Monat: August 2020

Your business is growing! This is a sure sign of a job well done. Your diligence and hard work are paying off! But now you have to upgrade. That shared hosting service isn’t cutting it anymore, and it’s time to press into something new and exciting, but new and exciting shouldn’t mean you have to take chances. That’s why our VPS hosting options offer ideal solutions when you require the control of a dedicated server.

So now what? What else is involved in selecting a hosting plan once you have decided on VPS hosting? How do you evaluate your resource and software needs? More importantly, what exactly do hosts mean when they talk about managed vs. unmanaged VPS hosting plans? Follow this guide to help determine which hosting plan is right for you.

What Is Managed vs. Unmanaged VPS?

In your search for the most reliable VPS hosting plan, you’ve probably encountered the terms managed vs. unmanaged in your hunt. But what are the main differences between the two plans, and how can these plans support VPS hosting for your business?

Once you have figured out your business’s resource demands, the next step is to determine how much control you want. Let’s breakdown some of the main differences between unmanaged vs. managed VPS hosting to help you decide:

What is Unmanaged VPS Hosting?

With unmanaged VPS hosting, you are responsible for everything. If you’re tech-savvy or have a decent-sized IT department, an unmanaged plan can be an option for you. There are no tickets or calls; just jump in and get to work. Here are a few pros and cons of using unmanaged VPS hosting:

Pros of Unmanaged VPS

• Cost savings over managed VPS
• Gives you more control

Cons of Unmanaged VPS Hosting

• Takes time away from core business functions
• Requires 24/7 IT support from your business on the clock
• Difficult to keep up with OS updates and patches
• Potentially decreases security and reliability if updates are not performed regularly

What is Managed VPS?

A managed VPS lets you take more of a hands-off approach. The VPS is available for whatever functionality you require. You use it, and we take care of the technical side of things. This style is an ideal choice if you are not tech-savvy or don’t have a team to manage on a regular basis. Managed VPS allows you focus on growing your business without having to manage the core of the server. When things like maintenance, troubleshooting, or software installation come up, you can stay focused on what’s important. Here are a few pros and cons of choosing managed VPS hosting:

Pros of Managed VPS

• Saves you and your team time
• Requires no IT expertise on your side
• Ensures OS updates are made, keeping you secure and current
• Ensures all changes are made correctly

Cons of Managed VPS

• Costs more than unmanaged
• Gives more control to an outside party

Why Should I Choose Managed vs. Unmanaged VPS Hosting?

With fully managed VPS, you’ll have a dedicated support team handling all aspects of VPS hosting, saving your team valuable time. Choosing managed hosting allows you to:

• Reduce your risks. You can effectively reduce your exposure to online risks with a managed hosting provider that offers a high level of oversight and constant maintenance on the backend.
• Keep up with the speed of business. Your hosting provider will work with you to adjust your hosting resources when you need them to ensure your IT scales with your business.
• Stay up to date with technology. You’ll get access to the latest technology without having to invest a lot of capital.
• Stay compliant. Your managed hosting provider will take care of ongoing compliance requirements, freeing up time to focus on other tasks.
• Get access to skilled experts. Your provider can help keep team members educated and up to date on the latest IT threats and opportunities.

All our managed servers can be protected by our proprietary ServerSecure technology, which helps ensure your systems remain secure while they’re being used. Our Support Team, meanwhile, will help you deal with everything from software compatibility to VPS security.

Whichever option you choose between managed vs unmanaged VPS, a Liquid Web VPS has you covered.

Try Liquid Web’s VPS Hosting

VPS Hosting at Liquid Web is flexible, scalable, easy to use, and is a cost-effective option for growing businesses, startups with web applications, and more. VPS hosting offers a lower price point while still providing complete control over your server. You get root access to configure things however you require, the ability to choose whether or not you want a control panel, and freedom to customize your hardware configuration around your site’s specific needs.

What’s better, as your server requirements increase, a VPS allows you to quickly and easily scale up, with minimal downtime. In short, a VPS is reliable, scalable, and easy to customize to your unique needs.

With Liquid Web, the Managed Support Team is available 24/7 to help you with all of your VPS hosting questions. Just reach out to the support line and get an expert technician in minutes.

The post Managed VPS vs. Unmanaged VPS: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Liquid Web.

Are you thinking about ordering a new virtual server and wondering about VPS security?

When ordering a server for VPS Hosting, you will likely be presented an option between a managed and an unmanaged server.

It is important to know your hosting options when deciding what kind of infrastructure and secure VPS support you will need. Here are the main differences between the two and how a managed VPS security system can help protect your sensitive data.

Why Use Managed Server vs. Unmanaged Server for Security?

The main reason to use a managed server vs. unmanaged server is that a managed server gives you access to a support team 24/7. This is incredibly important for VPS security because managed hosting experts will know exactly how to handle difficult situations and new types of threats.

With an unmanaged server, you have no support on your server other than keeping the network maintained. If you have an unmanaged server, plan on doing all of the work needed to maintain your server. You will also need to provide your own technicians to solve any issues that may arise.

Does Managed Hosting Include Updates and Patches?

With Managed Hosting with Liquid Web, your server gets regular patches and OS updates automatically. Patching is more important than ever, as core operating system patches secure your VPS hosting and stop hackers from using well-known exploits against your servers.

When an exploit is found, operating system updates are issued to patch the exploit and prevent it from being further abused by attackers. If you are using unmanaged hosting, you will need to install all updates and software patches yourself.

With Liquid Web, our proprietary software keeps your server up-to-date with the latest patches to keep your VPS security system safeguarded against hackers. Our systems check the latest patches and install them during the best times for your business, usually after-hours.

How Do Managed Server-Level Backups Work?

On a managed web server, you will have backup software available to you to keep regularly, likely daily, backups of your servers files in case something were to happen. These backups will be stored in the cloud, off of your server. If something were to happen to your server, you will be able to restore it to your latest restore point quickly and with minimal data loss.

