Cloud hosting - handling heavy traffic

Servers are one of the most crucial parts of the eCommerce system. A significant number of visits to the store at one time affects server’s overload. Currently the most efficient solution is to transfer hosting to the cloud computing, which can handle even several thousands visits per month and allows unlimited and efficient business development.

What is cloud?

According to Gartner’s analysts, cloud computing is a kind of computing, where dynamically scalable resources are supplied via the Internet. User does not have to know how it works or deal with technical aspects. This is very important, especially in case of eCommerce. At i-systems all the works connected with servers’ administration are conducted by our team, so the customer can focus on business development in terms of marketing.

Proprietary solutions

From our observation and experience we learnt that the biggest eCommerce challenge is to handle heavy traffic at once. During past several years we created a number of proprietary solutions, thanks to which we can adjust business to the highest eCommerce standards.

Incremental backup

One of the most important resources of eCommerce system is data. Keeping backups of all data, is connected with a necessity to have enormous disc resources. Therefore, i-systems team created a proprietary solution: incremental backup. It allows to recover data state, even a few months back, without a necessity to have all the disc resources. It is possible because the only thing that is saved on backup are the differences in files since the last backup. There is always a catalog with an exact copy of a backup system. If it is necessary, the differences are applied to the last version of the system and thus we recover all data.

Unlimited development

Not every online store has hundreds thousands visits per month. Cloud scalability allows to create optimized infrastructure, which can be expanded without the necessity to make a huge investment by our customer.

More multimedia

Long loading of style sheets and photos decreases the quality of online customer service. CDS server solution for static files allows to speed up loading data on the website.

Service monitoring

On each server, no matter who is the supplier, a range of functionalities is installed. In case of i-systems cloud solution all the functionalities of the server are being monitored and its operation is checked every 5 minutes. This monitoring also checks CPU load and the amount of available disc space. Network admins are on duty 24/7 and in case of any problem they are additionally alerted via email or text message.

Service-level agreement

Hosting suppliers ensures only the availability of the machine. When the functionality of www server stops working, which means that the webpage is not working, it is not a problem of the hosting company. It can cause a situation, where hosting company fulfills the agreement (the hardware physically is working indeed), however it is not responsible for the failure of one single functionality. SLA for us is a responsibility for servers operation as well as the functionalities installed on them.

Adequate infrastructure

Single Point of Failure (SPoF) is a threat to the servers. It is a part of the infrastructure, which failure is a cause of the whole system paralysis. This is why in i-system cloud solution every machine has among others: two CPUs, two independent power supply units, disc matrix, double power source, emergency power supply (UPS and generators), links from multiple operators, and double network devices. Thanks to this, a failure of one element has no impact on servers and their services operation.

High Availability

High Availability systems can be characterized by high reliability. Implementing HA system consist in connecting cloud hosting with system’s capabilities. While creating HA solution, it is assumed that, despite the best hardware, every element of infrastructure can fail and the system still has to work. The i-systems software may work in HA/cluster mode. Hardware working on i-systems cloud is based in two independent server rooms, 13 km away from each other. Such distance allows live replication of all data and automatic failure repair of even all data center.