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Cloud migration is a highly efficient digital transformation strategy that implies moving data, configurations, services, OSes, and applications stored in the company’s local hardware to the virtual data center of a public cloud provider. According to the Fobers statistics, about 83% of the companies striving to achieve the leading market positions by 2020 will transfer their network infrastructures to the cloud. This can help make a company's operation on the market cheaper and scalable.

In the article, we will talk about the additional advantages of migrating to the cloud and new possibilities for your business, as well as about the steps you will need to take to make it.

Cloud Migration: Why And For What?

Any sort of organization planning to move to the cloud must handle one major task - advance to the next level while keeping the gained business shape and achievements intact. That is, however, an end result you can get by enhancing five key aspects. Let’s consider each in more detail.

Data security

Going through the digital transformation, companies require a new level of data protection, as everything stored previously on hard drives is transferred to the network. There, slightly different means of protecting data from hacks, viruses, and downtimes.

Lower Operational Costs

The increased level of reliability and security is quite possible to achieve due to the lowered costs required when operating in the network. Thus, you will need to pay either monthly fees in accordance with your tariff or pay for the volumes of memory spent exclusively (depending on the conditions of your cloud migration services provider).

Cloud Migration Unlimited Scalability 

The cloud environment’s unlimited computational capacities, you will be able to continuously expand your network infrastructure without wasting too much time and effort on the reorganization of everything with the help of the new physical server equipment (which should only be done by the experts).

Fast Processes Deployment

There is no need to employ a whole team of professionals in the process of the network infrastructure scaling that would plan, setup, connect, and configure new network equipment during the cloud migration. You get an utterly fast and painless way to grow and accelerate your business processes.

Minimum Possible Downtime

Minimum risks of downtime are guaranteed during the cloud migration due to the unlimited memory resources, advanced fail-operational capability, and multi-level copying. The things and processes which are practically impossible to achieve with the help of only your set of server hardware (providing the sufficient fail-operational capability for systems locally is extremely expensive).

How to Move to the Cloud: Top 4 Steps Checklist for Your Business

Below, we suggest taking a look at the subsequent steps to take in order to properly form your cloud migration strategy.

Decide On Your Cloud Type And Service Model

To start things off, decide which type of cloud suits your requirements better. All in all, there are three cloud services types your business may become categorized as after the migration to the cloud:

• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). A client gets virtual servers and virtual network for use; any software can be installed on it. There are three options you can choose from. The first one is the list-and-shift strategy - everything is moved without changes as much as possible; they are made only if absolutely necessary. The second one includes virtual automation powered by the cloud storage technology - so, you automate some processes to make operations more efficient. Finally, you can opt for DevOps transformation, which means using the cloud-native agile approach as much as possible;
• PaaS (Platform as a Service). It can be a web server or database; a client gets to manage the application while the OS is managed by the provider. This is an option that allows clients to set up certain connections between several apps and implement a set of configurations locally (i.e., this model does not require you to manage an OS or other software and you will be provided with a special web interface to handle the services; additionally, less server administration will be required, both in the aspect of its hardware and software parts);
• SaaS (Software as a Service). This is a private type of software (for instance, an email or some other office application); here, a client employs an app while all basic configurations are handled by a provider. SaaS is a readymade option of the cloud-stored software exploitation in the field.To handle the SaaS model, you will need a dedicated staff of system administrators who would work on the procedures of integrating the software transferred to the cloud (you get the full admin rights in the rented virtual servers; all the primary system configurations must be adjusted manually: software installation, firewall configuration etc.) As an alternative, you can choose to get a custom solution. Even if you don’t employ a whole department of IT specialists, you can turn to experts from digital transformation agency that will develop it for you to suit your every business need. You can read more about this here.

Allocate Your Resources 

Next, you will need to define the most suitable provider tariff with the consideration of the models we described in the previous paragraph. If you realize that you are ready to expand your staff of employees with the whole department of IT support, the only reasonable option for you is the SaaS model (which is also the most expensive one). On the other hand, if you count all of the nuances, you probably see that the SaaS-based cloud migration is still cheaper than organizing new working spaces, paying regular salaries and taxes for a whole department of system administrators.

Document All Your Key-Points 

At this point, you will have to gradually move from theory to practice. Prepare for the digital transformation in the following planned way to go through this period reasonably and efficiently:

• conduct an audit of your existing network infrastructure;
• prepare and approve with system administrators the work statement (including the SLA parameters);
• select the providers of software, hardware, and network security tools;
• plan the solution’s architecture in the cloud;
• create the planned schedule of migration for such activities as the software supplement plan, software-hardware complex configuration (including the network equipment and access parameters), as well as the testing of performance, fail-operational capability, and high accessibility of the newly-created platform. 

Run a Pilot Project 

The cloud migration as a whole can be partial or full. The first option is perfect for small and medium business where there are not as many services that must be stored on the organization’s physical equipment. The latter option is for large business and it implies gradual, subsequent transfer of services according to the previously composed plan of migration (the scheme of dependencies between applications).