Unmanaged servers do not readily offer backup implementations. This means that you will have to find your own backup solutions to successfully copy data off of your server in a secure fashion to prevent possible data loss in the future.

Do Managed Servers Come with Security Protection?

Liquid Web’s managed servers come with basic DDoS protection. DDoS, which stands for Distributed Denial of Service, is an attack from hackers in which a server is inundated with packets with units of data to the point where the server cannot function. DDoS protection prevents these types of attacks from happening and is able to shut them down once they start. They can do this by detecting abnormal traffic patterns and blocking the units of data from hitting the server.

Liquid Web can help to secure the VPS server in a way that nothing is affected by the attack, and effectively prevent DDoS attacks. Liquid Web’s team actively monitors network traffic and is quick to detect potential threats. Even while you are home sleeping, Liquid Web’s monitoring team watches for unusual traffic patterns and implements rules to protect your server.

With additional VPS security features like CloudFlare protection, which can reduce server load as well as prevent DDoS attacks, Liquid Web helps makes sure your servers are safe. And with point-and-click scaling of resources, VPS Hosting can handle DDoS attacks much more readily than most shared hosting.

Does Managed Hosting Offer Virus Protection?

Managed hosting offers a VPS security system with strong protection from viruses and other types of hacking attempts. Liquid Web managed hosting includes ServerSecurePlus and MAD to help fend off attacks.

ServerSecurePlus

ServerSecurePlus, which can be purchased at an additional cost, is an overarching security tool developed by Liquid Web to run malware scans, harden FTP rules, and provide real-time security intelligence. These tools include anti-virus software, vulnerability scans, and email virus filters.

Malicious Activity Detector (MAD)

Liquid Web’s MAD security tool prevents hackers from brute-forcing server passwords by detecting a threshold of failed logins and blocking that IP from accessing the server for a set amount of time. This effectively stops hackers from using automated software to guess passwords on your webserver to gain illegitimate access.

With unmanaged servers, you won’t get any of these features. Unmanaged servers are completely do-it-yourself and do not include anti-virus and brute-force detection by default. Again, another reason to have a managed server is the VPS security it provides to your server and data that’s unmatched by unmanaged hosting.

Do Managed Servers Have Automatic Upgrades?

Hardware upgrades are vital to VPS data security, such as your hard drive RAID (redundant array of independent/inexpensive disks), which allows storing data across multiple hard drives. If your RAID fails, then all of your data is at risk of deletion. Having a dedicated team available to monitor these physical hardware risks is incredibly important to keeping your server safe. Managed servers will get hardware upgrades automatically at the data center.

If hardware is failing or becomes very out-of-date, the support team can automatically upgrade these physical components at an appropriate time. Even if you need more RAM added or a bigger hard drive, managed support can implement these changes.

Why Should I Choose Managed VPS Security?

Unless you have your own fully dedicated technical support team at your organization who understands VPS hosting, it makes sense to go with managed hosting. Unmanaged VPS hosting can be a lot of work and requires a vast array of technical knowledge to keep VPS data secure. This support must also be available at any time to prevent or stop attacks. With a dedicated Liquid Web monitoring team, security team, and Windows or Linux general support, Liquid Web supports you every step of the way.

Try Managed VPS Hosting at Liquid Web

With Liquid Web, the Managed Support Team is available 24/7/365 via phone, chat, or email to help you with any VPS hosting issues that may arise with your secure VPS server. Whether you need a password reset, a firewall rule implemented, or have a VPS security question, a dedicated support team makes a big difference on your workload. You can simply reach out to the support line and get an expert technician in minutes.

The post VPS Security: How to Keep Your Data Secure appeared first on Liquid Web.

It’s July. Wait, Whaaaat?

Although March and April seemed to crawl along as we all learned to navigate brand new economic and personal landscapes, it’s somehow suddenly summer.

The goals we set for ourselves and our businesses back in January seem a distant memory now. Wednesday, July 1st is precisely half-way through the year 2020.

The 182nd day of the year, it is the perfect time to take stock of the past six months.

In so many ways, the first half of this year has been challenging for businesses and organizations. There’s a reason that nearly every email we exchange lately contains words like “unprecedented” and “uncertainty.” But we know that times of upheaval can also be times of tremendous positive change—if we are intentional about the ways we engage with our business, with our employees, and with ourselves.

2020 thus far has been tumultuous. And in six months, it will be behind us.

It’s never been more important to take the time to pause, reflect and reevaluate, and recognize how to move forward in ways that recognize that the current state of the world may be the norm for some time.

So, how can we advance our businesses, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves?

Take stock. Reassess how the year has gone so far. Look back on your goals for the year. When originally setting objectives and targets to measure the success of ongoing projects at the start of 2020, no organizations could foresee what our lives and companies and work would look like in a few short months.

Now is a great time to examine those objectives and targets and re-prioritize. What should you start doing, stop doing, and keep doing? What goals have been reached and which ones just aren’t realistic anymore? Which projects need attention, what new opportunities have presented themselves, and which efforts are simply not adding value anymore? Be ruthless.

If understandable delays have occurred in your business, think of July 1st as a time to get back on track. Consider July 1st as a restart – a New Mid-Year’s day, if you will. It’s a clean slate on which to adjust goals and come up with cohesive action plans that take our new “normal” into account.

Make an action plan for forward movement. Do you need to take a different approach?

Recognize the ways you can continue to make progress in the midst of uncertain times. If there are aspects of your business that need attention or adjustment, think about trying a different approach if you’re falling short of some of the goalposts you’ve set. Think about new methods and actionable steps that could help you and your team find new and positive ways of working for the latter half of the year. Try setting SMART goals—ones that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.

