New Payment Gateway Integration for European clients
Thursday, September 08, 2011
We are happy to announce the addition of the Ogone payment gateway to Business Catalyst. Ogone is one of the leading European Payment Service Providers in Europe. Ogone is a "seamless" payment gateway that will allow customers to process one-off or recurring payments for the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France.
For more information about the Ogone payment gateway, please visit: http://www.ogone.com/
WaratahWeb Blog
4800 Websites Disappear! Could this happen to BC Sites?
Thursday, June 23, 2011
By now you might have heard the devastating news about DistributeIT, a leading Australian domain & website host who fell victim to a malicious hacking, causing close to 5000 websites to be wiped off the Internet. My heart goes out to these businesses :(
So could this happen to sites hosted by Adobe Business Catalyst? Well, you can never say never, BUT the chances are extremely miniscule. Here's some information about Adobe's website hosting infrastructure and what you can do to further safeguard your data. I'll try not to get too technical, but this is one of those times when I need to include some techo terms.
Adobe Business Catalyst's data centres have a highly fault-tolerant server configuration. Traffic to the web servers is managed by a redundant pair of hardware 'load balancers' - this means that in the event of a server failure, traffic is immediately and transparently distributed to other servers in the pool. For database servers, there is instant fail-over to a mirror server for each database. Site assets such as images, scripts, etc are stored on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which is essentially a separate hard disk with fault-tolerant disk configuration and redundant control units.
In case of malfunction, firewalls and other network hardware are also installed in redundant pairs for immediate fail-over. The data centers are also connected to the Internet through multiple links from different Internet service providers and this provides added reliability.
Adobe Business Catalyst also perform regular full backups of the servers. However, it is important to note that data recovery cannot be initiated for individual file backups, in other words, to restore a single web page that you might have deleted accidentally. The backups are intended to perform 'full recovery' of the servers in the event of a hardware or software failure only.
What YOU can do to further safeguard your data...
At an individual site level, we recommend you retain a copy of your site's files and data locally. This includes:
- Your website pages, images and templates
- Your customer records
- Your Web App records (if you are using this functionality on BC)
Unfortunately, there isn't a magic button you can click inside your BC admin area to perform a backup of your site, however, you do have the following options available:
1) You can use FTP software to copy your web pages, templates, and layouts as often as you see fit. There are plenty of free FTP tools available and many are very easy to use.
Here's a couple you can try:
2) You can use BC's built-in Customer Report Generator which allows you to export all customer related information at your convenience. In the admin area of the site go to ...
Reports > Create a Customer Report and follow the wizard steps.
OR
Customers > Customers and click Export at the bottom of the screen.
3) For those sites using BC's Web App functionality (for example, you have a database to handle Job postings, Property listings etc) you can also export a copy of your Web App database at any time, go to ...
Modules > Web Apps > Manage Web Apps.
Click on the Web App to open and click "Download Entire Web App Item List".
4) For those customers with very complex sites, there is another option to maintain a replica using BC's Notifications and Web Services API's. This involves additional programming to build the bridge between your site and another database, so please contact WaratahWeb to discuss.
In the pipeline ...
To further assist, a comprehensive site backup and transfer tool – where you can download the BC site into an archive and be able to upload it again as a whole complete BC site – is currently in development by Adobe BC. We haven't been given an ETA for this as yet, but we'll certainly keep you posted.
I hope the above information is helpful and if you need any assistance, be sure to contact us.
Sydney Morning Herald article: 4800 Aussie Sites Evaporate After Hack
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/4800-aussie-sites-evaporate-after-hack-20110621-1gd1h.html
Thursday, June 23, 2011
By now you might have heard the devastating news about DistributeIT, a leading Australian domain & website host who fell victim to a malicious hacking, causing close to 5000 websites to be wiped off the Internet. My heart goes out to these businesses :(So could this happen to sites hosted by Adobe Business Catalyst? Well, you can never say never, BUT the chances are extremely miniscule. Here's some information about Adobe's website hosting infrastructure and what you can do to further safeguard your data. I'll try not to get too technical, but this is one of those times when I need to include some techo terms.
Adobe Business Catalyst's data centres have a highly fault-tolerant server configuration. Traffic to the web servers is managed by a redundant pair of hardware 'load balancers' - this means that in the event of a server failure, traffic is immediately and transparently distributed to other servers in the pool. For database servers, there is instant fail-over to a mirror server for each database. Site assets such as images, scripts, etc are stored on a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which is essentially a separate hard disk with fault-tolerant disk configuration and redundant control units.
In case of malfunction, firewalls and other network hardware are also installed in redundant pairs for immediate fail-over. The data centers are also connected to the Internet through multiple links from different Internet service providers and this provides added reliability.
Adobe Business Catalyst also perform regular full backups of the servers. However, it is important to note that data recovery cannot be initiated for individual file backups, in other words, to restore a single web page that you might have deleted accidentally. The backups are intended to perform 'full recovery' of the servers in the event of a hardware or software failure only.
What YOU can do to further safeguard your data...At an individual site level, we recommend you retain a copy of your site's files and data locally. This includes:
- Your website pages, images and templates
- Your customer records
- Your Web App records (if you are using this functionality on BC)
Unfortunately, there isn't a magic button you can click inside your BC admin area to perform a backup of your site, however, you do have the following options available:
1) You can use FTP software to copy your web pages, templates, and layouts as often as you see fit. There are plenty of free FTP tools available and many are very easy to use.
