Simply Factoring Brokers

Factoring Brokers Website

Including:

• Site Design
• Site Development
• SEO
• Hosting
• Mobile Enabled Version

Many of you probably aren’t aware of this but one of our main development CMS, Umbraco, was found to have a number of vulnerabilities during a recent audit. We host over 30 Umbraco sites so this was quite a big deal for us.

The first advice from the Umbraco core team was to remove one of the library files from the installation. We were confident that none of our sites used this library so we created a script to move this library out of the installations (rather than delete) so we could restore if any problems occurred. We did this and happily no problems occurred.

The next day Umbraco had investigated the vulnerabilities further and had found there were problems with the main Umbraco library too. Unfortunately this one couldn’t just be removed as every site used it. Umbraco released a number of patches for the major versions that had been released and updated the latest release to have the patch. So began the slow task to find out what was required for each of our sites. Some didn’t need anything (25%), some needed just the patch applied (50%) and the rest either required upgrading (10%) or upgrading and applying the patch (15%). As we cannot upgrade a live site, as problems can occur and it brings down the site temporarily, it means creating a separate development area.

So the task list goes:

·         Create Development area

·         Copy the upgrade files

·         Copy the patch if needed

·         Set permissions

·         Run the upgrade wizard

·         Check the site for errors

·         Move the site to live

Now do that a dozen or so times and all is well again, without any of our clients having any downtime or even being aware of the work going on behind the scenes.  That’s what hosting is for us and the work that goes into it is rarely mentioned and nor should it, as many clients say, “we just want it to work”, and that’s what we do. However it’s good to remind us all, once in a while, that it’s not all done by computers.

Many thanks to the Umbraco team for their rapid response on patching these errors.

Our latest project was to give a leading South Wales business consultant a new site. 

It included website design and development, responsive web design, content management system (CMS) and website and email hosting

http://www.fairhillonline.co.uk/our-work/blue-sky-horizons/

Working with a local pet shop we created an online pet store where they could sell a full range on pet food online. 

We created a Content Management System with online payments and offer general practical advise on how to drive traffic and sell more online. 

Learn more about the project now. Or learn more about Your Pets Warehouse by clicking through to their site. 

The term ‘cloud’ is used ubiquitously at the moment. Many companies proudly stating they offer cloud as it is the ‘in’ thing rather than explaining why this model is used. So what is cloud exactly and how is it of benefit to users compared to its alternatives. Well, exactly is quite difficult as seems to be a number of different definitions, however the following definition seems to fit with my thoughts:

‘Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.’

from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Special Publication 800-145.

The document goes on to state the essential characteristics of a cloud service that I’ll describe:
On-demand, self-service: To have control of the service and be able to modify its configuration without interacting with a person (with the exception of support).
Broad network access: The service is provided remotely requiring only simple local resources that can be provided by computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone
Resource pooling: The service uses a collection of physical resources (servers, storage etc.) as a single virtual resource. Provisioning the correct physical resources to each user automatically.
Rapid elasticity: To allow users to easily change the capabilities of the service or to automatically change the capabilities based on other factors eg. Traffic to a website
Measured Service: The service can meter and report the resources used by the service allowing users to be billed using a pay-per-use model.

From this we can determine main advantages to the user are:

• Only paying for what you use
• Only using what you require
• Being able to change your requirements rapidly or automatically.

So to sum up, whilst any online service can state it is cloud, there are a number of characteristics that make cloud different.

For a full range of Cloud Computing Services visit niu Solutions.