How to speed up your website

Speed Up your Website

Speeding up your website, or in other words “reducing the load time”, is very important as you read in the into.

User experience is much better when a page loads fast.

Search engines like fast loading pages.

With my old website Weethet.nl the load times a very fast. Why?Well … there is absolutely nothing fancy going on there as it was developed back in the year 2000.

My new website, Tweaking4All, is significantly more complex: more JavaScript, more CSS, etc.

Basics First

I will not go too deep in the following basic rules, since most web developers already know these basics. But it’s a good reminder none the less or an easy read for beginners.

The basic steps involve the reduction of your files and file sizes.

Compress JavaScript and CSS files

For CSS and JavaScript you will find quite a few tools out there that can minimize or compact your files.

Optimzing goes (basically) in two steps:

Removing redundant statements, comments or variables.

Removing redunant characters (like spaces, tabs, semi colons, empty lines, etc)

It’s always good to test the result after minimizing a file, since minimizing can cause issues with your JavaScript or CSS files.

Some good sites to do the work for you:

Keep your image files small

Smaller image (and I mean the Kilobytes, not the dimensions) files load faster, so keep them small.

I’ve found that for me it’s always a balance between what works and what doesn’t.

Tip!

Read the following articles to reduce image file sizes even more – both work for the common image formats PNG, JPEG and GIF:

JPEG

JPEG gives a great compression if you tweak it a little bit, specially for photographs.

A downside of JPEG is that JPEG uses a compression method that “takes away” a little of the quality of your image. With photo’s not visible to the eye, but with non-photo’s this can become a problem, specially if the colors need to remain unchanged.

So for example, if I have a picture and a very particular background color (for example to blend in with the background of your website), then it might happen that this background color is no longer exactly the color you wanted it to be. Bummer!

This is basically a consequence of the nature of JPEG – it compresses really well by reducing the quality of an image. In photographs hardly visible, but as you can see below, hard contrasts will cause distortions and/or artifacts might appear (see extreme example below – left is the original, right is the JPEG).

JPEG Artifacts and Distortion

JPEG Artifacts and Distortion

GIF

Well, I would use GIF only if I have no other options (like animation for example), otherwise I’d recommend using PNG.

PNG

PNG is a beautiful format when it comes to lossless compression (no distortion or artifacts) and the use of transparency (for which we used to use GIF). But it comes at a price.

Compression is not always ideal and the files can become pretty big (compared to GIF and JPEG) if you don’t pay attention.

There are quite a few tools out there that scrape of the redundant information of a PNG file, for example ImageOptim.

Note: There is an animation version of PNG, but I consider it useless for now as most browser do not properly support this.

Use fonts instead of images

Back in the day, I used a lot of tiny GIF’s (as individual files or as a sprite where multiple images are combined) to display icons. But these days browsers do support custom fonts that are vector based and are always displayed crystal clear. I use such a font on this website.

A great source for this is the awesome IcoMoon – it does not only offer a truck load of icons, but also a great tool to compile you own font, comes with a web-font generator, and tools to import your own vector drawings. Highly recommended!

Other great source for free web-fonts: Font Squirrel, Google Fonts, Font Awesome and FontStrap.

Use CSS instead of images

CSS has become a very powerful tool over the years. Certain tasks you used to have an image for (for example a gradient) can now be done in CSS – so no more image needed.

Since it’s not always that easy to create the proper CSS code, several so called CSS Generators are out there that help you in creating the right CSS code.

Some great websites to get started:

Reduce file count

For each file that needs to be retrieved, your browser needs to “chat” with your webserver.

A file can be a JavaScript file, a CSS file, a HTML or PHP file, images, etc. The less files a webpage needs, the less overhead the browser has to retrieve those files.

Widely used tricks like merging multiple CSS or JavaScript files into one helps.

The earlier mentioned use of so called “sprites” helps file reduction as well. In CSS Sprites we combine multiple images into a single file and CSS is used to “shift” the visible part of that image.

Some good articles to get started with Sprites: The Mystery of CSS Sprites, W3Schools CSS Sprite Images.

Advanced Speed Techniques

Now that we rehashed the good old basic tricks, on to the more advanced tricks – They are may be more advanced, but most certainly not difficult to implement.

