The following are key points to speed up your website load time. All these practices are based on the fact that only 10 to 20 percent of the total end user response time is being spent getting the HTML document to the browser. We need to focus on the other 80 to 90 percent. If you want your pages to get upload fast then follow these steps which are known as the best practices.

For more information you can check Steves Souders‘ blog site. There you will find a brief summary of the each rule along with comments.

If you type a web hosting keyword in search engine (Google, Yahoo and Bing) you will find number of web hosting companies in the list. For example if you use US Google to search web hosting keyword you will find 518,000,000 results (0.51 seconds) and it becomes hard for a newbie to make a decision with the right web hosting provider, of course web hosting has become the most reliable business online which helps one to earn unlimited but there are fraud people who makes fake promises to deploy quality services.

And to find a reliable web host lets understand how to measure reliability of a web hosting company,

1) If you are interested in any web host then first just check the website environment. Check if every plan and services they are offering are described properly with the prices.

2) Search for a customer review on website. It’s a good sign of a web host.

3) Check if they are listed in the Google places by typing the company name in the respective Geo based Google.

4) Before making any final decisions initiate a chat with sales representative and ask any questions about SLA, Money back Guarantee and Disaster recovery plans.

5) You cal also visit web hosting review sites to hire a web hosting service.

6) Price and Features: Compare the costs of different hosting providers, see if the features offered correspond to the needs of your web site or blog.

7) Consider the certifications of the company: A major label that validates the quality. Now, if you already have a provider , some tools to measure the effectiveness of it are:
Check the operation of your site is stable
Check the company to make backups of the sites on a regular basis
Check you have the latest security updates installed software on your server

8) You can also make a call to support of the company to find the reliability
service provider.

9) You can use any domain testing toll to find that the web host is not reseller of any other web hosting company because there are vendors who plays a role of reseller and pretend to be the hosting service provider.

10) Check the official site forum and if they want have then ask them why shouldn’t they have a forum on site? Because a reliable web host should always have forum on site so customer can post their queries on it and people from respective department can solve it within specified time.

11) Check the support and server setups are free or not.

12) Ask for SLA and check every possible described thing in the SLA.

The above listed points are must but you can also ask any doubts about service provider directly by phone or on live chat.

This blog post speaks about the misconceptions people are having about the USA Patriot Act and Data Security, especially in the cloud sector.

Since the cloud computing technology has emerged it has changed our life in many different ways. Unlike the old days, now we don’t have to stick to the same computer system to access the data and application on Web. The cloud computing has offered a unique way through which people can access applications and upload, download any data from anywhere, anytime and using any device supporting an Internet connection.

Using the cloud computing technology, USA-based web hosting companies are able to offer various cost-effective cloud-based services to businesses which can help them increase efficiency, reduce their investment and increase the profit level. However, despite the advantages and the highest growth rate of cloud computing in USA, people avoid to go with a web hosting service provider based in USA because of the USA Patriot Act. Most of the people having several misconceptions about the USA Patriot Act, especially in the cloud sector which restricts them from opting US-based cloud services.

Here, we have explained few misconceptions about USA Patriot Act & Data Security in the Cloud Sector and what can be done to avoid such Investigations:

The USA Patriot Act is an acronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act that was passed in 2001 in order to prevent and punish the terrorist activities in the United States and throughout the world, as well as to improve the law enforcement investigatory tools. Along with the approval of this Act all the existing anti-terrorism laws were consolidated and special powers of surveillance and seizure without any court order were provided under the USA Patriot Act.

There is also another act known as Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, through which the unlawful or the activities like activist, protest or political group which are possibly against United States are monitored. Some people thinks that USA Patriot Act is an anti-Eurpoean. But the truth is that its not. The Patriot Act applies same to the USA-based cloud providers as much as European cloud providers.

Will the FBI access my data, if its stored in a US data center?

Surely according to the USA Patriot Act, the FBI could have access to your data, but it don’t mean they will access it. Businesses shouldn’t concern unless they are involved in unlawful activities that are against USA.

The FBI won’t be able to access my data, if its stored in a UK data center

If you are thinking that hosting your data in a UK-based data center will restrict FBI from accessing it, then you are totally wrong. The USA Patriot Act still applies even if you host your data in a foreign country, just because you are a US headquartered business. It doesn’t matter at all even if you host your data in other country and use a UK provider, still the Patriot Act can impact you, if you have a US based provider somewhere in the cloud chain that manages your data.

No one would be able to see and access my data, if I avoid US cloud providers

Its necessary for you to know that each and every country’s government has their own anti-terrorism and surveillance acts (such as UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act)  made to access the data under their jurisdiction. Even if you decide to avoid US-based cloud providers, your data would be still under surveillance.

The UK will not pass my data to the FBI

You are wrong, they will because of the treaties they have signed. Including the US and UK, there are many other countries who have signed treaties (Treaty – an international agreement between countries for exchange of data (information) upon request). However, if you wish to keep your data safe from US and UK governments, then the best places would be in Iran or North Korea.

