using the insights gained to stay connected and easily "navigate the maze of modern life".