Tip!

For measuring the impact of my changes, I really love to use GTmetrix.It shows me quickly how my page is performing and show where there issue areas are.So before continuing: go over there and get the baseline score …

Please Note ..

Some of these advanced tricks need specific modules to be installed on your web-server.Since I only work with Apache as a webserver, all these examples are Apache based.This does not mean they will not work on your non-Apache webserver, and notation might be slightly different.

To find out what modules are installed on your Apache setup, try this on the command-line (i.e. you need to SSH into your server) – keep in mind that different server can have a different Apache setup:

httpd -M

If that doesn’t work, you could try:

apache2 -M

Compressing Files on the Server

Required module: mod_deflateWhere: .htaccess

Mod_deflate allows us to compress files before sending them to the web-browser.

Compressing files typically has a high impact on text based documents, and guess what: most of your documents are text based (html, css, javascript, xml, html, etc). Files can be reduced to 50% or even less of their original size – and that means: speed!

Oh and by the way: re-compressing images is typically pretty useless.

To enable compression, simply add the following code to your .htaccess file – I placed it as the first thing in my .htaccess file.

The .htaccess file can be found in the root folder of your webpages (typically in the www or public_html folder on a webserver).

1234567891011121314151617181920212223

<IfModule mod_deflate.c># Define compression for certain filetypesAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plainAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/htmlAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xmlAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/cssAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xmlAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xmlAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xmlAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascriptAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascriptAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-phpAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-httpd-fastphpAddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml

# Drop problematic browsersBrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/htmlBrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzipBrowserMatch \bMSI[E] !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

# Make sure proxies don't deliver the wrong contentHeader append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary</IfModule>

Expiration Date – Improve browser caching

Require module: mod_expiresWhere: .htaccess

Your web-browser has a cache, where it stores files for later use so it doesn’t have to download it again. But these files come with an expiration date (time) … and the default times aren’t all that great specially when you, the designer of the website, know that certain files rarely change.

The mod_expires module allows us to define this for particular files. In the example below I set the expiration time to 8 weeks after the initial download of the files. the files in this case are images (.ico, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif), CSS (.css), JavaScript (.js), Flash files (.swf), web-fonts (.woff, .ttf,. eot, .svg) and vector graphics (.svg).

It’s easy to change this to your personal preferences.

Keep in mind (line 8) that the expiration time is expressed as of the time the browser downloaded the file for the first time.

The time can be expressed in:

years

months

weeks

days

hours

minutes

seconds

You can also use the singular expression, for example “month” instead of “months”.

To increase the expiration date, I added the following to my .htaccess file:

1234567

#Expire Header<IfModule mod_expires.c>ExpiresActive On<FilesMatch "\.(ico|jpg|jpeg|png|gif|js|css|swf|woff|ttf|eot|svg)$">ExpiresDefault "access plus 8 weeks"</FilesMatch></IfModule>

CAUTION

Having this option enabled while you are still changing can come with problems – make sure to disable the cache of your web-browser.If that doesn’t work, save the file under a different name after disabling the earlier mentioned code (type a “#” before the lines).

Keep sessions alive

Require module: NoneWhere: httpd.conf

Since a browser needs to reconnect often to retrieve all the files it need, it experiences a lot of overhead.

To minimize this, and the impact is pretty significant (I was baffled by the speed increase!), we can tell Apache to keep the connection alive for a longer time.

Downside to this is that this produces more overhead on your server (memory usage), but with a good setup this should be not a problem if you use the default settings.

There are 2 ways to do these settings:

You webserver management tool (for example CPanel WHM).

Editing the httpd.conf file of your server and restart the httpd service.

Changing the settings in cPanel WHM (Web Host Manager)

Open your cPanel WHM page and go to the “Service Configuration” section and click “Apache Configuration“.

A page opens on the right where you click “Global Configuration“.

When the page reloaded, scroll all the way down and find “Keep-Alive” and modify the settings matching to what you see in the image below:

WHM - Apache Keep Alive settings

WHM – Apache Keep Alive settings

Next click “Save” and WHM will walk you through the process of rebuilding you configuration file and restart Apache.

