The ABCs of an Internet presence. PART 3

What does it take to get on the internet with your business, hobby or interest? I’ve been helping people do exactly this since the internet went public.

Step 3: You need a web server.

Now that you have a registered domain name and a DNS server, it’s time to decide where your website will run. You can keep the server on premises or put it in somebody else’s data center. If you want to keep it at your location, here is what you need to consider:

1. Do you have a static IP address? That is an IP address that never changes. Most home and many business internet services use a dynamic IP address that can change. You need one that doesn’t.
2. Can your current internet service handle the extra traffic generated by having your website in house?
3. Will your firewall handle port redirects so that incoming internet traffic can be routed to your web server?
4. Do you have a plan for service outages (either internet or power) to your location?
5. Do you have a computer you can dedicate to the web server?
6. Do you have expertise available to you for setup or when problems arise?
7. Is this route actually cost-effective?

In my office, I have a UPS and a generator to keep the power on at all times. I also have a backup internet connection in case my fiber goes down. In the past 22 years the fiber has only gone down twice, for two hours each time, and I have a two-hour SLA (service level agreement) with my fiber provider.

Data centers are easy to find, and prices can vary by thousands of dollars depending on what you need. If you are running a basic website, roughly the equivalent of a tri-fold brochure, you don’t need much. If you need something larger with lots of integrations (hello, Amazon), you probably want something big with a lot of redundancy. If you are reading this, I’m guessing you are looking for something more basic.

Whichever way you go, make sure your site is backed up every day to a different location than the server itself, and that it has an SSL certificate (the padlock in the browser). Most good hosting plans include both, but ask before you sign up.

Click the links below to read the other parts of this series.

PART 1 – DOMAIN NAMES

PART 2 – DNS SERVERS

PART 4 – SOFTWARE

PART 5 – EMAIL

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