Therefore, if the migration to the cloud in your particular case is a multi-stage, complex procedure to handle, we would recommend starting with moving only separate parts of your network infrastructure. In particular, launch a pilot project first - a project that would allow you to evaluate the reasonability of the required time, expenses, as well as to detect some possible potential issues. In the cloud migration context, such a pilot will define the secondary applications, a temporary absence of access to which during the reconfiguration will not cause any significant downtimes in your organization.

If you choose to get a tailor-made custom solution, this pilot project would be called minimum viable product (MVP). In this case, it would be a system with basic functionality that is tested by some of your employees to improve it. You can read about MVP development here.

Conclusion

Cloud migration is the most profitable and efficient way to scale your current network infrastructure and decrease its employment costs. Do you wish to migrate your software in such a way? We are a digital transformation agency Axisbits and we can help you with that. Describe your task in the contact form and we will contact you very soon to provide a detailed digital transformation consulting and get to implementing your migration in practice.

Stripe is a world-renowned service for making and processing secure digital payments, and it’s loved and respected by plenty of developers. It’s supported in a number of countries, it’s simple to integrate, and, what is most important, it is secure for regular users. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of using Stripe and find out how to integrate Stripe into SaaS.

5 Reasons Why We Switched from Braintree to Stripe

Using SaaS for Stripe in particular, you will get more than a regular payment gateway. Stripe’s benefits exceed the ones provided by its competitors like Braintree. Below are five benefits of using Stripe for your SaaS that proves Stripe is superior to Braintree.

Security

Apart from using one of the most secure encryption algorithms (AES-256), Stripe also includes an automatic fraud detection system based on machine learning (it was first introduced in 2015). Although Braintree uses TLS protocol as well, it doesn’t use machine learning to detect fraud (like Stripe does). 

Convenience

One more thing that makes Stripe stand out is its convenience for developers - it has well-thought-out detailed documentation. Besides, you can set transactions based on several parameters simultaneously - no other service can provide you with such an opportunity. Braintree, in turn, is not that easy to integrate - so you may need to spend a lot of time to figure out how to implement it.

Advanced Regular Payments Functionality

Using its own unique prognostic technology, Stripe automatically determines the most appropriate time to collect debts from those who skipped the regular payment. Braintree doesn’t have such a feature at all.

Low Commission Fees

Stripe clients pay a fixed commission fee - 2.9% of the amount of transaction plus 30 cents for the US-based transactions. If you are based in the EU, the fee will be 1.4% plus €0.25 for European cards and 2.9% plus €0.25 for non-European ones.  The fees depend on the country, so check them out yourself. Custom pricing models are available if your transaction volumes are large or your business model is unconventional.

In its turn, Braintree takes the same fee for US-based transactions. On the other hand, it requires 1.9% fee plus €0,30 per EU/EEA-based transaction (2.9% plus €0,30 for transactions outside of EU/EEA countries).

Fast Transaction Processing

With Stripe, transactions are made within two business days for the US-based operations. As for non-US based transactions, they will take seven business days. In comparison, if you use Braintree, US-based AMEX payments will take you twice as much - four business days.

Integrating Stripe into Your SaaS Platform

Now, let’s find out how to integrate Stripe Billing API into your SaaS platform. Generally speaking, Stripe integration can be divided into two stages: the back-end and the front-end integration. Besides, you will need to take care of your customers’ data protection.

Ensuring End-to-End Security

As you may already know, any organization that collects its clients’ banking data has to be compliant with PCI. In turn, if the company decides to use a third-party payment gateway instead of its own, it doesn’t need to deal with this bureaucracy (and acquiring the certificate of compliance with PCI is not the easiest procedure).

On the other hand, to make sure your platform provides the users with end-to-end security, you will need to follow five standard recommendations provided by Stripe:

• use only verified libraries for collecting personal data (such as Checkout, Stripe.js and Elements);
• use TLS and HTTPS protocols when realizing user requests;
• make sure that Stripe is compliant with PCI every year;
• use only the test keys provided by Stripe (no third-party keys!);
• check your Stripe signature using Webhooks;
• use only the API version you have tested successfully;
• don’t store keys used for integration in git;
• ensure that you registered in Stripe client database only once (i.e. that you used your corporate email only one time). 

When you integrate your platform with the Stripe API, you transfer the responsibility for processing users’ personal banking data from your servers to Stripe’s. So, you get automatically compliant with PCI, without any additional bureaucracy. But that’s not it - you can also use this service to create a fully customizable payment processing, both on the front-end and the back-end of your platform.

Front-End Stripe Integration

When it comes to front-end integration, the Stripe Elements library is going to be your helper. This library will help you set up a page for processing transactions according to your business needs. This is where you can adjust everything, starting from buttons to the dialog box size and multilingual support. 

Stripe Elements can also help you apply its more advanced functionality. For instance, using it, you can create several levels of subscription or update the subscription plan for former clients.

Back-End Stripe Integration

During this integration stage, you will need to set up the user request processor that will react to abnormal behavior of the system after getting user data. Such situations may occur if the client’s card was marked illiquid. 

You will need the Stripe API libraries and other tools (such as Webhooks, for instance). They will help you work on all the possible exceptions and cover the widest range of force majeure scenarios that could happen during processing credit card information by your platform.