Manual editing the httpd.conf file

I have not done this myself, since WHM took care of it for me. But I do know that my Apache configuration file is located in “/etc/httpd/conf” and named “httpd.conf“. With you favorite editor, in an SSH session, you’ll need to find and modify the following lines, save the changes and restart Apache:

123

KeepAlive OnKeepAliveTimeout 5MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

Redirecting to another page?

Required Module: NoneWhere: .htaccess

Although redirects are frowned up, sometimes you simply have no choice. For example if a page on your old website no longer exists and needs to point to the correct page on your new website.

I’ve found that plugins, and all kinds of gimmicks do not really work all that great, and all though you should try to avoid them, this is the format I use in my .htaccess file:

Redirect 301 /old/path/to/oldpage.html http://www.newsite.com/new/path/to/newpage.html

This tells the browser that this is a permanent Redirect (301) of the oldpage.html to this newpage.html.

Avoid Redirects when possible …

Complaining about unknown font file types?

Required Module: NoneWhere: .htaccess

I had it with my newly installed web-fonts … the browser kept complaining that it didn’t know what mime type it was. Not a super bad thing, but a minor slowdown and annoying when you keep seeing the messages in your browser console.

A quick fix in .htaccess:

1234

AddType application/vnd.ms-fontobject .eotAddType font/ttf .ttfAddType font/otf .otfAddType application/x-font-woff .woff

Conclusion

With all these tricks I managed to get my “big” and “complex” website to become pretty darn fast (scoring jumped from 65% to a whooping 96% at GTmetrix – which is very good).

I’m pretty sure that there is still room for improvement, but with these few simple steps you will too experience a nice speed boost on your website.

For more….

www.arnserevr.com

BECOMING MORE ACQUAINTED WITH DEDICATED SERVERS

Found in a server farm, a dedicated server is a server working framework running PC that is utilized for viable site facilitating. Regularly than not, customers owning a site that keeps running in a devoted facilitating server pay a charge month to month comparing to the bolster, power frameworks, data transfer capacity, base and different elements that are incorporated into the administration of the organization owning the server.

Advantages of a Dedicated Server

This server is invaluable to customers who might want to have their sites with enough backing from the server group. Not at all like shared facilitating, a devoted server holding numerous sites is financially savvy and, at most times, less expensive. Most committed servers can have boundless sites without confronting any specialized issues. What's more, a devoted facilitating server can run a web application that is composed in different programming dialects, for example, PHP and ASPX.

Sorts of Dedicated Server

There are three sorts of servers that facilitating organizations offer. These incorporate oversaw servers, semi-oversaw servers and unmanaged servers. The real distinction between these servers is the measure of bolster that is given by the organization. Specifically, oversaw servers accompany framework reinforcements, programming patches, working framework upgrades and so forth for the customer's site.

Semi-oversaw servers ordinarily perform the first adjusts of framework overhauls and give help to the customers. Then again, unmanaged committed wrote servers don't give framework redesigns. Rather, the customer is the person who ought to start these upgrades yet the administration supplier will in any case be helping the customer if there is any issue identified with the server.

Devoted Server and Shared Hosting

Shared facilitating includes restricted execution when facilitating and upgrading sites and applications. Since this includes numerous sites sharing one server, data transfer capacity issues are extremely basic, prompting poor execution of sites. Then again, a devoted facilitated server gives all of you the power you have to oversee and improve your own special site. Your entrance authorizations are full, so you can introduce or uninstall programming, insert or uproot web applications, design and oversee firewalls, and different exercises.

Picking a Dedicated Server Provider

In the first place, you may need to face issues on Internet transmission capacity and additionally checking the entire server. Second, control frameworks would be a noteworthy issue. You'll need diesel generators keeping in mind the end goal to ensure your server against force insults, and as we all know, generators cost a large number of dollars. Third, you won't have a moment gathering of expert that go about as a bolster group for your server 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Likewise, did you realize that you'll need numerous lines of fiber optic on the Internet spine for your server to work?

