Who REALLY Controls Your Site?

As a business owner, it’s very important that you make sure your IT infrastructure will keep running, no matter what.

Even though in a regular business scenario it’s unlikely that any of your IT guys would behave maliciously, people can fall out of contact when they change career paths, move overseas or anything else.

This risk that you might lose touch with your IT guy is also magnified somewhat if you’re dealing with sole proprietor IT suppliers, rather than larger companies who tend to stick around even as their employees come and go.

But regardless of who you are dealing with, the risk remains, that you might realise one day that when it comes to your website, you’re not the king of your own castle. And whether the key master has just gone on holiday, or you find out the jester has the keys, it’s not a good feeling to find yourself powerless.

So you need to make sure your business has a solid contingency plan. The first step is to gain a basic understanding of what’s involved: your domain name points to a nameserver, which points to a web server. The nameserver also has MX records that tell emails where to go, so they land in your inbox wherever your mail is being hosted (I use Google Apps).

So, to keep control of the whole process, and make sure you are covered no matter what, you need to:

• Have control of your own domain
• Have control of your own nameserver
• Have your own hosting account
• Have your own backup location (to Amazon, for example)
• Have daily DB backups
• Have weekly full backups
• Have all the above written down so that you yourself and any other key business owners/managers know for sure that they have control over the whole site.

We can help you get all this in place. If you don't have a contingency plan, or don't know if you have one, talk to us today so we can help you make sure you know where you stand.

What do you think?

Is the above realistic or are we over the top or paranoid? What measures do you have in place? Do you have any questions? Is your business safe? Give us your opinion, or questions, in the box down below.