Keeping security up to date. Take some time at the beginning of July to ensure that your online security is up to par. As most companies continue working remotely, cybersecurity protection is more important than ever. Make sure that your cybersecurity is up-to-date and that any necessary updates have been installed. Prevent security issues and make sure the second half of the year is as smooth as possible. Security is complex and can be viewed as “just another thing to worry about.” But mitigating risk is a critical component of any successful business and you owe it to your customers to protect them – and to yourself to protect what you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Don’t make a hard year worse by succumbing to a security breach that could have been prevented. If you need help, here’s a few good resources.

Holidays! Think ahead. Planning ahead for the holiday season will be essential for eCommerce stores. From your website optimization to products, July is the perfect time to plan out what your strategy should be for the 2020 holiday season. It is also a good time to get in touch with suppliers and distributors to understand about any potential delays and restrictions due to the pandemic. Online business will be the order of the day. Is your digital commerce strategy and site ready to go? No? Let’s get on it. Here’s how we can help.

1. Prepare Your Site for Potential Spikes in Traffic: Liquid Web offers infrastructure that can scale quickly, ensuring server resources can meet demands. Don’t leave customers unable to check out with your products due to slow load times, or worse, a crashing site.
2. Mitigating a Malicious Attack on Your Server: Handling legitimate traffic can be quite enough without adding on a DDoS attack or code injection. Liquid Web offers basic and advanced DDoS protection to help, along with other add-ons such as firewalls, load balancing, or ServerSecurePlus for server hardening.

Get creative about “events.” At the beginning of 2020, I approved a Marketing plan that invested heavily in events, in-person Partner Summits, and travel to clients. Well, that’s not our world anymore. As conferences, face to face meetings, and business-related travel continues to stay motionless, getting creative about ways to connect with your customers and employees is important. We’ve all had to make adjustments to our event planning for this year. While we are unable to come together for in-person conferences, consider using this time to completely rethink the way your business approaches these gatherings. Using a webinar format is a great option for the time being, give thought to how you can make them fun and interesting. But also consider brainstorming about how best to revamp in-person events when the time comes.

Connect with employees. It is vital to find ways to connect with employees who are working remotely. Outside of whatever sort of mid-year performance review you may do, consider reaching out to remote employees to have separate, open discussions about their professional goals. Though many things in our businesses have shifted and changed, our employees still have ambitions. Ask them about their hopes and think about ways you can support them.

Many people are using this time to think about personal development. Perhaps there are training resources or seminars that you can offer remotely to help employees build skill sets or try new things.

Finally, be sure to celebrate your successes. What have you done well in these challenging times? How have you shown up for your employees and reminded them of their value? It is essential to look back at all you have accomplished during the first half of the year.

Be sure to celebrate and congratulate yourselves and your colleagues as we continue working through this pandemic.

The post Second Half of the Year Day appeared first on Liquid Web.

LANSING, Mich., June 30th, 2020 – Liquid Web, LLC, the market leader in managed hosting and managed application services to SMBs and entrepreneurs, is excited to announce the acquisition of ServerSide adding proven experience in hosting the leading Microsoft Windows Content Management solutions to Liquid Web’s portfolio.

The acquisition of ServerSide bolsters Liquid Web’s VMware cloud hosting capabilities for small to medium businesses launched in 2019. It also accelerates the company’s entrance into the Progress Sitefinity, Kentico, and Sitecore hosting market. The ServerSide team, including Steve Oren, founder, and CEO, have joined Liquid Web and have helped lead the effort to migrate customers onto the Liquid Web platform.

“The acquisition of ServerSide supports Liquid Web’s mission to power leading content management platforms. With ServerSide, we are excited about building upon the relationships ServerSide had with Sitefinity, Kentico, and Sitecore and their ecosystem partners”, said Joe Oesterling, CTO.

“We are excited about joining the Liquid Web team. We’ve successfully migrated our customers to Liquid Web’s platform, and we are working hand and hand to deploy our VMware architecture more broadly within Liquid Web”, said Steve Oren, Former CEO at ServerSide. “We look forward to using Liquid Web’s scale to be a bigger player in the leading Windows CMS ecosystems,” said Oren.

To learn more about the Liquid Web Private Cloud powered by VMware and NetApp.

To learn more about the Liquid Web Windows CMS offerings visit:
Kentico
Progress® Sitefinity
ElcomCMS
Sitecore

About the Liquid Web Family of Brands
Building on over 20 years of success, our Liquid Web Brand Family consists of four companies (Liquid Web, Nexcess, iThemes, and InterWorx), delivering software, solutions, and managed services for mission-critical sites, stores, and applications to SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them. With more than 1.5 million sites under management, The Liquid Web Family of Brands serves over 45,000 customers spanning 150 countries. Collectively, the companies have assembled a world-class team of industry experts, provide unparalleled service from a dedicated group of solution engineers available 24/7/365, and own and manage 10 global data centers. As an industry leader in customer service*, the rapidly expanding brand family has been recognized among INC. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies for twelve years. For more information, please visit Liquid Web for more info. *2019 Net Promoter Score of 67

The post Liquid Web Acquires ServerSide, a leading Microsoft Windows CMS Hosting Provider appeared first on Liquid Web.

Comparing Hosting with Liquid Web vs InMotion?

All too many hosting providers offer low prices in an effort to attract customers who don’t know exactly what they need. And then once that customer is through the door and has signed up, add-on fees and a la carte services come to light, stacking up and negating those earlier cost savings entirely. InMotion Hosting provides excellent infrastructure for sure, but the original appealing price is almost never the final bill. While price is always a consideration when making infrastructure investments, it can be difficult to compare one provider to another since details can vary so widely between one host and another. The entire exercise can be confusing to even the savviest technologist.

So what’s the solution when you don’t want to pay too much, but also don’t want to miss out on capabilities and functionality that you need? How do you even know what those capabilities and functions even are in the first place?

At Liquid Web, we remove the confusion by always offering full management of your infrastructure. From hardware to software, your infrastructure is under the watchful care of the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting. Rather than nickel and dime customers around the world for things like server administration and optimization, we offer complete management and monitoring so your team can focus on other parts of your business.