As for Webhooks, you can use this tool to receive notifications about various events on Stripe, such as malfunctions or the banking card not being valid. So, you’ll be able to react to such disruptions as fast as possible and avoid potential losses.

...Before We Wrap Up

Undoubtedly, you will need to fully customize your platform by adjusting a number of settings. Although you do get a wide range of inbuilt features with Stripe, they are not guaranteed to solve all of your business tasks. This is why you may need the help of a SaaS Stripe development company (particularly, PHP SaaS Stripe specialists can implement a tailor-made multilevel tariff system without any additional efforts for you).

Conclusion

Stripe is close to being the perfect payment gateway. It includes all the tools you may need for making the integration with your SaaS platform smooth. Besides, it offers a range of customizable settings that any other alternative lacks. 

If you want to integrate Stripe with your ready-made software solution or build a SaaS platform from scratch, reach out to us at Axisbits! Our Stripe SaaS developers will create a scalable and customizable solution that will fit your current needs and can be optimized for the changes in them in the future. 

Dear clients and partners!

Its been a great year working with you and for you. We would like to take this opportunity in wishing you a happy Christmas and a very blissful new year.

Thank you for your kindness and support throughout the current year. Looking forward to do more wonderful business together in the coming 2019.

Regards,

The Axisbits team

2018 is almost over and it is the best time to summarize the yearly content we worked on. Our team decided to analyze all of the publications and collect the best topics for you. We simply wish to represent some favorite selections about mobile app development, business ideas and “how to” insights that made a massive buzz on the web. The Axisbits team is not suggesting that this list is definitive, or authoritative. It is just our vision on what content was the best for our readers. If you want to extend this list, please type your comment below. 

Who knows, these topics might help you launch a perfect business in 2018. Great reading to all!

1. Chronic Condition Web Health Apps: How To Manage Chronic Illness And Gain Profit

Having a chronic illness is not the best thing that could ever happen to you, but dealing with it is an everyday routine for millions of people. To manage chronic illness, they need to remember what medications to take and when, keep in mind when the next appointment with the doctor is, track the symptoms and a lot of other data.

This could be a tiresome and time-consuming process if all you use is a notebook or notes on the phone. Such notes can get easily lost, and they don’t really help you keep track of everything you need to write down. This is why a new type of apps appeared - chronic condition health apps. Such apps help users manage their chronic illnesses more easily.

As the market of health apps is growing, let’s take a look at all you need to know if you want to join it and launch a successful web health app.

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2. The Visual Prototype Of Your Idea. How To Test Your New Business Idea For Reasonable Money

If you have an idea that you think is perfect for a startup there could be a lot of problems for its realization. The one of them is, you don’t have sufficient funds, and you don’t have wealthy business partners to sponsor you either.

A lot of people would stop there, and it’s not their fault: some factors are unbeatable, and the lack of financing is one of them. Not being willing to risk getting into debt for the sake of a project that’s not guaranteed to succeed is completely normal.

There is, however, a way to get around this issue. Did you know you could check the viability of your business idea with the entry-level costs? All you need to do is create a visual design prototype and test it on your focus group.

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3. Post-Launch MVP Activities: What You Must do Within Next 12 Weeks to Increase the Probability of Success

There is usually quite an amount of resources spent creating minimum viable products (MVP). The steps to launch an MVP include the work of designers, developers, and testers altogether but is this really all? On this stage, you are only starting to build your relations with customers and your business progress depends on how you present your company and its work.

In this article, we will discuss the possible post-launch MVP activities in more detail. What measures to take and what factors to consider? Below, we will try to answer all these questions.

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4. Top 5 Issues Business Owners Should Keep An Eye On While Building A Tech Startup Team

Getting together a small crew of professionals is a difficult task both for big companies and small startups. Every person brings their own personality, vision of the final product and the road to reach it, and different expectations about their position on the team. However, for a relatively small startup, the consequences of these difficulties could be much more damaging.

One team in a big company, like Google or Amazon, is just a part of a big machine. There is not a lot of pressure of having to like or be close to the people you work with. For a young company, every new person can make or break the whole project, both skill-wise and personality-wise. So, what are the pitfalls of searching for co-creators and employees for your new enterprise and how to avoid them? You will know about that reviewing this article 

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5. How To Find Investors For A Startup: A Complete Guide To Start Working With

In our day and age, founding a new business is not that hard. According to the statistics, more and more people are investing into new startups. For example, thanks to this fact the number of blockchain startups has risen more than 13 times in the last 5 years.

However, getting investors for a startup is still a difficult task. Especially if you’re new to the industry you’re trying to get into. No matter whether it is your first venture or not, we’re here to help you. If you have a unique idea and you’re asking yourself a question «Where can I find investors for a startup», this article is just for you.

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To Recap

Hope that you enjoyed the posts. Hopefully this articles help you to answer the question how to find a way for your idea growth and you will succeed. Also, if you have an idea for a topic or want to share your own content, just send your request to info@axisbits.com. Our editors will review your materials and contact you shortly. 

Have a great day!

What do customers mean for a business? No matter how big your company is, customers will always be the key source of your success - it was true many years ago, and it is still true now. The only thing changing with time is the way you manage relationships with the target audience. There is no need to store a huge database with information about your clients in Google Spreadsheets anymore - the age of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions has begun.