These lines cost more than a thousand dollar each, which makes it really costly. Yet, these variables and more are nothing to stress over on the off chance that you decide on the best committed server supplier out there. Out of these variables, backing is the most imperative thing you ought to stress over in light of the fact that servers, regardless of how extreme they may look, can be down whenever of the day. What's more, without an expert bolster group from a rumored devoted server organization, server breakdowns are not out of the ordinary.

www.arnserver.com

Advantages of a Dedicated Server – Arn Server

Found in a server farm, a devoted server is a server working framework running PC that is utilized for viable site facilitating. Regularly than not, customers owning a site that keeps running in a committed facilitating server pay a charge month to month relating to the bolster, power frameworks, transfer speed, base and different elements that are incorporated into the administration of the organization owning the server.

Advantages of a Dedicated Server

This server is favorable to customers who might want to have their sites with enough backing from the server group. Not at all like shared facilitating, a devoted server holding numerous sites is financially savvy and, at most times, less expensive. Most devoted servers can have boundless sites without confronting any specialized issues. What's more, a devoted facilitating server can run a web application that is composed in different programming dialects, for example, PHP and ASPX.

Sorts of Dedicated Server

There are three sorts of servers that facilitating organizations offer. These incorporate oversaw servers, semi-oversaw servers and unmanaged servers. The real contrast between these servers is the measure of bolster that is given by the organization. Specifically, oversaw servers accompany framework reinforcements, programming patches, working framework redesigns and so forth for the customer's site.

Semi-oversaw servers as a rule perform the first adjusts of framework overhauls and give help to the customers. Then again, unmanaged committed wrote servers don't give framework overhauls. Rather, the customer is the person who ought to start these redesigns yet the administration supplier will in any case be helping the customer if there is any issue identified with the server.

Committed Server and Shared Hosting

Shared facilitating includes constrained execution while facilitating and upgrading sites and applications. Since this includes numerous sites sharing one server, transmission capacity issues are exceptionally regular, prompting poor execution of sites. Be that as it may, a devoted facilitated server gives all of you the power you have to oversee and improve your own special site. Your entrance consents are full, so you can introduce or uninstall programming, implant or uproot web applications, arrange and oversee firewalls, and different exercises.

Deciding on a Dedicated Server Provider

To begin with, you may need to face issues on Internet transmission capacity and in addition observing the entire server. Second, control frameworks would be a noteworthy issue. You'll need diesel generators keeping in mind the end goal to secure your server against force offend, and as we all know, generators cost a great many dollars. Third, you won't have a moment gathering of expert that go about as a backing group for your server 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Likewise, did you realize that you'll need different lines of fiber optic on the Internet spine for your server to work?

These lines cost more than a thousand dollar each, which makes it really costly. In any case, these variables and more are nothing to stress over on the off chance that you decide on the best devoted server supplier out there. Out of these components, backing is the most essential thing you ought to stress over in light of the fact that servers, regardless of how extreme they might look, can be down whenever of the day. Furthermore, without an expert backing group from a presumed committed server organization, server breakdowns are not out of the ordinary.

www.arnserver.com

Conceivable Disadvantages to a Dedicated Server

Devoted servers are essentially known as the granddaddy of all servers. With a DedicatedServer you get a server totally to yourself, and it will hold just the information of your site. In any case, with each positive comes a negative and lamentably, that is the situation with committed servers also. The following are a portion of the conceivable drawbacks that accompany a devoted web server, and they're some you ought to consider in case you're contemplating purchasing a committed host server - however aren’t certain those organization can deal with one.

Obviously the greatest detriment that dependably comes up first when talking about devoted space is the cost. Since devoted web servers are the best servers that you could discover for your business, they are likewise the costliest. In case you're a little business, and you don't partake in any e-trade or different business on the web, you won't not have the capacity to bear the cost of the expense of a devoted facilitating server; however that is alright in light of the fact that you may not require one. For organizations that require the advantages of a devoted webhosting, however don't have the way to pay for it, a virtual private server may be a superior alternative.

Another weakness accompanies web facilitating that relates to cost, as well. This is whether you need an unmanaged or an oversaw server. With an oversaw server, your web facilitating organization will deal with everything for you. They will perform all the upkeep and updates, and guarantee that your server is dependably in immaculate working request. However, with this administration likewise comes an extra expense. What's more, in case you're as of now pondering regardless of whether you can manage the cost of a devoted server, you most likely can't bear the cost of the administrations of a committed host server either.