When considering a hosting provider like InMotion, it is critical that you know what you’re getting with your purchase…and what you aren’t getting but probably need. Choosing InMotion for your infrastructure means choosing to pay additional fees for server management and performance monitoring. It means performing your own migration and potentially being left out in the cold when things start to go wrong.

Nobody Includes More Than Liquid Web

Backed By The Most Helpful Humans in Hosting
and the Best Guarantees in the Industry

With more than two decades of helping small and mid-size businesses reach their goals, our team has the experience and expertise to keep you growing into the future. From small businesses starting their first web project to large enterprises running mission-critical applications, you can count on Liquid Web to provide the right solution for whatever’s next in your digital journey. Isn’t it time to find out what makes Liquid Web the most reliable hosting provider on earth?

The post Liquid Web Vs. InMotion appeared first on Liquid Web.

Is your remote IT team struggling with increased demands? Not sure which remote working tools will help?

At Liquid Web, we have embraced working remotely, and have been pleased with the results. The Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work finds that more than 80% of their surveyed respondents are happier and more invested in their company when working remotely. Nowhere is this more – apparent than with IT teams that are called on to support customers or internal teams at all hours of the day, regardless of their physical location.

Thankfully, technology has advanced enough to make the process of setting up and managing a remote IT rather straightforward.

Here is how you can organize your IT team to work remotely.

Remote Working Culture

First, remember that your team members are people. 

They must understand what working remotely means and what the company/team goals are. 

Documenting and centralizing all policies and recommendations to keep everyone informed and up-to-date is extremely important. Your documentation is the guidebook for how your IT team can and should work, leaving nothing to chance.

Make sure that everyone is in a healthy and productive environment. For example, each member of your IT team should be encouraged to maintain a good work-life balance, help their families understand and respect their work hours, and set boundaries for themselves to avoid burnout from extended work hours. 

In fact, this balance is critical to remaining productive while working remotely. Employees should also have a fully functioning and comfortable home office. 

1. Communication Hub

The first and most important tool for remote work is the platform you choose that centralizes team communication. 

Tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams provide real-time threaded conversations with many features to organize your team and enable them to collaborate on projects. Team members can chat one-on-one or set up groups for specific topics. Notifications and alerts can be set for IT events like server downtime or unauthorized logins.

A highly effective means of communication can be through text. Text (like email or chat) is inclusive and flexible but also commits conversations to electronic memory. Over time, your organization will build a source of knowledge through your communications hub that can help employees in the future.

2. Synchronous Meetings

You should connect with your team on voice/video conference calls regularly. This is useful to share information and collaborate on a topic quickly. It also helps team members understand each other and foster a sense of belonging and trust. Meetings are an essential part of encouraging company culture with a remote team.

Slack and Microsoft Teams have integrated voice/video calling, but you can also use another software like Zoom or Skype if needed. These tools also support sharing your screen when you wish to make a presentation or walk a colleague through how to do something.

Remember to coordinate with your team to make these meetings as efficient as possible. Sharing an agenda before a meeting is key. Focus on agenda topics to avoid discussions that could take place via email. You should also record and transcribe all meetings, particularly when key individuals are not able to join live. They will be able to watch or listen to the meetings at a later date and time so that everyone has all the information they need to be successful.

3. File Collaboration and Storage

As an additional layer to conversations through texts, you will also want to create documents collaboratively and share them with your IT team members. The simplest and most efficient way to facilitate document sharing and collaboration is with cloud storage.

If you decide to use Microsoft Teams, you will find that it provides a storage solution that seamlessly integrates with the Microsoft Office suite. Alternatively, you can also use G Suite, Dropbox, or Box.com, which offer powerful collaboration, sharing, and editing tools.

These tools allow multiple participants to edit the same document simultaneously. They also keep a version history of each file so you can see how it changes over time.

Although these services are typically readily available and secure, you should still consider setting up a backup, which is useful if your main provider goes down temporarily (which is rare but does happen). It also protects you from accidental file deletion and vandalism. Liquid Web offers a range of solutions for precisely this kind of backup.

4. Project Management

An organizational tool is essential to track required tasks, deadlines, and contributors during a project.

Trello offers a card-based solution for that. Team members can update the tasks to inform everyone what they have done, and what they will do, next. Tools like Basecamp, Asana, and Monday also offer options for managing projects in an IT environment.

You can use more advanced solutions like Zoho Projects or Microsoft Project. These tools offer more powerful yet also more complex dashboards and workflows to support complex management processes.

These tools make it easy to keep each team member in the loop on projects while also holding everyone accountable to do their part. In short, project management tools keep everyone on track and on time.

5. Access to Internal Systems

You may have an intranet or some corporate resources that must remain secure, even when accessed remotely. In this case, you should set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which will ensure your office staff, who are working remotely, must use their personal credentials to access these resources securely. All data shared through the VPN will be encrypted and safe even when they connect using public Wi-Fi.

Liquid Web provides a fully managed VPN service that covers all your needs.

Empower Your IT Team With Remote Working Tools

Taking advantage of all these remote working tools will ensure your team’s success and productivity and enable them to achieve all the company’s goals. They will empower your team to communicate effectively and focus on getting their job done. As management tools, these resources will provide your management team with clear visibility into your IT team’s work. By ensuring clear communication lines, your IT team can continue doing great things even when working remotely.

It’s never been more important for corporate IT teams to be flexible. With more and more organizations moving to a remote work structure and with the pace of digital transformation accelerating, equipping your system administrators and network engineers with the tools they need to be successful is crucial to success. Liquid Web has been helping small and mid-sized businesses empower their IT teams to work remotely for years. If your organization is thinking of permanently switching to working remotely and is looking for assistance, our team of expert engineers would be glad to lend a hand. From IT teams to your entire organization, our focus is on serving businesses through technology.