Here's a couple you can try:
- Windows: Coffee Cup http://www.coffeecup.com/free-ftp/
- Mac: Classic FTP http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/classicftpformac.html
2) You can use BC's built-in Customer Report Generator which allows you to export all customer related information at your convenience. In the admin area of the site go to ...
Reports > Create a Customer Report and follow the wizard steps.
OR
Customers > Customers and click Export at the bottom of the screen.
3) For those sites using BC's Web App functionality (for example, you have a database to handle Job postings, Property listings etc) you can also export a copy of your Web App database at any time, go to ...
Modules > Web Apps > Manage Web Apps.
Click on the Web App to open and click "Download Entire Web App Item List".
4) For those customers with very complex sites, there is another option to maintain a replica using BC's Notifications and Web Services API's. This involves additional programming to build the bridge between your site and another database, so please contact WaratahWeb to discuss.
In the pipeline ...
To further assist, a comprehensive site backup and transfer tool – where you can download the BC site into an archive and be able to upload it again as a whole complete BC site – is currently in development by Adobe BC. We haven't been given an ETA for this as yet, but we'll certainly keep you posted.
I hope the above information is helpful and if you need any assistance, be sure to contact us.
Sydney Morning Herald article: 4800 Aussie Sites Evaporate After Hack
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/4800-aussie-sites-evaporate-after-hack-20110621-1gd1h.html
BC sites migrated to a brand new data centre
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
One of the great things about having a Business Catalyst website is knowing that you're in good hands. As a hosted solution, you don't have to worry about upgrading servers or installing the latest update for your Content Management software... this is all taken care of by Adobe. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to partner with Adobe Business Catalyst and build websites on this powerful platform.
When a business has to manage these things themselves in order to keep their website up and running, it can become a headache. Sites built with open-source software might be free ... but don't be fooled! Unless you have a great team to support you, it can also be a nightmare to manage the technology and get the support you need, when you need it.
Recently, Adobe migrated all Business Catalyst websites hosted in the UK and Australia to their new state-of-the-art data centres based in Ultimo, Sydney and Dublin, Ireland. Whilst there was a small amount of downtime in the early hours on a Sunday morning during which time the sites were being copied across to the servers, there was little else the client had to worry about. The migration was planned and executed without any fuss and client's had their sites back up and running in no time at all. In fact, most clients' were completely oblivious to the whole process. And quite frankly, that's how it should be with no disruption to their day to day business.
The migration to the new data centres has given our client's vastly improved performance and reliability. Pages load super fast which improves the browsing experience for site visitors.
In the next few month's, Adobe will also migrate all BC sites hosted in the USA to a new data centre and we're confident it will happen without any glitches, just as the Aussie and UK migrations have done.
On a side note...
Did you know that improving page load speeds can improve your search engine rankings? Why? Because faster loading pages means your visitors will hang around longer on your site and in Google's eyes that means your content must be more relevant to them. When pages load slowly on a site, a visitor will rarely stick around to wait and see what you have on offer if they are just surfing. Keep that in mind.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
One of the great things about having a Business Catalyst website is knowing that you're in good hands. As a hosted solution, you don't have to worry about upgrading servers or installing the latest update for your Content Management software... this is all taken care of by Adobe. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to partner with Adobe Business Catalyst and build websites on this powerful platform.
When a business has to manage these things themselves in order to keep their website up and running, it can become a headache. Sites built with open-source software might be free ... but don't be fooled! Unless you have a great team to support you, it can also be a nightmare to manage the technology and get the support you need, when you need it.
Recently, Adobe migrated all Business Catalyst websites hosted in the UK and Australia to their new state-of-the-art data centres based in Ultimo, Sydney and Dublin, Ireland. Whilst there was a small amount of downtime in the early hours on a Sunday morning during which time the sites were being copied across to the servers, there was little else the client had to worry about. The migration was planned and executed without any fuss and client's had their sites back up and running in no time at all. In fact, most clients' were completely oblivious to the whole process. And quite frankly, that's how it should be with no disruption to their day to day business.
The migration to the new data centres has given our client's vastly improved performance and reliability. Pages load super fast which improves the browsing experience for site visitors.
In the next few month's, Adobe will also migrate all BC sites hosted in the USA to a new data centre and we're confident it will happen without any glitches, just as the Aussie and UK migrations have done.
On a side note...
Did you know that improving page load speeds can improve your search engine rankings? Why? Because faster loading pages means your visitors will hang around longer on your site and in Google's eyes that means your content must be more relevant to them. When pages load slowly on a site, a visitor will rarely stick around to wait and see what you have on offer if they are just surfing. Keep that in mind.
Recent Posts
- Sitelinks in Google Search Results
- Merry Xmas!
- New Payment Gateway Integration for European clients
- Easy and Cost-effective Web Video
- 4800 Websites Disappear! Could this happen to BC Sites?
- BC sites migrated to a brand new data centre
- New website for Votwo UK
- New website for Offshore Unlimited
- Our new office
- Online Business Tip: Websites Don't Run Themselves
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