Tag: Servers

Content Delivery Networks were created for one reason: to speed up your websites and web applications. In this article, I explore how you can take advantage of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to improve your website performance for a small cost.

The Problem

Modern websites and web-based applications have a number of digital assets. These are the stylesheets, scripts and images that make up the websites you use. My website is no exception – it has 15 such assets.

My hosting company, Memset Ltd., have advised me they will be performing important maintenance work on their Miniserver platform.

This maintenance is to apply critical security patches to the Linux kernel of the physical servers that host the virtual servers like mine – that power this website.

It is taking place between 22:00 GMT on 1st November and 04:00 GMT on 2nd November. My server will be down for 15-30 minutes during this period.

This affects my:

• personal website/blog (this site)
• software web store
• photo gallery

Software developers sometimes have to get involved in choosing an infrastructure partner or web hosting provider, especially if that developer runs their own application or websites, or they work in a small company that can’t afford (or don’t want) to employ separate infrastructure engineers.

In my current role as a technical consultant, I can be called upon by a client to recommend a hosting environment, so it’s important I know what’s available on the market, and who to trust.

This is all very daunting, particularly if you’ve never had to experience it before.