The post 5 Tools for Managing a Remote IT Team appeared first on Liquid Web.

Developers and agencies alike are continually trying to serve their websites faster. And for those that manage their server environment, the typical question is which web server software is best for your server.

If you are trying to choose between using LiteSpeed vs Apache, we can help. For those upgrading to using HTTP/2 or HTTP3 (HTTP is the protocol your browser uses to view webpages), or using leading CMS platforms like WordPress, there’s a clear winner.

LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS) is, hands down, the best web server you can use.

Today, we are going to cover LiteSpeed vs Apache Web Servers.

What is Apache HTTP Server Project?

Apache is a free, open-source, and cross-platform (works on servers based on both Unix and Windows) web server software. It is maintained and developed by a community of developers under the Apache Software Foundation. Their goal is to create a robust, commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP web server.

What is LiteSpeed Web Server?

LiteSpeed Technologies is an independent and privately held company founded by a team of engineers led by George Wang. Their goal is to enable a faster internet while simultaneously lowering infrastructure costs. They aim to do this by innovative software solutions like LSWS and LSCache.

What is a Web Server?

A web server can refer to both hardware or software. For this article, we will discuss the software side. 

A software web server features several components that control how users access hosted files; in short, an HTTP server. 

An HTTP server is a software that understands web addresses (URLs) and HTTP. It can be accessed through the website domain names it stores and delivers its content to the end user’s device.

On a basic level, whenever a browser needs a file hosted on a server, the browser requests it via HTTP. When the request reaches the correct hardware server, the software HTTP web server accepts it, finds the exact requested documents, and sends them back to the browser, also done through HTTP. If unable to find the right document, it returns a 404 response.

Apache Features and Performance

Apache supports several features; many implemented as compiled modules that extend its core functionality. It is highly customizable because of the module-based structure. They range from authentication schemes to supporting server-side programming languages such as Perl, Python, Tcl, and PHP. 

Apache is a reliable, stable web server software that is easy to configure and beginner-friendly. Because of the large open-source community, it gets frequent updates and regular security patches. 

It also works out of the box with most WordPress sites.

Bottom Line: Apache Web Server has many strengths, but is not the end-all web server solution.

Why LiteSpeed is Better

First to HTTP/3 Implementation

Currently, LiteSpeed Web Server is the only available production-grade web server with a reliable HTTP/3 implementation. For developers and agencies looking to be on the bleeding edge and serve their sites via HTTP/3, LiteSpeed is the only web server that can do it right now.

HTTP/2 introduced the concept of HTTP “streams:” an abstraction that allows HTTP implementations to concurrently send simultaneous HTTP exchanges onto the same TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection, allowing browsers to more efficiently reuse TCP connections. It solves the original problem HTTP had of inefficient use of a single TCP connection. But while HTTP/2 separates HTTP exchanges into different streams, TCP does not know the difference between them. In this instance, all requests and responses are affected by packet loss.

Instead of using TCP as the transport layer for a session, HTTP/3 uses QUIC (a general-purpose transport layer network protocol designed at Google). QUIC introduces streams as first-class citizens at the transport layer. Those streams share the same QUIC connection, so no added handshakes and slow starts are required to create new ones. The streams are delivered independently, so that packet loss affecting one stream doesn’t harm others. 

HTTP/3 has evolved from QUIC, and LSWS was the first production-grade server to support both QUIC and HTTP/3. They continue to perfect their implementation as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) works on publishing a final definition for the HTTP/3 protocol.

LSWS believes in doing its part to advance Internet technologies, and with that aim in mind, their LSQUIC project is open source and publicly available via GitHub.

The LSQUIC Library is a fully functional, actively maintained QUIC and HTTP/3 implementation in the C programming language. It allows you to incorporate the same QUIC functionality used in LiteSpeed servers into your projects.

LiteSpeed explicitly designed QUIC.cloud CDN (Content Delivery Network) to take advantage of the benefits of HTTP/3 and QUIC. QUIC.cloud serves content via HTTP/3 to visitors, but can also communicate with a site’s backend via HTTP/3 and QUIC, creating a complete HTTP/3-powered connection.

HTTP/2 Improvements

Similarly, they’ve been supporting HTTP/2 for as long as it’s been available, and continue to make strides in efficiency and speed. In recent HTTP/2 benchmarks showing requests per second accessing WordPress, LiteSpeed’s HTTP/2 implementation performed 10X faster than Nginx and 78X faster than Apache.

Other implementations use OpenSSL libraries, which provide no control over the Transport Layer Security (TLS) record. They cannot control its size, determine when to start a new one, or flush out buffered records. LiteSpeed’s implementation does not use OpenSSL libraries but handles the TLS record directly.

Some benefits to enabling this kind of customization include:

• Reducing data copies from the data buffer to the TLS record buffer.
• Adjust the TLS record size to deliver data quickly and improve TTFB (time to first byte).
• Combine multiple TLS records and send over one system call, reducing system-call overhead and network-packet-level fragmentation.
• Directly build the HTTP/2 frame in the TLS record buffer to further minimize data copies.

Improved WordPress Performance with LSCache for WordPress

LiteSpeed Cache (LSCache) for WordPress is their popular WordPress cache plugin, with over a million active installations. It’s an all-in-one acceleration plugin, with its signature feature powered by LiteSpeed Web Server’s built-in server-level cache. This built-in cache simplifies the server stack and makes for a faster, more efficient way to serve content.

The LSCache plugin adds built-in PageSpeed optimization, image optimization service, critical CSS generation service, third-party CDN integration, among other features. It also supports personalized WooCommerce cache as well as a highly-configurable cache crawler, noticeably improving user experiences across all of your sites.

The Verdict Between LiteSpeed vs Apache Web Servers

I mentioned earlier that there was a clear winner when comparing these two software web servers. LiteSpeed is miles ahead of Apache when it comes to the performance side and the implementation of HTTP/3. They continue to make improvements to HTTP/2, and are making WordPress run more efficiently. 