In 2019, the decision company owners will make is not whether they need such a solution or not - it’s whether they’d like it to be tailored to their business goals. A standard or custom CRM? That is the question. Let’s figure out what they can bring to your business and why custom solutions will be at the top next year.

Standard vs. Custom CRM Solutions

Standard (or out-of-the-box) CRM tools are built for a wide business audience. Typically, software creators gather the data about the basic needs of any company, no matter how big it is. Such a product can be installed and launched within several hours - it’s completely ready for being used. But let’s get back to the CRM functionality. Imagine you have a startup and you buy a CRM system. The most well-known ones are built for enterprises, so would you need all of their features? At the same time, many companies require much more than a standard system can offer.

Custom CRM tools, on the contrary, are created for a specific company, considering its industry and individual needs. Nowadays, innovative startups appear here and there, and it’s not that easy to find a solid standard solution for them. Plus, if you have a list of features in mind, there’s no better way to implement them than building the custom CRM software.

5 Reasons Why You Should Start Custom CRM Development

If you are reading this, you probably have already started giving thought to the advantages and disadvantages of custom software development. We’re here to help you out - be ready to add some strong benefits to the list.

1. All You Need in One Place

We’ve already mentioned it, and we’re ready to say it again - only custom solutions meet all of your requirements. You won’t conquer the world with a heavy and unnecessary solution that’s slowing down your employees. The same goes for standard CRM systems - they are bulky, shiny, and beautiful, but… Is this what you’re looking for?

In most cases, an out-of-the-box CRM system needs some customization, and you can add new features if needed. But it might be a slippery slope as such changes usually have a high price tag. If you need to customize CRM, you’ll have to hire consultants. The hourly rates of such specialists vary depending on the company they work for and your location. Add the cost of making changes themselves - and the price may turn out to be higher than the cost of building a CRM system from scratch.

On the other hand, you can send requests to the development team that created the CRM you are using. But there is no guarantee they will accept the changes you suggest. Or, you may have to wait for years to see the changes implemented.

Our final advice regarding this point is to make a list of goals you want to achieve with a new CRM system. Does the market have what you need, no more no less?

2. Seamless Integration

So, you have a solution, now how are you going to integrate it with your main business software? The system should get the data and pass it back. If it happens smoothly, the productivity of all departments will increase hugely - they will get the data necessary to grow your company. Usually, modern CRM systems are also integrated with third-party solutions, such as Google apps or Office 365.

The integration process becomes extremely challenging if a company has several eCommerce solutions linked together and also linked with other solutions. Custom CRM development considers every aspect of your system’s work, so you’ll surely improve your business record.

And you should also keep in mind that certain out-of-the-box systems have API integration as an advanced option. You’ll have to buy a huge enterprise solution even if your platform is not that big - this is another example of how vital features are mixed up with the unnecessary fuss.

3. Flexibility for the Future

Short-term goals are changing regularly, so what you need now may not be enough in the near future. Market conditions are always full of surprises, and you’d better be ready for them. Will your CRM system be ready as well? It depends on you.

The biggest companies selling ready-made CRM tools are interested in broadening functionality. If you’re a small or middle-sized business, you’re out of the main focus. Only enterprises buying the full range of features are the target audience of well-known CRM providers. This is a so-called product-oriented approach. As a result, adding new features in the future for your company may be a challenging task.

Think about what a well-fitted solution you will get if you choose to turn to developers for a customizable CRM solution from scratch. In this case, you keep all the initial information. Besides, such a system is designed to be tailored to your needs, and this can be a huge competitive advantage. 

4. Smooth Data Migration from the Old CRM System

There may be lots of reasons why companies decide to change their CRM provider or build a new solution from scratch. But in either case, you have to consider how to migrate the data you have to the brand-new system. We must say that data transfer in standard systems is a tricky process. You should consider the following:

• How the features of the two systems match. There’s a tiny chance the functionality is the same, so you will probably need additional customization. We’ve already mentioned how much money and efforts it requires to change a standard CRM system.
• What third-party services you used in the old version. Will all the services work smoothly in the new version? The more additional tools you use, the more you would benefit from custom CRM solutions.
• Whether you need the old version as well. This is not a common case, that’s why not many out-of-the-box solutions will help you manage two systems at the same time.
• Who will deal with data migration. Let’s say you have a massive operational CRM with the data gathered over the past several years. Where will you find an expert for migrating this data? Before buying a ready-made product, ask several providers about data migration services.

5. Cstom CRM Data Security

While new malware appears on the web every day, reliable solutions should be protected with a ten-layer armor. What a great temptation it is to choose a cheap open-source CRM system! But are you ready to share the code with anyone out there? These solutions are the most vulnerable on the market. Yes, you will pay less at the beginning, but nobody knows for sure what price you will have to pay in the aftermath of a hack.

Also, the plugins we’ve mentioned before are often built by third-party companies, which doesn’t make the system safer. If one plugin is compromised, your business is also in danger. But on the other hand, you can turn to custom CRM development for in-house deployment, and your code will be solely in your hands. Moreover, experienced developers use all possible options to protect the product they build.

How Much Does CRM Cost?

