CMS Hosting - where to host your content management system?
A content management system or CMS is computer software that allows you to collaborate within your organisation as you create documents and other content that you publish on the Internet. A CMS is a web application that manages one or more websites and website content. These systems are database driven and require server side software to allow you to create, edit and publish content.
There is a similarity between content management systems and document management systems, but many vendors of these systems are old fashioned, meaning that there is a new breed of content management system developers such as Ecru who focus on accessibility, simplicity and empowerment. Modern systems are feature rich but not at the expense of usability, so they tend to take a modular approach.
There are several recognised types of content management systems that you are likely to encounter:
- Digital Asset Management systems (DAM) that assist in the management of the lifecycle of digital media such as video, graphics, marketing materials, photos and multimedia presentations
- Learning management systems (L-CMS) that assist in the management of web based learning content life cycle
- Transactional content management systems (T-CMS) that assist you in managing e-commerce transactions
- Integrated content management systems (I-CMS) that assist in the management of enterprise documents and content
- Publications management systems (P-CMS) that assist in the management of publications such as manuals, books, help, guidelines and references, and these usually assist in the implementation of a content life cycle
- Document imaging systems are sometimes referred to as general content management systems
- Enterprise content management systems (E-CMS) often vary in their functionality and some support both the web and printed publications. These tools capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content across an enterprise
- Website content management systems that assist in automating various aspects of web publishing
Why the Ecru CMS?
Every website is different, with its own set of objectives, and operating in its own unique environment from both a business and technical point of view. As Ecru works with you to build your content managed website we carefully analyse the information architecture and optimise the way that people travel through your site, taking your organisational objectives into account. The Ecru CMS is highly accessible having been independently audited to achieve W3C AAA standards when implemented with due care and attention.
Content Management System Hosting Reliability and Uptime
Website hosting uptime is the time that the hosting company is accessible to visitor requests for pages of your website. Each hosting provider should aim to achieve 100% uptime but there are many factors that mean that this is very hard to achieve, such as restarting their server, maintenance, network difficulties, power supply and hardware problems, software maintenance, the performance of other websites on the server and the stability of the operating system.
This means that 100% uptime is rarely achieved, so what sort of level is it realistic to expect? Many hosting companies state that they achieve 99.9% uptime which means your website might be down for seven hours a year, and this time might be spread over numerous small outages.
An important factor to take into account is that while the server that hosts your website might be down occasionally, you are reliant on your hosting company providing round the clock maintenance and support, and it is the quality of their response to difficulties that defines whether they are worth using. This is why a personal recommendation is often very valuable in your selection of host.
Selecting the right technology for your CMS hosting account
Establish the types of software your CMS requires and make sure these are in the standard offering provided by your hosting company. Your server operating system is the core system that enables the web server to run with common types being Microsoft NT or Windows, Unix and Linux. The web server software sits on top of the operating system and runs the web hosting service. Aside from hosting the web pages it also runs programmes and scripts. Common types of web server software are Apache and Microsoft Internet Info Services (IIS). The programming language that you select depends on the amount of functionality you require and the developer community you want to work with. Development languages include HTML (HyperText Markup Language), XHTML and CGI. Scripting languages that produce dynamic interactive websites include .NET, PHP, JSP, ASP, Cold Fusion and Perl. Website development software includes Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive. Your Content Management System will require a database that this is likely to be either Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL or MYSQL.