In the last year, cyber-attacks aimed at web applications have increased by nearly 70 percent. This means that a great deal of your energy needs to be focused on securing your app and the servers it is hosted on. If hackers are able to infiltrate your web application servers, they can access lots of sensitive information. Most web applications collect credit card information, as well as customer’s mailing addresses, email addresses and even their date of birth. Are you attempting to make your web application servers more secure and manageable? If so, consider the tips below.
Adequate Server Monitoring is a Must
Perhaps the most beneficial thing you can do is to monitor the web application server. With the help of configuration monitoring software, you can find out about any changes being made to your servers. There are also programs on the market that help you track the status of services being delivered on the web application itself. Monitoring software will allow you to send alerts to the appropriate parties when issues with application crashes or instability are present. You can also stay in the loop regarding CPU and memory usage. When done correctly, server monitoring will allow you to minimize downtime and increase the reliability of your web application. Getting the most out of your monitoring is easy when following a few guidelines. First, you will need to figure out how long you want to keep monitored data before discarding it. You will also need to establish thresholds so your system knows when to send out alerts.
Establishing a Backup System
The data that is used to make your web application functional needs to be protected at all costs. Rather than waiting for disaster to strike before taking action, you need to act now to protect this data. The best way to do this is by establishing a backup system. Routinely backing up the data on your web application will allow you to get it back up and running quickly in the event of a crash or hack. Regardless of how new or expensive, your hardware is, it could fail at any time. Instead of letting this event bring your application to a grinding halt, you need to take advantage of the power of a data backup. Establishing an adequate backup of your web application will require you to figure out things like how to schedule routine data backups and how much disk space is used to perform this task. If you want to make things easy on yourself, investing in a cloud-based backup is essential. With this type of backup, you can rest assured your data is safe and accessible when you need it.
Proper Load Balancing is Crucial
Are you using multiple servers to power your web application? Making sure the workload is evenly spread out over these servers is something you should view as a priority. When properly balanced, servers will be able to pick up the slack should one of the units fail. This means your app will be able to stay online and functional while you are ironing out your server issues. Getting your servers properly balanced will be much easier if you allow IT professionals to help out. The time and money invested in optimizing your web application servers will be worth it. Properly maintained servers perform better and rarely crash.