According to the report published by Apps Run The World, Salesforce was a market leader in 2016, that’s why we’ve decided to take this provider as a pricing example.

Exhibit 1:2016 CRM applications market shares split by top 10 CRM vendors and others, %

• Other
• Salesforce
• Oracle
• SAP
• Adobe Systems
• Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories
• Microsoft
• Nice Systems
• Verint Systems Inc.
• Pegasystems
• IQVIA

Usually, the standard CRM software price is based on the cost per user, per month. The simple formula to count your spending: (Price x Number of users) x 12 - this way, you will find out the yearly price. Salesforce offers 4 packages:

• Starter ($28)
• Professional ($85)
• Enterprise ($170)
• Unlimited ($340).

Let’s say you opt for the Professional package and you have 20 users. The overall price you’ll have to pay at the end of the year is $20,400. At the same time, the Unlimited package for 100 users costs $408,000. 

The custom CRM development cost is based on the requirements and list of features. There are three main parts you need to develop for a new solution: sales, marketing, and support. Depending on the module, the CRM software cost may vary:

• Sales module: $8,000-$40,000
• Marketing module: $8,000-$11,000
• Support module: $5,000-$9,000

The prices differ a lot because of the modules’ features. For example, if you all you need is a database and the dashboard to store and manage contacts and requests, it will cost you not more than $12,000. If you need an advanced dashboard, accounts, and pipelines, be ready to spend over $30,000. You should remember the individual approach is a key element of your partnerships with developers. You can create whatever you want and feel completely safe using a new solution.

Conclusion

What are your plans for the new year? Let the new CRM be your new beginning. You have two options: buying a ready-made system or building a brand-new solution. The more competitors appear on the market, the more tasks you need to solve within one tool. Building a CRM system from scratch gives you a chance to consider every aspect of your work and increase your team’s productivity.

You don’t have to look through the Craigslist custom CRM development candidates - all you need is to contact the Axisbits team. We’re experts in CRM development, and we’re proud of every product we’ve built.

In our day and age, more and more companies decide to switch from the on-premise servers to cloud hostings for their software assets. According to some predictions, the cloud server market will only continue to grow and in 2019 is predicted to exceed $150 billion in value! Total size of the public cloud computing market from 2008 to 2020 (in billion U.S. dollars) 2008:
5.82 billion dollars 2009:
8.68 billion dollars 2010:
15.08 billion dollars 2011:
25.5 billion dollars 2012:
40.96 billion dollars 2013:
58.61 billion dollars 2014:
78.42 billion dollars 2015:
96.98 billion dollars 2016:
113.94 billion dollars 2017:
128.88 billion dollars 2018:
141.43 billion dollars 2019:
151.71 billion dollars 2020:
159.28 billion dollars

However, this does not make the dedicated servers completely obsolete. If you want to have a full control over your project, ensure the best security possible and handy scalability, you should definitely use an in-house server.

Of course, stationing such a system assumes plenty of responsibilities.

Server Maintenance Checklist

If you want your server checks to be sufficient and competent, you need to only employ the help of experienced experts. Our team, for instance, will keep all the basic aspects in check and demonstrate you the general picture of how everything works, without excessive details. For your better general understanding of what exactly the experts should monitor and maintain, the monitored features can be divided into few major groups:

1. Software

When I got started, I committed to personally working through any resource I could get my hands. While bootcamps can be great, they can also be expensive. If you have the discipline, I’d encourage you to be resourceful with all that’s out there. Here are some things I valued greatly as I was learning:

Server software changes at a fast pace and the dedicated team can keep it updated at all times. The crucial points an expert works on during the software server check are:

• Security updates for your OS – whether you use the Linux-based system or Windows Server OS, you need to have someone who makes sure it’s the latest version possible, as lots of security issues are fixed in those patches;
• Updates for remote control tools – if you use such, they should be updated regularly, at least weekly - a responsibility to be handled by a dedicated expert;
• Updates for the apps used daily – outdated applications, especially the web apps, are a massive security risk;
• Your backups must also be checked – everybody hopes that they would never need to use their server backup. However, you have to be ready to do so. There is a number of tools and tests used to check your backups for validity and integrity, built into the backup tools and outside ones. Someone who is familiar with them and who is ready to prepare a separate virtual testing machine if need be will help you avoid digging deep into the complex tech aspects personally.

2. Hardware

Even the latest software updates can’t save you from a faulty hardware. So, in order to follow a recommended maintenance checklist, you need the help of someone who knows the most important areas and can fully answer the question ‘how does a server work?’. Here are the steps we take to conduct proper hardware monitoring:

• Regularly review the logs for errors – without this, any hardware failure would be unexpected and tragic. The only way to catch it early on is to check the logs for errors – overheating drives, network transfer problems, etc. However, they are usually lengthy and messy, so there needs to be someone who knows what to look for;
• Monitor the resource usage – if your hardware is old or was not taken care of well enough, at some point you could reach the limit of your resources. If that’s the case, you should change the device that is not up to the task in time. If you want to save the resources, you need someone to dedicate their time and attention to take care of your system;
• Check the RAID status – RAID is an important system that provides the storage redundancy and hot-swap capabilities. Most modern motherboards, especially server ones, contain a built-in RAID controller. But simply building a RAID array is not enough by itself. Its operation should be monitored by a specialist often. If not solved, a fault of one drive can lead to the failure of the whole system.

