The architecture of any system is vital. Being able to scale up a service or application during peak periods is essential to the user experience.

Hardware solutions need to reflect the expected target audience, and software needs to be written to work with a given hardware architecture and beyond.

Start-up Systems may begin with a single co-located combined Web, Email & Database Server, but you may need to consider how you would scale a solution by separating out the Web, Email & Database Services and utilise Load Balancing and Clustering for increased performance, reliability and redundancy together with disk protection technology, such as RAID, for peace of mind.

Placement of Internet Systems is also an important factor when deciding where to host your Internet Servers. Access to your server needs to be fast and reliable, both from a user and administration perspective. Utilising server rental or co-location at an ISP alongside ADSL or SDSL for administrative access provides a cost effective way to do this alongside more elaborate options, such as a leased line directly into your business premises.

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