Web facilitating organizations will likewise offer unmanaged devoted facilitating - a server that you oversee totally all alone, with no assistance from your web host by any stretch of the imagination. This could be a much less expensive alternative, in the event that you have the skill to deal with a devoted server all alone. In any case, regularly when organizations pick an unmanaged devoted server, they procure an IT expert, or even a whole group, that can run and deal with the servers for them. With this obviously, there will be significantly more expenses, and presumably more than what your web host would charge for a devoted web server. In case you're now stressed over the expense, you presumably won't have the capacity to manage the cost of an unmanaged devoted, unless you have the abilities to deal with it all alone.

Committed host servers are the best available that you can use to maintain your business. On the other hand, that doesn't imply that they're ideal for you and your business. Know the potential burdens that accompany them, and regardless of whether they apply to your business. This is the best way to truly tell if a committed server will be the best answer for you, or whether you have to take a gander at different choices.

www.arnserver.com

Choosing A Dedicated Server Web Hosting

As an association develops, it finds that the web space and assets, for example, information exchange and transmission capacity assigned by the facilitating administration supplier are not satisfactory to meet the expanded stream of activity. Under such circumstances the following coherent step is to go in for a committed server web facilitating.

What is a committed server web facilitating?

The facilitating administration supplier will give a whole server to select use by stand out customer. The customer has full control over the server, can pick the working framework and have full organization rights. Since such servers possessed by the suppliers are housed in atmosphere controlled server farms with reinforcements and bolster staff, administration is substantially more solid.

Linux, Unix and Windows Server are probably the most mainstream working frameworks running on these servers. It is crucial to have fast servers with adequate hard circle space and RAM and in addition supporting equipment for the server to work proficiently to handle high activity volumes. The server accompanies a committed association with the web through T1/T3 lines and an administration supplier is certain to designate a strong fast association through a dependable spine to guarantee rapid administrations. Suppliers additionally alter the transmission capacity alongside the bundle. The data transmission is controlled by suppliers and can be expanded as prerequisites increment. The system uptime (ought to be 99.5%to 100%) gave by the administration supplier is likewise essential when considering committed servers.

Each committed server will likewise have its own particular one of a kind IP address with alternatives to have more than one IP location to deal with necessities that emerge, as on account of running more than one ecommerce store. Suppliers will likewise deal with information reinforcement and restore offices as a piece of the administration.

While the client has full authoritative rights, he will likewise require specialized backing and suppliers as a rule make this accessible 24x7 to guarantee smooth running. Firewalls, security, overhauls and every related matter ought to be given along the bundle to guarantee complete security for the customer. This administration support and every single other element expressed above ought to be viewed as and concluded preceding going into an agreement.

Committed server facilitating suppliers offer completely oversaw, oversaw, self-guided and unmanaged administrations and this is for you to choose and choose with the supplier before concluding any courses of action. A self-guided administration with specialized reinforcement is an attractive choice.

Advantages:

For those with a vast customer base and a high activity a committed server is key since only it has offices which allow high information transmission capacity and volumes without obstructing. A planned customer leaves a site in the event that it takes too long to stack.

Committed server facilitating are solid and stable and can deal with any measure of activity. Since it is completely made do with full backing, there are not very many specialized hitches that can bring about disappointments. You can introduce programming and applications you need. Quick, real-time trade of information is conceivable and associations with clients can be quick and brief.

Unwavering quality of information servers is the key component. With a committed server you can redesign your information any number of times and do it rapidly as well. An online store cans without much of a stretch picture the advantages. Your site is dependably up and running, available at all times to any number of guests, messages and messages never get obstructed because of insufficient space. The outcome is higher business volumes deciphering into more benefits.

Costs

A run of the mill server setup gives Intel Dual Xeon E5620 2.4 GHz based server with 500 GB hard drive, 16GB RAM, up to 15000 GB transmission capacities with free setup, 24x7 backing and Linux or Windows server OS and 100% system uptime, 5 to 13 IPs with control boards and all facilitating elements required. Value would begin at $ 100 upwards.