Bottom Line: LiteSpeed Web Server is the clear winner in the battle of the software web server solutions.

Try LiteSpeed Web Servers Today

Try a LiteSpeed Dedicated Web Server today and experience cutting edge speed and performance for your WordPress sites.

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Working from home (also called telecommuting) is becoming more and more common. If you are new to this remote work arrangement, you may have many questions, especially around cybersecurity. 

In most offices, employees can rely on an IT department to set up their work environment. However, working from home is quite a bit different, and you may have to do it yourself. From setting up your actual machine to installing software to applying updates and patches, more and more of what is considered traditional IT work falls to the employee to do at home.

One of the most important aspects to get right is security. Since you will be handling sensitive company information and private data, it is critical that your personal equipment not be compromised. 

Threats that aren’t present in an office environment are quite real when working from home.”

If your company has an IT department, be sure to consult them. It is likely that your organization already has cybersecurity policies that you can and should follow. These policies are designed to protect both you and the company, keeping your interests aligned. 

And if you are using a computer provided by your company, it may come with many security features pre-configured. Make sure to use only that computer for any work-related activity.

Once that is done, you should protect your personal computers and information. If hackers or nefarious parties can access your machine, then all of your private work data and information are at risk.

Secure Your Computer

There are some basic steps that you can take to increase the security of your computer:

Use an Antivirus and a Firewall

When your computer is connected to the internet, there are viruses and malware that can cause significant damage; an antivirus and a firewall will protect your computer against them. Your computer should come with these cybersecurity tools pre-installed. If not, make sure to install them or consult with your IT department. 

As a reminder, double-check that both the firewall and antivirus are working correctly.

Keep Your Software Up-To-Date

Updates fix security holes within your software. Typically, your operating system and the apps installed from its app store will be automatically updated. You can also schedule these updates to happen when you are not using your computer. 

Many people do not realize that many software updates are about patching known cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and not updating software in a timely manner will leave their machine vulnerable to intrusion.

Install and Run Only Applications From Trusted Sources

Ideally, you should obtain your software from the official app store or publisher. If you download software from the internet, make sure that it comes from a source that you know and trust. Even better, ask your IT department to download and install the software for you, even if it’s done remotely. 

Be mindful not to download software, particularly .exe files, that are unfamiliar or unneeded.

Protect Your Personal Information on the Internet

Take the following cybersecurity measures to keep your data safe:

Use Strong and Unique Passwords

Use strong and unique passwords when registering any new account so that potential hackers cannot guess them. They should contain a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. 

Don’t use the same password on multiple websites. Otherwise, if one of them is compromised, that password could be reused by hackers to access your other accounts. 

You can use a password manager to help you remember all your passwords. It can even generate these passwords for you. 

Furthermore, it would be best if you changed your passwords at regular intervals. We recommend a password change every three months to keep your accounts as secure as possible.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) When Possible

Most websites offer the option of configuring a secondary authentication method, also known as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), like a mobile app or an email address. This protects your account even if your password is stolen, denying access to accounts from a different device.

Only Share Your Personal Information With Trusted Websites

Having less information on the internet reduces your exposure to identity theft, including social media sites, banking and investment sites, retailer sites, and more. Never share your passwords directly with anyone, not even to your bank. If you have an issue signing into a website, that website should offer you the option to reset your password to a new one.

Be Careful of Phishing Scams

Phishing scams are attempts to steal your money or your identity. If you receive an email warning you about a threat or promising a reward, double-check its validity by going yourself to the official website mentioned in the email or consulting with your IT department. 

Do not click on any links in that email; it might lead you to a website that looks official but is actually a fake copy designed to obtain your password. American companies lost close to half a billion dollars to phishing scams in 2017 alone, so not only is the threat real, but so too is the impact felt by businesses themselves.

Enable Full-Disk Encryption

Most modern computers have the option of encrypting all your data automatically. This protection does not impact your ability to work but does provide an excellent source of additional security for your files and data.

Make Regular Backups of Your Data

Keep a copy on a USB drive and store it somewhere away from your computer. That way, if your computer gets damaged or stolen, you will still have your data stored in a safe place. 

You can automate this process with software backup tools. Your computer likely has a tool to back up your data online.

Secure Your Work Documents and Information

When you open an email, a document, or any other information coming from work, make sure that it stays secure and confidential:

Store Your Data Safely

If your company provides a platform for storing your work, you should use that whenever possible. This platform is typically secured, encrypted, backed up, and always available. 

Commonly used tools like OneDrive or Teams from Microsoft, G Suite and Drive from Google, Dropbox, and Box.com offer largely-secure cloud storage options that your company’s IT department can administer and secure.

Protect Your Physical Computer

Do not leave it unattended, especially if it is unlocked. Keep your computer in a secure room and consider securing it to your desk for extra security. Just because your computer is in your home doesn’t mean it is physically more secure than in an office environment. And while we hope a burglary of your home never happens, computers are high-value items for anyone that might break into your home.

Stay Alert and Informed

If you’re using your computer and notice something strange, let your company’s IT department know. Attempting to resolve a security issue on your own or ignoring it only exacerbates the problem.

Gain Peace of Mind With a Secured Work Environment

Going from working at the office to working from home can be a difficult transition. But that’s all the more reason to re-focus on securing your hardware and software. In a time of transition, what you don’t need is uncertainty and discomfort. 

A properly secured work environment should provide peace of mind to both you and your employer.” 

Take the time to adapt and get comfortable in this new environment. Following the best practices above should keep both your physical machine and the data that you work with every day from falling into the wrong hands.

Liquid Web Can Help With Remote Work Cybersecurity

At Liquid Web, we’ve been helping companies with remote work cybersecurity solutions for years by providing secure, highly-available infrastructure for mission-critical applications and websites. Our team of the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting partner with IT departments globally to keep company data and applications safe, secure, and performant, so teams like yours can do their best work on a daily basis. 