3. Security

Hardware and software problems can lead to a security breach. But, there are also other, more direct security measures to be taken to keep your servers safe.

• Inspection of the user security details – the unused accounts must be cleared;
• Change of passwords – passwords should be updated every couple of months or when compromised for testing or other purposes. Make sure your passwords are strong enough - an expert will know how to come up with the strongest password possible, so you may use some experienced help;
• Test the overall security – the specific tools are used that can help review the integrity of the whole system and manage vulnerability risks.

Server Maintenance Timeframes

Now that you have an understanding of basic server check-ups, take a look how often each procedure should be carried out. The complete timetable for a professional server maintenance looks like this:

Annually Bi-annually Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily Category Description Active Directory Domain Controllers - Check replication (Logs, Replmon, Perform Manual Replication) Hardware Cloud Services: Check Resource Consumption Hardware Server/SAN/Networking: Physically check all equipment Hardware Switch - Check fans and power supplies Networking VPN: Check Utilization, Latency & Packet Loss OS/Software Check Backups and Replication OS/Software Check Windows Services Networking WAN: Check Utilization, Latency & Packet Loss OS/Software Backups - Test, Perform VM restore in sandbox environment if applicable Security End Point Protection - Check Dashboard and Logs Active Directory Check for inactive user & computer accounts Hardware SAN - Check Volume Usage (thin provisioned) Hardware Server: Check RAID - Disks Hardware UPS - Check Voltage, Utilization, Temp, Humidity, Batteries OS/Software Check Application & System Event Logs OS/Software Check Server CPU, Memory, Disk & Network Utilization OS/Software Delete Temp Files (Windows & Users Temp locations) OS/Software End Point Protection - Check for inactive computer membership OS/Software Endpoint Protection - Run Clean up Tools if applicable OS/Software IIS - Check Logs and purge OS/Software Run Windows Updates OS/Software Update Software (i.e. Adobe Reader, Flash, Java) OS/Software Windows Logs - Check (C:WindowsLogs) especially CBS Security End Point Protection - Check Policies & Scan Schedules, Workstation Membership Security Security Logs - Check for brute force/unauthorized access Active Directory Group Policies - Check settings, authorizations, OU Structure Hardware Switch/Firewall: Check Firmware Networking Load Balancers/Application Firewalls - Check Firmware & Policies Networking Spam/Web Filter - Check Firmware & Policies OS/Software Check File Shares/Permissions Security Check Domain User Password Policy Security Review Firewall Policies (i.e. NAT and Access Rules) Security Review Security Group Memberships Hardware Generator - Test Generator Hardware SAN - Check firmware for controllers and hard drives Hardware Server: Check BIOS settings (i.e. Time & Date) Hardware Server: Check for new firmware/bios Hardware Server: Check RAID - Firmware, Battery, Drivers OS/Software Change Local Admin Password OS/Software SSL Certificates - Check expiration dates Hardware Warranty - Check on all Business Critical Equipment

The bigger your project gets, the more difficult it will be for you to take care of all of the points mentioned. The consequences of a minor slip up can turn catastrophic. So, if you expect your project to grow, you have to consider turning to server maintenance services.

Conclusion

Taking care of servers is a hard task that requires lots of skill and attention. If you’re planning to scale your project, the effort grows exponentially. So, if you want to make your job easier, concentrate on the project at hand and make the maintenance service express, get in touch with our server maintenance technician service. The Axisbits team is ready to help you out no matter the size and complexity of your server system.

So you have an idea that you think is perfect for a startup. It’s unique, it’s original, it’s promising to help a lot of people - in other words, it has all the prerequisites for success. The only problem is, you don’t have sufficient funds, and you don’t have wealthy business partners to sponsor you either.

A lot of people would stop there, and it’s not their fault: some factors are unbeatable, and the lack of financing is one of them. Not being willing to risk getting into debt for the sake of a project that’s not guaranteed to succeed is completely normal.

There is, however, a way to get around this issue. Did you know you could check the viability of your business idea with the entry-level costs? All you need to do is create a visual design prototype and test it on your focus group.

What Is A Visual Prototype?

The term “visual prototype” is pretty self-explanatory: it means a model, simulation or sample of the final product specifically made for testing and improvement. It is the step between the idea in your head and the practical realization of that idea. You can make a visual prototype of your product, website or even software service solution.

The benefits of visual basic prototype are numerous, and it requires significantly less funding than a full-scale product. 

Steps To Creating A Visual Prototype

It might sound complicated, but there is a defined set of steps you can follow to create a good prototype that would represent your idea and attract investors. For your convenience, here is a small guide.

1. Define your goals and target audience

You probably already have a good idea of what you want your product to be, but do you know the details? How are you going to measure its success? Can you define the exact goals you want to achieve? Do you see the ways it could evolve in the future? 

Answering these questions will also help you get closer to defining your target group. Having a target group is a very important factor: you can try to target everyone, but it’s usually niche startups that succeed. 