Conclusion

For a genuine electronic business a committed server is the main solid answer for deal with an all inclusive spread business and fulfills its clients on the web.

www.arnserver.com

Best Arn Server Provider

You've made considerable progress from your youngster site that just got two hundred hits for each month. You now have a three hundred page beast on its approach to getting a great many hits for every month. You're going to require a superior facilitating arrangement than you had some time recently. A vastly improved facilitating arrangement.

Of course, your mutual facilitating arrangement worked fine previously. Alright, well, not including those discontinuous down-times and goodness yeh, that other time when somebody (one of your rivals, perhaps, however in all likelihood an ex) made sense of your record secret key and erased your whole site. In any case, that basically won't accomplish for your site as it is currently. You've put a lot of time and cash into this task and it’s at last beginning to yield a few results. There is truly no inquiry regarding it: you have to discover and survey devoted server arranges and pick the right one quick!

A dedicated server is itself, the physical bit of equipment that you're facilitating supplier rents to you. It has its own particular processor, hard drives(s), Random Access Memory (RAM) and transfer speed capacity. Your site and its related programming will be facilitated only on this devoted server's hard drives. Committed servers permit you to introduce and run any system. They moreover permit different clients, whom you have given get to, the capacity to interface with your devoted facilitating server and utilize those same projects in the meantime you do. This has made devoted servers exceptionally prevalent amongst web gamers. Devoted gaming servers offer all the same elements of consistent committed facilitating servers however they are planned for less genuine interests.

Be that as it may, what are alternate advantages of using committed servers? That is positively a substantial inquiry considering that committed server facilitating costs essentially more than shared or virtual facilitating plans. In any case, with the expanded expense comes includes and advantages that are altogether justified, despite all the trouble.

There are numerous advantages of utilizing devoted server facilitating for your high movement, programming concentrated site or gaming application. We've recorded the most vital beneath to guide you in the right course.

Customization: Most devoted server facilitating plans permit you to completely redo or manufacture your own particular committed server. You can hence choose and pay for just the elements which you will require. You regularly will get your decision of working framework programming (Windows Server Edition and Linux Redhat being the most famous alternatives). Your decision of such considering so as to programme ought to be educated which framework your web applications will run best on. A noteworthy offering point with committed facilitating arrangements is additionally which control board to utilize. Plesk and Cpanel control boards are the most prevalent decisions. Both will permit the facilitating of numerous areas and sites yet Plesk control boards have demonstrated more mainstream to a great extent in view of their convenience and their capacity to encourage occasion administration, Postgre SQL, Support Ticketing Systems, and different Language Packs and progressed committed diversion server facilitating.

Unwavering quality: Because your site or application is facilitated only on this committed server, you don't run the danger of the server being congested by solicitations for other individuals' sites or applications. On a mutual facilitating arrangement, the rate at which your web application burdens is reliant upon the amount of movement different sites that are on the same shared facilitating server are getting. This reasons moderate stacking times for high activity sites and different sites that impart a server to them. Committed server affording so as to facilitate stays away from this your web application select data transfer capacity. Shared facilitating is additionally hazardous on the grounds that you have no clue who is transferring what to the same server that you are facilitated on. John in Nantucket may be transferring a web application containing a so far unidentified infection that erases all that it touches. In the event that your site lives on the same server as John's, then, to put it actually, you're screwed. Committed facilitating keeps away from this and gives you a chance to rest a little simpler around evening time.

Security: No one else has entry to your server however you. You are in charge of every one of its substance so there is no plausibility of infections or different vindictive programming unless you put them there. Also, most devoted server arranges accompany the choice of an outside firewall so you can better implement your predetermined access rights.

One of a kind IP Address: All committed servers have their own particular exceptional IP address so the IP location of your space guides just toward your site. Shared facilitating plans relegate 1 IP location to each space and site facilitated on that specific server. Site activity is then coordinated by host-header-perusing programming introduced on the server. This procedure is normally snappy yet can be backed off on a congested shared server. Your devoted server will have its own particular one of a kind IP address which can just indicate your site or web application. No header-perusing programming is expected to back off the stacking process (unless you choose to have various sites).