If you’re looking for a partner when it comes to transforming your organization during this rapidly changing time, contact us. We would enjoy the chance to learn about your challenges and goals and explore if the Liquid Web team can be a partner and help you succeed.

The post Securing Your Infrastructure When Working From Home appeared first on Liquid Web.

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting. 

From as early as she can remember, Francesca has always been a big fan of technology. She spent a lot of time as a kid on the family computer, teaching herself HTML and CSS so she could make cool websites with glitter cursors and blaring MIDIs in the background. Eventually she chose to turn that hobby into a career as a Web and Graphic Designer. Francesca graduated from Michigan State University in 2013 with a BA degree in Games and Interactive Media. After a few different positions, she landed a role with Liquid Web in 2017.

We wanted to find out what fuels her passion at Liquid Web.

Why did you join Liquid Web? 

Funnily enough, I used to be a customer of Liquid Web. I worked for a small non-profit that didn’t have server admins on staff, so as the web designer, I was also responsible for managing servers. I spent a lot of time on the Liquid Web Knowledge Base trying to learn the ropes, but when things got messy, I’d call Liquid Web support in a panic. Luckily, there was always a calm, helpful person on the other end who could help get things working again! I always admired how friendly and knowledgeable the staff at Liquid Web were.

When a position for web design opened up at Liquid Web, I just had to jump on board.

What draws you to the hosting industry as a career? 

As a web designer, I am always curious about where the websites I make actually live and what makes them work. I take a sense of pride in knowing I work at a place that powers business, entertainment, and content for our customers. To be at the forefront of technology is pretty neat.

Also, I’ve learned a lot about hosting since joining Liquid Web three years ago, and I’m constantly amazed at how fast the industry is changing.

Is there something specific at Liquid Web that you just love?

One of my favorite teams to work alongside is the Managed Hosting Product Team, which includes Jake Fellows. A few months back, we collaborated on a launch of our new flagship product for off-server backups, Acronis Cyber Backup, for our Dedicated and VMware Private Cloud customers. It’s amazing to be part of the public-facing side of a product launch, especially when that product is one that is the #1 remote backup service globally.

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

Liquid Web truly cares about the well-being of its staff. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Liquid Web put together a Response Plan quickly to ensure staff would feel safe and supported while working from home. And leadership has continued to communicate with all of us about any changes that are coming, their viewpoints on the shift in the economic landscape, and what to expect moving forward. With all of the noise coming from the media constantly, it is amazing to be grounded in weekly knowledge that our company stands alongside its employees and customers during these trying times. It’s a huge weight off my shoulders knowing that my employer supports me and my family’s health.

Not only that, but we have an outstanding Culture Committee that has been putting on so many interesting and wonderful virtual events for us, including virtual happy hours, Euchre tournaments, virtual yoga (my favorite), gaming clubs, and more. 

What is the biggest milestone you’ve accomplished?

I was part of the team that launched Liquid Web’s new site in 2017, which was a huge accomplishment. I was hired on in the middle of the project and it was “go go go” from day one. It was a busy few months, but I really got to know my team and work hard alongside them to make our launch date. And seeing the reaction to the new design, both internal and external, was so rewarding! Both our customers and employees were ecstatic about the changes.

Tell us about the most positive experience you have had at Liquid Web.

The most positive experiences for me at Liquid Web are when I’m able to help others with their projects. I love being a resource for others and helping to empower them to succeed. At Liquid Web, I’ve found that people take the mantra of being the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting pretty seriously, both for customers and colleagues alike. 

What are you known for at Liquid Web? What do people specifically come to you for?

I work on the Marketing team as the Web/Graphic Designer, so usually people come to me with questions about our website, to help make an image more appealing, or put some pizazz into a project.

My all-time favorite project at Liquid Web was designing our 20 Year Anniversary logo. We placed the new logo on hoodies and gave each and every employee one. It was very rewarding to see the logo I helped to create virtually come to life physically on clothing worn by others around me at the office. It was also extremely satisfying to know that the logo I had a hand in designing was worn around the country and displayed at trade shows for our customers to see!

What is one thing you wish our customers knew about their hosting?

Backups, backups, backups. 

If you don’t have backups of your site or data, you are tempting fate. There were several times that I was running what seemed like routine server updates at the nonprofit I worked at while a customer with Liquid Web, and everything started going wrong. Luckily, we had been keeping backups of our data and I was able to restore everything successfully. Without backups, it would have been a nightmare. Liquid Web offers local cloud backups for VPS Hosting customers as well as off-server backups from Acronis Cyber Backup for our Dedicated Hosting and VMware Private Cloud customers.

And with backups, it’s best to have at least two in case something goes wrong with the first one.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

You can usually find me playing games on my PC or Nintendo Switch. My favorite games are Heroes of the Storm, Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Witcher 3. I’m also an avid traveler, and have been to Japan, New Zealand, Australia, England, and Italy.

What is your favorite TV show?

Probably not the most original answer, but The Office. It’s such a timeless classic. Hilarious, relatable, and gives you the warm fuzzies every time. My favorite episode is the “Dinner Party.”

You can follow Francesca Compau on LinkedIn.

The post Meet a Helpful Human – Francesca Compau appeared first on Liquid Web.

Wondering what the benefits of VPS Hosting are for your business?

Every business today is striving to gain market share, customer base, and see overall growth. And one of the best pathways is to ensure your development cycle is lightning-fast.

Businesses that see an online presence as a necessity are looking to quickly develop their site, update frequently and stay ahead of trends.

For the developer looking to quickly and efficiently start a project, mock-up a site for a client, or administer the online component for a company, nothing beats the ease and speed of Virtual Private Servers (VPS).

A VPS server is the perfect tool if your team is looking to start a new project, quickly test out an idea, or have a sandbox/playground to try new technologies.

