DEV Community: WeDigTech

Handy Tips for Server Maintenance in 2018

WeDigTech — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 07:34:13 +0000

Servers are amazing things and the heart of your network. They work 24/7 without any issue but they are machine they do require regular maintenance. Your server and network must also be properly maintained to work properly and smoothly and avoid system downtime or loss of computer data.

What is Server Maintenance?

Server maintenance is process of keeping a server software updated and running so that a computer network can operate smoothly and avoid downtime or loss of data. Regular maintenance will keep the server running as expected and will help avoid a total or partial network failure. It includes tasks like reviewing the server’s performance, ensuring that automated system monitoring utilities are properly installed and configured, identifying potential security risks and backing up data at regular intervals.

If you use your server doctor server management solutions, you don’t have to worry about server failure and hacks. They monitor, review and maintain server 24/7, but if you want to maintain and manage your own server, here are few tips that should be part of your server maintenance checklist.

Handy Server Maintenance Tips:

1. Verify your backups are working.
Before making any changes to your server database and system, be sure that you have to take a backup before doing any update and your backups are working fine. And keep in mind you have select the right backup and right location.

2. Check disk usage.
Keep clean your disk storage and don’t use your server system as an archival system. Time to time delete old emails, logs and s/w versions that are not in use. A smaller data footprint means faster recovery. Keep an eye on your disk usages if your partition reaches 100 percent, you server may stop working and database tables and data may be corrupt and lost.

3. Monitor RAID Alarms.
You should monitor your RAID status; all servers should use RAID. In my 5-year experience I have worked on various systems where the RAID failed. A single disk failure can have caused a complete system failure.

4. Update Your OS.
Always update your system if you are using Linux because such OS release frequently update and staying on top of these updates can be difficult. To overcome this problem, you can use automated patch management tools and have monitoring in place to alert when a system is out of date. If you are updating your server manually (or not at all), you may miss important security updates. If you cannot automate your updates, then create a schedule to update your system. This will prevent your system from hacks.

Hyper-V-Support

5. Update your Control Panel.
If you are using a hosting cpanel be sure to update it as well. This will make your system up to date and fixed known issue related to hosting.

6. Check application updates.
Always update your web applications, if you are using CMS or any open source program for you web application especially popular programs like WordPress.

7. Check remote management tools.
Maintain your remote server via remote console, remote reboot and remote rescue mode these are essential tools for remote server management.

8. Check for hardware errors.
Hardware problems are common but create a big issue, so you may review the log for any hardware problems like disk read error, network failure. These are rare but worth a look, especially if the system has not been working within normal ranges.

9. Check server utilization.
Review your server’s disk, CPU, RAM and network utilization.

10. Review user accounts.
If you have had staff changes, client cancellations or other user changes, you will want to remove these users from your system. Storing old sites and users is both a security and legal risk.

11. Change passwords.
As a server management expert, I always recommend changing passwords every 6 to 12 months, especially if you have given out passwords to others for maintenance.

12. Check system security.
I suggest a periodic review of your server’s security using a remote auditing tool such as Nessus.

Be a Better Marketer- 6 App Marketing Techniques You Should Know

WeDigTech — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 06:43:49 +0000

You build an app after months of planning and weeks of dedication and hard work – developing the idea, conducting market research, gathering a team of experts, asking your tech friends to help you with certain aspects, testing the app and then retesting it, fixing the bugs among all the other activities. And ultimately the judgment day arrives – Your app goes live!

Now the media might give you some coverage. Maybe, there would be few articles publishing about the app and its functionality if it is that good and unique but that hype will seldom provide you a long term benefit or the required amount of publicity. Thus, you need to have a fool proof marketing strategy in place way before your launch date.

I agree that you are a developer, but if you wish to get a better ranking and ensure more downloads for your created app then you should learn some marketing tactics too. And of course, we are here to make the job easier for you by getting you acquainted with some of the must-follow marketing approaches. Consider them as your check list before you decide to make your app live.

1.Begin Marketing the App from Day Zero

You are not supposed to wait till you are done with the development process to begin thinking about its marketing. Trust me! You will be left with very less or probably no days between your final app built and the launch date and marketing it would require much more time than that.
The day you begin to develop your website, start marketing it too and continue to develop in those marketing stages as you progress in the app building.

2.Engage Your Audience and Users Early and Often

Involve your potential customers in the app making process as early as it is feasible for you. Look for the tech-savvy influencers and early adopters on the social media web portals like twitter to get in contact with the users who will provide you quality feedback on your app idea.
Tweet as often as you can, involve the key personalities in the industry by identifying them and choose the right content to post for your consumers. Remember to focus on their problems and the solutions that you app can offer them to grab their attention.

3.Do Not Underestimate the Power of Email

Though email marketing is being overlooked because of the eminence of social media, you should focus on building the email list if you want to connect with the majority of internet using audience. No matter whatever medium or technique you use, your email list should grow with each passing day of app development. Remember, email marketing can never go outdated. In fact, it will connect you to a wider base of audience – the ‘normal’ people who probably are not active on the social media, nor are a part of your influencers team would be reached through email.

4.You will never be Too Late to Begin Blogging

Make blogging your important communication tool to connect with your audience. You can keep them interested in your app from the very first stage of the development by keeping them posted about the progressions and asking them for the feedback or suggestions to make it better in terms of features included.
Perform SEO on your blog page – identify relevant keywords, get quality content crafted and approach industry influencing bloggers to link to your portal in order to improve the blog’s ranking on search engines.

5.Be Inventive with Teasers and Sneak Peaks

Human are visually intriguing creatures and that is the reason you should be playing around with the teasers. It could be a video promo or merely screenshots of your app, but keep posting something that leaves them some hints about how your app will work and what it will be all about.
You can even use blogging for the purpose, adding a line or two about your product in between. This can drive many people to sign up for the newsletters and also provide you a ripe list of interested users.

6.Keep Your Launch Material and Press Kill Ready

Make sure that your launch kit is ready and organized before you submit the app for review. This kit will include your website, promo video, press release and other content that will be used for media announcements before and after the date of launch.
If you have any media contacts or you know about the influencers in the industry, do not shy away from approaching them. You require as much publicity as you can get.

Final Thoughts

Remember! You cannot survive with the idea of developing and letting the audience figure out themselves about your product in this competitive market. You have to reach the audience yourself using your marketing techniques.