Updates, Upgrades!: No uncertainty, your site will keep on developing thus will your financial plan. At whatever time amid your committed server facilitating you can include more transmission capacity, RAM and build your processor speed. While some facilitating suppliers will permit you to switch working frameworks this is by and large not prescribed. Make your brain up initially and stick to one OS. This will spare you numerous hours of dull programming transformations and "unexplained" downtimes.

Different Options:

o Hard Drive Arrangement: If you have picked to have two hard drives on your devoted server then you can mastermind them in one of two ways: Raid 1 or Raid 2. Strike 1 or plate reflecting, permits you to choose one hard drive as your essential 'work from' hard drive while the other hard drive serves as a precise of the essential drive. This is essential if your web application will contain exceedingly delicate information identifying with your clients or whatever other exceptional data. On the off chance that you are not especially worried with this sort of go down utility you might choose a Raid 2 setup in which there is an essential hard drive with the optional drive being utilized once the essential stockpiling turns out to be full. The Raid hard drive game plans make committed server facilitating commonly more dependable than normal non devoted server facilitating.

o FTP Backup: The best devoted facilitating suppliers will also give a FTP move down record for your record. You can reflect indispensable substance that is as of now on your committed facilitating server in that record.

The advantages of devoted server facilitating are clear. Equipped with this learning don't hesitate to glance around for the least expensive devoted facilitating suppliers. A dependable committed facilitating organization will give all of you the aforementioned alternatives to guarantee that your uber site and diversions are dependably up and running. Keep in mind; pick just those alternatives which you require in a dependable committed server. There is no firm lead for what constitutes solid devoted servers: you should deliberately choose which alternatives are most appropriate for the applications which you mean to run. A minimal effort committed server that has all the data transfer capacity, space and security elements to run your projects viably is the ideal overhaul from a non devoted server facilitating arrangement. Your devoted facilitating server is yours to modify so do it shrewdly and cost adequately.

www.arnserver.com

What is VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)?

Over the past few years, the acronym “VoIP” has become a household term. Anyone who

has made an international phone call has probably heard the term used at one point or

another. It has become a popular topic among “techies” discussing its numerous

applications in today’s society, as well as politicians discussing its growth and implications

on the world’s economy. Although most people have heard the term, very few actually

know what VoIP is and what the hype is all about.

VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, and it simply means what it implies: sending

voice conversations through the internet. Rather than sending voice through the traditional

telephone networks owned by the telephone conglomerates, VoIP uses the internet as its

medium to send voice. Since voice is nothing more than data, any internet connection in

the world can be used as a VoIP terminal for making calls with the use of a VoIP gateway or

an IP Phone.

A great reference for gaining a better understanding of how Voice Over IP works as opposed

to the traditional telephone network can be found on the How Stuff Works website at the

following URL address:

http://www.arnserver.com

What are the benefits of choosing VoIP?

Everyday more and more organizations switch their communication networks partially or

fully to VoIP. There are many benefits of choosing VoIP over the traditional telephone

network. The major benefits that these organizations are realizing include cost of

equipment and deployment, versatility, flexibility, interconnectivity, and time to market.

Cost Benefits of Choosing VoIP

· VoIP equipment costs are generally cheaper than traditional telephone switches.

· VoIP in a direct point-to-point environment has no toll charge.

· VoIP technicians are usually more readily available and more cost-effective than

standard telephone switch technicians.

· Billing & Call Management software for VoIP is generally less expensive than similar

software for legacy technology.

 Versatility

VoIP is allows your network to be extremely versatile. VoIP allows you to interconnect with

multiple carriers (routes) very easily and quickly. Within a matter of minutes you can add

additional carriers that will provide you with the lowest route to a particular destination.

There is added flexibility so that if one route is down, your network can automatically reroute

to another carrier.

Interconnectivity

VoIP makes it easy to interconnect to multiple & redundant carriers. With traditional PSTN

networks, interconnecting with multiple carriers required additional expensive hardware,

and an extensive amount of time to setup the connection, sometimes taking several

months. As well, there is a very high connection charge occurred per month to maintain the

connection. With VoIP, the interconnection is very simple, taking only a matter of minutes,

and without the need for additional hardware and no connection charges.