It is also not enough to say you are targeting middle-aged females, or business owners. While this gives you an idea of where to start, it’s better to get even more specific. The target group needs to share a characteristic, or an interest, that both unites them and makes your product valuable to them. 

It’s a good idea to analyze your competition. See what niche they are targeting, how successful they are - and then go for a slightly different niche, not yet occupied.

You also need to analyze your product. Write out the list of features it offers, and think about what sort of a person could benefit from these features. Think about their approximate age, gender, education, marital status, job, income, ethnic background, location - anything that could allow to assign them to a particular demographic. Their lifestyle, hobbies, values and personality would be a great addition to this list. Try to imagine when and where this hypothetical person will be using your product. Is it a young office worker who spends a lot of time commuting? A stay-at-home mom who has to do all of her shopping online? When you know who you are targeting, you know the best channels to reach them and the best message to attract them.

Do keep in mind, though, that you don’t want your focus group to be too narrow. It might happen so that there are simply not enough customers for your product to pay off.

2. Write a spec of your idea (or hire a team to do that)

A spec, or technical specification, is a list of defined requirements that the prototype needs to meet.

There is an algorithm to writing these specs:

• Decide if it is going to be open or closed. An open spec leaves far more freedom by simply listing the requirements without dictating how they will be achieved. A closed spec, on the other hand, adds all the necessary tools and technologies to the list.
• Start with a table of contents. Make sure you begin with more general requirements and proceed to specifics later.
• List the requirements and conditions in as much detail as you can think of. 
• Reread it to make sure it is understandable to someone who does not know anything about your product yet.

The spec is an important thing that requires quite a bit of technical understanding. If you are not experienced with this side of things, you might want to hire a team to take care of it for you. 

3. Visualize your concept

Start with the rough concept. Just draw a picture by hand, trying to include all the important details - this is just a rapid visual prototype that will help you later. 

When you find a technical team to take your visual concept to life, this sketch will help them make the concept as real as possible. Along with your technical spec, this is all you need to create the prototype. No experience in creating visual content or developing websites needed - there are always professionals who can do it for you. And even if you do have some experience, it is better to rely on people who have dealt with this exact sort of task before. This is a very important stage of your project: your literal future depends on it, so the prototype needs to be done as professionally as possible.

If your product is an app or a website, you will need a visual prototype website to fully represent its features. It needs to function roughly the same as the finished product will, but it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Here are a few tips:

• Start with a list of absolute priority features your product needs in order to work.
• Add non-essential features that will add to the quality but are not crucial.
• Finish with the features that can be cut from the prototype without sacrificing the quality.

Analyze all the components to find the best way to include all the most important features while cutting the costs. This might be a hard task that will require professional assistance, but at the end the effort will be worth it.

4. Test it

Now that you have your prototype ready, it’s time to test it. 

There are some things you can do on your own or deligate tasks, like turning to social media. You already have your focus group, you know the channels they use, so go out there! Find Facebook groups devoted to your niche, or ones where members share the same interests, and reach out with a good SMM strategy. Every target audience has a “voice” that appeals to them - find it and use it to attract attention to your product. If everything goes smoothly and people enjoy the prototype, there is a high chance they will be willing to purchase the finished product later, especially if you have already established a sort of a connection with them. If not, you need to hire specialist that will run your tasks for you. In the most cases it is the best option to start, othervise you risk to pay twice for the same result. 

Crowdfunding platforms are another great choice. You don’t have to look for serious investors: regular people like you could fund your project. There are so many great products that have been made possible by Kickstarter - yours could be one of them! 

A disadvantage of testing the prototype on your focus group is that this testing will not be as thorough as you want it to be. You will get the general idea of public response, that much is true. You won’t get comprehensive analysis of all the pros and cons, or the technical side of it. For that, you need to have a special person who will make sure that everything can and will run smoothly when you take the next step and try turning your prototype into a finished product. 

Ideally, of course, that would be the same team that worked with you on creating the prototype. Having a good team to support you every step of the way will make the task of developing and testing your prototype much easier.

Conclusion

The lack of funding should not stop you from trying to implement your idea into life. A startup visual prototype is a great way to present your product to potential customers and investors without spending a fortune. Don’t miss your chance to launch a successful startup - start thinking about your prototype now!

Event apps are no longer just a good addition to the overall atmosphere at a conference or another large-scale event. If you organize an event that will accommodate hundreds of participants, they will expect you to use an event app, as well as partners and sponsors will - and they will be frustrated if their expectations are not met.

This means one thing - the demand for such apps will keep increasing, and you can hop onto this train before the market gets flooded with all kinds of apps and all niches get occupied. That said, you need to find your niche before diving right into the mobile event app development - and this is where your brainstorming abilities will come in handy.

Just think about one particular feature that will make your app unlike others - and we'll help you with the rest. In this article, we'll cover what features event apps may have and the peculiarities of the event app development process. Enjoy!

Event Apps' Features

Let's start with figuring out what an event app is, in its essence. Usually, it is a mobile app that allows organizers to provide information and other opportunities to the event's attendees. The main goal is to enhance their overall experience.

