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Keeping your website running isn't the only technology concern for today's small e-commerce businesses. Your customers rely on your ability to communicate with them via email, telephone, or fax. A failure in any one of a number of your infrastructure technology systems can disrupt your operations, keeping you from shipping orders, answering calls, taking orders, and processing credit cards.

Calculating the cost of system downtime isn't just looking at the cost of lost orders. Your time as a manager, and the impact on your staff and clients need to be accounted for as well.. The labor cost of fixing customer service problems, and the opportunity costs of spending your time fixing your business (rather than growing it) all add to the core costs of lost orders.

The major points of failure, where your ability to service clients can be impacted, includes you website hosting, telephone systems, ISP access, email, core application software systems, and electrical power. A failure in any single one of these core infrastructure components can impact your ability to properly serve your customers.

If your Internet connection is down due to your DSL or cable provider system being unavailable, most of the typical e-commerce business's systems grind to a halt. Without Internet access, you are unable to send or receive email, produce shipping documents, or receive orders from your storefront. Setting up a wireless Internet access system as a back up to your primary ISP is a cost effective way to reduce your system downtime.

When you have multiple ISP access points, you'll need to set-up your network to use both your primary and secondary services. Inexpensive, but powerful, routers can be configured to monitor the ISP access of your providers, and automatically route your Internet access via whatever service is up. This keeps your operations running without disruption, even if your DSL or cable is down.

Losing your telephone service is another major infrastructure risk. Both clients and vendors are unable to reach you if the phones are down. The new breed of Internet based toll free service providers can provide a creative, and inexpensive solution for back-up telephone services. These services allow you to program the routing of your inbound phone calls to your landline, mobile phone, VOIP phone, or a combination of them. Setting up your inbound calls to route to an alternate number (such as your cell phone) if there is no answer on your landline is easily done.

Since everything in today's e-commerce businesses are run with electricity, a power outage can bring your business to a halt. Installing basic UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) battery back-up systems on your equipment can give you 10 - 30 minutes of power in the event of a power outage. Keep in mind, its not just your PC that needs to keep running, but also phones, routers, modems, and network servers as well.

An inexpensive solution for longer-term power outages is to have a back-up generator available onsite. You can pick-up an inexpensive generator at your local home center, and you can have an electrician install a basic generator connection switch to your circuit panel. In the event of a power outage, you can start-up your generator, plug it into the generator transfer switch, and flip a couple switches, and all your systems can be operating. Make sure you test this system occasionally to make sure your generator starts easily, and that you have configured you switch on the proper circuits.

Using reliable hosting companies for your website and on-line stores is critical to making sure your business can serve clients. Don't focus only on the site hosting, but also make sure all systems that plug into your store are high availability providers (payment processing, authorizing network, etc.)

In the event of a true disaster, the one item you need to make sure you have is a good back up. A truly good back up includes all your critical business files and records, not just for the website, but your financial, marketing, and operational data as well. Take your back-up files off site, at least weekly, to assure you've got your data safeguarded.

The worst time to find out that one of your back-up systems isn't working is when your primary system fails. To keep your online store running well, test your back-up systems periodically, and perform required maintenance when things are running well. Trying to fix your back up systems when your primary system is down is a double whammy to your business.

Investing in redundant and back-up systems for your web-based store is prudent. A business that does only five hundred thousand dollars in business can lose over one hundred dollars per hour when systems are down. If your systems are down 1% of the time, your cost can be over three thousands dollars per year, plus a major disruption to you and your staff's lives. Careful planning, and inexpensive redundant systems can pay for themselves very quickly.

About: Edward Cole's Internet baby shower decoration store has served thousands of clients. Edward is part of the management team at PartyPail.com, and he says that the Radio Flyer baby shower is one of his favorite shower themes.

Article Source: WalterVictor.com - Articles