Time to Market

VoIP allows your company to bring its solutions into service quicker than standard telecom.

You can connect to different routes quickly and reliably. This allows you to bring new routes

to customers at cost-effective pricing in a timely manner. You no longer need to wait for

months to connect to new routes.

How does PEC fit into the VoIP Industry?

PEC is a developer of software applications that integrate seamlessly with VoIP technology.

PEC is also a proud partner and reseller of Quintum Technologies, developers of the popular

Tenor VoIP Gateways. Combining the power of Quintum VoIP hardware with the versatility

and robustness of our software, we have developed numerous products to take advantage

of the benefits that VoIP offers. PEC develops the following products for the VoIP industry:

CardSaver™ VoIP Billing and Call Management

· Prepaid Calling Card Industry

· Postpaid Calling Services

· Pinless Calling Services

· Call Shop Services

· Inter-office communications

· Wholesale Long Distance Termination

VoiceSaver™ Voicemail and Auto Attendant

· Voicemail Message Bureaus

· Auto-attendant systems for offices

Insight IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

· Allows customers to develop customized call flows

· Used in almost every industry

Calling Card and Pin-less Solutions

In the prepaid calling card or pin-less calling business, like most other businesses, more

startup companies fail than succeed. Our intention is not to deter you from starting your

own prepaid calling card business; it can be and has been for many people an extremely

lucrative business. Our intention is rather to explain to you the differences between a

successful card business and a failing one so that you may learn from their mistakes.

PEC has a great deal of experience designing and integrating with products developed for

the Prepaid Calling Card and pin-less calling industries. We have helped over 400 clients

deploy VoIP and calling card solutions around the world. We have platforms running on 6

continents and in over 70 countries around the world. Through our day to day

conversations with our clients, we learn a good deal about how the industry is changing and

about new trends that are appearing in the market. If you have any questions, please do

not hesitate to contact us.

Setting Up a Solid Infrastructure

First and foremost, you must develop a solid infrastructure for your prepaid calling card

system to run on. Without a solid infrastructure, you will be spending more time worrying

about your system’s integrity than marketing your product. The following is a list of

equipment and services that you will require to start the business. We have also included

recommendations that we feel will ensure a solid infrastructure.

1. Billing, Card, and Call Management Software

We list this item first not only because it is one of the products that we provide, but because

it is the most vital on the list. Choosing a good billing software will ensure that every call

made through your system is tracked and no call is left unbilled. CardSaver™ by PEC is not

only a robust, dependable software package, but it is also the simplest and most userfriendly

package in the industry. CardSaver enables you to view reports on traffic passing

in and out of your system. CardSaver also gives you complete control over your calling

cards, including PIN generation, usage fees, expiration dates, and much more. It also

allows you to manage your agents/distributors and effectively sell your products through

resellers. CardSaver is a vital component for developing a solid infrastructure.

2. VoIP Gateway

The VoIP gateway that handles all of the calls into and out of your system is the next vital

component. If your hardware fails, your customers’ calls will not go through. 98% of our

customers use either Cisco or Quintum products. Some higher-end customers also use

Nextone gateways. These two vendors have a large following and many online forums exist

where you can go to receive answers to any questions that you may have regarding

configuration or specifications.

3. Server(s)

Server technology is constantly changing, and unless you are in the business, it is a

challenge to stay abreast of the latest and greatest. For this reason, our recommendations

on the right server to choose are based on the current technology available.

Systems with 60 concurrent calls or less:

Rackmount Server

Intel Dual Core Processor

1 GB RAM

(2) 80 GB+ hard drives

10/100/1000 Ethernet Adapter

Systems with 60 to 240 concurrent calls:

Intel Quad-Core Xeon Processor

2 or 4 GB RAM

Dual 10K SCSI hard drives (120 GB or more)

Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Systems with 240 to 750 concurrent calls:

(2) Intel Quad-Core Xeon Processor

8 GB RAM

Dual 15K SCSI hard drives (250 GB or more)

Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

If you are handling more than 750 calls – we recommend using multiple servers.

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