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Henry Lawson: Australian writer Convicts and the British colonies in Australia Australian food and drink The Great Depression Australian weather and the seasons Sydney Opera House Christmas season celebrations in Australia Remembrance Day European discovery and the colonisation of Australia The Australian Gold RushGuide 5. What will I do with my website?
Website planning: buy or rent? (screen 8 of 9)
This is the decision facing not only all people looking for somewhere to live, but also cultural site owners or Web managers looking for a home for their Web server. The arguments for and against each are similar.
With buying there is a larger upfront cost and smaller monthly outgoings. There also is the need to have expertise within the organisation, or a preparedness and budget to hire it.
Renting has a smaller upfront cost, but larger ongoing costs.
Don't forget that, in addition, you need to buy and upgrade software for your site.
You also need to purchase a domain name(1).
It is worth investigating this issue in some detail and project your budget for the website over three or so years. Don't forget to take into account issues related to depreciation (if bought) or tax deductibility (lease payments).
The person whose server computer you rent space on usually also has the expertise (for hire, naturally) to look after your site.
Choose the option or mix that best suits your budget or cash flow. Find out more about costs in a later Guide(2).
Website reliability
Regardless of whether you buy a server or rent space on someone else's, the server which hosts your website will stop working for one reason or another at some stage - even if only for a routine checkup.
But whatever the reason, your website will be unavailable while the server is down.
If your site is critical to your business there are options to minimise the time offline. But if you demand that your site is always online or almost always this is a more expensive option.
If you can arrange for your website to be guaranteed to be available to the public for at least 95% of the time, you will be doing well.
Check with your ISP about the time they can guarantee. Wherever possible offline periods for routine server maintenance should be timed to coincide with the least visited time of your primary audience, such as Sunday midnight to 8am Monday.
You should remember also that there may be a cost in being offline, particularly if you are providing goods and services on the Internet. This should be balanced against the costs of minimising offline time.
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References
- Guide 8 screen 6 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g8/s6.htm
- Guide 8 screen 2 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g8/s2.htm
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