Below I’ll talk about the five benefits of using a Virtual Private Server for your next project:

1. Speed of machine creation
2. Ease of growth/expandability
3. Cheap cost/low barrier of entry
4. Snapshotting/backups
5. Add-ons and additional features

But first, what is VPS Hosting?

What is VPS Hosting?

Virtual Private Server Hosting, or VPS Hosting for short, is a virtualized hosting solution with specific memory, space, and CPU cores allocated to a single-tenant, and is located on a single parent server or cluster of parent servers.

It is one of the most instantly scalable and affordable web solutions available on the market today, and needs to be strongly considered for your next web project vs Dedicated Hosting.

The Five Benefits of VPS Hosting

1. Speed of Machine Creation

Dedicated servers are custom built by hand from individual components that a customer specifies. This is a slow process that requires communicating with your account manager, the delivery team, and the time necessary to actually build and deploy the server.

One of the most significant benefits of using VPS Hosting is that virtual servers can be deployed within minutes with the click of a few buttons.

This puts you in the position to get started on your projects faster, present your creation to clients sooner, and profit from the increase in business you can generate by not losing out on time waiting for a server to be built. All of this is possible due to the nature of virtual servers: pre-built machines with pre-defined specifications waiting to be activated.

You may think that due to their being pre-built/pre-specified that you will have limited options; the exact opposite is true. Virtual servers today are extremely flexible and offer numerous options/customizations on-demand, such as:

• The amount of memory (RAM) needed
• Hard disk space required
• CPU cores allotted

That is why VPS Hosting is so easy to expand and scale as needed.

2. Ease of Growth and Expandability

One of the most frustrating parts of a business is being unable to keep up with the growth needed to satisfy customer demand. With traditional dedicated servers, if you need to increase the amount of memory or disk space, you face long delays while communicating your needs, downtime while the hardware is upgraded, and potential issues with your site or project if data migration is required. Upgrading CPUs may even require full chassis swaps, which can cause even more delays and downtime.

The main difference between VPS Hosting and Dedicated Hosting is that VPS Hosting allows you to increase memory, disk space, or add CPU cores almost instantly with the click of a button.

As your traffic and business grow, you are able to quickly and easily alter the specifications of your server to keep up with the increase in traffic.

You may think that all of these features and automated components are going to make this virtual technology more expensive, but the very opposite is true. VPS Hosting is much more affordable than Dedicated Hosting.

3. Affordable and Low Barrier to Entry

One of the major benefits of utilizing VPS Hosting is the reduced cost for getting your project off the ground.

By their nature, a VPS Server is cheaper than a Dedicated Server due to shared hardware components and lack of manpower needed to get them running. These cost savings get passed on to you, which enables you to provide a lower cost to your clients.

This also means that if you’re looking to test out new technology, have a testbed machine with which you can experiment, or a staging area for client sites, you can easily use a VPS without worrying about the cost skyrocketing and being a financial drain.

You can choose the OS you want and the level of support management up front, and within minutes you can be online with root access, able to begin developing your application, uploading files, and getting your project online.

All of this can be handled directly within the control panel used to create your VPS and requires no interaction with another human, no delay in getting hardware assembled, or software installed.

When you need to be online as fast as possible, the fastest option is a VPS.

But simply getting online quickly is not enough. You need to be sure that what you’re working on is safe, secure, and your time not wasted.

That’s where backups and snapshots come into play.

4. Snapshotting and Backups

Nothing can be more detrimental to your online business than your site being inaccessible. There are a large number of concerns when hosting your project that can bring your online presence offline: malware and viruses from hackers, incidental hardware failure, or human error when changing or altering files. Any time offline or correcting mistakes is a potential loss in earnings and reputation.

Another benefit of VPS Hosting is that it makes automated backups as easy as the creation of the server itself: point and click.

Scheduling backups, retaining multiple backups, and restoring from them is fast and simple, ensuring that even in the worst case scenarios, your data can be protected.

Backups are stored on remote servers, physically separated from your virtual server so that even physical hardware malfunction doesn’t cause you to lose data. All of this is performed behind the scenes without you worrying about what is taking place, so you can spend your time focusing on the project at hand.

Also, simply backing up your data is only one factor that virtual servers have simplified. A virtual server allows you to easily create a base “template” or snapshot for a server that you would like to use repeatedly. You can then save this template and create new servers based on it at a later date. Just be wary of changes that were made after the snapshot was performed.

If you need a server for a short period of time you can save the server as an “image” for reuse later on, or you can create a server multiple times for different projects or splitting traffic in a load balanced environment. These snapshot features allow you to quickly create consistent servers and ensure that your environment is configured exactly how you need it for the project you’re working on.

5. Add-Ons and Additional Features

The driving component of virtual servers is the automation behind the scenes that allows them to be easily created, altered, and destroyed. This automated nature means that we can easily tie in additional services by using the same point and click concept, making it easy to add these features to a virtual server.

Being able to quickly add a load balancer in front of your servers, configure a firewall for single or multiple machines, maintain control over your public IP addresses for use between machines, and even create a private network for use with only your servers are all possible.

That’s not all though. VPS can also include:

1. Built-in monitoring of your server’s health
2. A connection from your servers to object or block storage pools
3. A history of tasks and changes

As new products and features are created, they’re easily added and integrated into your virtual server thanks to the automation of how they work. Automation is why VPS Hosting is chosen for web projects, time and time again.

Whereas traditional dedicated servers need additional software updates or production impacting software updates, virtual servers are easily able to adapt and update to take advantage of the latest technologies.

Virtual Servers are Here to Stay

Virtual servers are a mainstay product in the hosting world for development.

The cheap cost and ease-of-use are the primary benefits for individuals looking to get projects off the ground quickly, but the automation and add-ons make VPS Hosting a fully-featured hosting solution for growing SMBs in 2020.

Still Undecided on VPS Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting?

The post What are the Benefits of VPS Hosting? appeared first on Liquid Web.