If the US and UK governments can get access to my data, I will be safe staying out of the cloud

If you think that you hold the kind of data that UK, US and other governments would want to investigate, then definitely you should stay out of the cloud. However, if your data is something that won’t cause any problem to the law enforcement agencies, then there is no point in staying away from the benefits of cloud just because of an unknown fear of getting caught for no reason. You may check whether private cloud or hybrid cloud could work for you.

I am completely secure, if I am not in the cloud

For majority of the cloud providers the data security is at the top of their priority operations list. If you decide to host your data with an on-premise service, just ensure to address the data security. Don’t stay under an illusion that the data security is adequate. In addition, ensure that your staff don’t utilize their own devices such as smartphones and tablets to access the business data.

What can be done to avoid such government surveillance?

There are various steps you can take to avoid the USA Patriot Act and other similar Acts.

• Evaluate whether you have any data that would create or pull the attention of governmental agencies.
• Appraise your data and identify the most crucial information that you have.
• You may consider the Hybrid Cloud deployment model to store your important data on-premise and run other via the public cloud.
• You may also consider the Private Cloud, where your business data is hosted by someone to whom you can investigate and trust.
• Ensure the encryption of your data in order to protect it.
• Confirm whether your staff are using their own devices or free cloud tools for business .

The concerns about the data security are most important for businesses, however, you can stay away from such investigations if you ensure the above 6 points.

Looking for some advice about Web Hosting you must have some across many articles suggesting the kind of hosting you need like shared or VPS or even cloud hosting. You also must have read about uptime and the support you should get. However, there are many other things you should know beyond the essential ones when seeking a web hosting service.

The best way to begin looking for a web hosting service is by analyzing your requirements first and searching for providers that would best meet those needs. There are lots and lots of providers and each provider has different plans to offer. When you know what you want then you can make a budget for it accordingly and get the best service at the prices affordable to you.

One thing that goes without saying in the web hosting industry is that you never get your domain and hosting from the same provider. It is always advised to get your hosting and domain form separate service provider so if you are not happy with the hosting provider and want to move to another host you do not risk losing your domain name which is your identity online.

With any web hosting service you should make sure you get a control panel as well. A control panel allows you to manage your site related tasks very easily. And therefore it is better to choose a host that provides you a control panel with your hosting package.

As it is with any other thing you buy it is the responsibility of the buyer to beware. So you must understand all the terms of the service properly to avoid any problems later on. You should make sure there are no hidden charges or other fees besides your regular plan costs. Many providers charge for exceeding resource limits which may cost you more than expected. It is essential to have a clear understanding before signing up for the service.

To have a better idea about the company you choose it is a good practice to look out for customer testimonials and reviews which give you an idea about the quality of service provided by the company. This would allow you to shortlist providers that offer good value for your money.

When you subscribe for any service you check about the payment option available and so should you do with web hosting as well. It is necessary to confirm if the provider accepts payments in modes suitable for you, usually PayPal. It also ensures that your private data would be safe and since the payment is recurring you can control the payments as well.

For any online venture, Web Hosting is an important step and getting the best server hosting service is imperative. When you know the necessary things to look out for you can accomplish your objective with ease.

Using the eNlight Cloud platform, you are effectively able to develop your own data centre within the context of a Cloud hosting environment. eNlight is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution that hosts Cloud virtual machines, but also offers a range of additional features that allows you to network your VMs together much in the same way that you would with physical dedicated servers in a data centre. Being able to connect servers together is intrinsically important if you want to achieve particular configurations, for example if you are looking to achieve a load balancing setup in the Cloud then you would need to network all of these servers together so that they can communicate with one another effectively in order for traffic to be routed to the right location. Furthermore, allowing your VMs to communicate through an internal vLAN improves the security of your data, as it will be incredibly hard for hackers to eavesdrop on these connections.

Practically unlimited resources

A key characteristic of most Cloud environments is that the resources available are virtually limitless. Whilst in reality the availability of resources is limited by the hardware that forms the Cloud, if these begin to run low then web hosting companies simply add additional hardware to the Cloud to extend the resource pools. If you are going to be developing your own data centre in the Cloud then resources should be one of your top priorities so that you can add additional VMs to your account when there is a need for additional capacity.

Internal networking

If you have multiple VMs in the same Cloud then the most secure way in which you can get them to communicate is through an internal vLAN that features your VMs only. vLANs are one of the core features of the eNlight platform and can be used in the development of configurations that mimic what can be achieved when using dedicated servers rather than the Cloud.

Control

With the eNlight web-based control panel, you will have full control of all the VMs hosted under your account. If there is a need for additional capacity for your website then you can easily create new VMs that can be added to your Cloud, or alternatively you can extend the resource allocations of your current VMs without incurring any downtime. Compared with running a centre of dedicated servers, a virtual data centre can also provide benefits in terms of deployment times; rather than having to wait for a dedicated server to be setup, a virtual server can be provisioned almost immediately. Having this level of control through a web browser means that you can control your virtual data centre from any computer at any location, the benefit here being that if there are issues then you can rectify them in a fairly short amount of time.