However, it may be hard to pinpoint what those other opportunities can be because this type of apps is still evolving. Many event apps offer networking functionality (in-app messaging, participants' profiles, etc.), to-do lists and personal scheduling, surveys and polls, gathering feedback, etc. - the range of features depends on the main focus of the app.

To help you come up with this unique selling point of your app, we have looked through the most popular event apps out there. Based on our event app comparison, we have come up with the list of the features you can include in your event app.

Mobile CMS

You need to include a content management system to allow users to post notifications, posts for the news feed, create and edit other content. CMS is, basically, the admin dashboard for the event's organizers.

Schedule

To make sure it doesn't get lost, the event schedule should be easy-to-find in its own tab/section. Besides, it should be easy to navigate and organizers should be able to add additional information about the sessions, like the speakers, brief descriptions, etc. Your app should also allow joining sessions into tracks and/or categories.

Bonus points if you add the user schedule and bookmarks/favorites features to allow attendees to choose the sessions and keep this information in one place.

Map of the Event

When you have a large-scale event, the "large-scale" part is usually applicable not only to the number of participants but to the venue as well. During the event planning app development, you can integrate your app with Google Maps or any other map API and allow uploading the blueprints of the venue in image format.

Customizing the Design

Organizers want the app to reflect their brand, and a lot of that is about its design. Allow them to customize the mobile themes (you can offer several pre-made templates and allow customizing their color) and upload event-specific graphics.

User Profiles

There are two dimensions to this feature. First of all, this is how organizers can facilitate networking and make it easier. It allows attendees to create public profiles with contact details, information about themselves like occupation and interests, their role during the event (attendee/speaker/organizer/etc.) and so on. These profiles are visible to other attendees - so, they can always find that person and contact him/her during or after the event.

On the other hand, some user-specific information should be kept private - for instance, their notes (if you add the notepad feature), bookmarks, chosen event sessions, etc. Besides, you need to allow attendees to customize the app's settings to make sure they have an excellent user experience.

Polls and Surveys

Getting feedback in real time and afterward from attendees is one of the primary aims of using an event app. So, your conference event app development should include features like polls, questionnaires, and surveys, both for general feedback on the event and session-specific evaluation.

Besides, they can be used during the sessions to find out the audience's opinions and views on the topic, for instance. These questionnaires should be able to accommodate at least multiple choice questions.

Analytics and Reports

Help organizers become better based on the attendees’ feedback. You can add the reports feature that would visualize the data from surveys and polls. Besides, it is always a good idea to track user behavior - so, you (and the organizers) can know how many, how often and how users use the app.

How to Build an Event App

So, have you chosen the features your event app should definitely have? Have you determined what will make your app outstanding? We hope the answer is positive. Now, it's time to dive into the peculiarities of event app development.

Event app development, just like any other mobile app development, can be divided into three main stages. Let's take a closer look at what should be done during each of them.

Preparation & Planning

Obviously, the app development can't get started right after your first meeting with the event app development company. There is some (actually, quite a lot of) preparation you need to do on your own and/or together with the Outsourcing Software Development partner:

• determine your business objectives and needs;
• define your target audience, its demographics, and psychometrics;
• pinpoint how you want your brand to be perceived (e.g., innovative and trendy or stable and reliable);
• determine the must-have set of features and the nice-to-have functionality;
• create the product roadmap;
• identify and analyze your competitors, their functionality, target audience, positioning, drawbacks, etc.;
• define what OS you want your app to work on;
• find the development partner (this topic deserves a separate article);
• choose the technology stack (better to leave this to professionals if you are not tech-savvy);
• prepare the development plan and all the documentation.

Design & Development

After all the preparation is done, it is time to start creating the app itself. This is the stage that people usually imagine when they hear the words "app development".

As a rule, your development partner creates the prototype for the app's design and, once it's approved, proceeds with front-end (user-side) and back-end (server-side) development. Another crucial component of this stage is testing conducted at every step, from unit to functionality tests.

• Here's a quick checklist of the things you should keep track of during this stage:
• development methodology (make sure to check whether your development partner has experience working according to it);
• user interface and user experience design;
• continuous testing;
• security risks evaluation;
• performance evaluation;
• data collection and responsiveness to it (basically, you should determine how data-driven you want your app to be beforehand).

Deployment & Maintenance

Before the deployment, the app should be tested in a variety of ways. Its performance, security, and usability are the key things you need to check. You can use automated or manual testing, but we recommend using both depending on the type of test itself.

Once you are sure every bug and error has been revealed and fixed, your app can be published on Google Play Store and/or App Store. However, we can guarantee that some bugs will be revealed post-deployment by real end users - it is natural, and there is nothing to be afraid of. All you need to do is make sure you have someone to support your app, fix such bugs, and, of course, update your app regularly according to the latest technologies.

How Long Does It Take to Make an App?

This is often the first question our potential clients ask us. There is only one question that may be more frequent than that - how much the development will cost. We wish we could answer these questions precisely right here and right now and be confident we gave you the correct answer.

Yet, it just doesn't work this way - there are too many variables the development company has to consider before answering these questions. There is one thing you can be certain about - the development cost heavily depends on the number of working hours required to make your idea a reality and the hourly rates of developers.

The hourly rates vary geographically - developers from Asia and Eastern Europe take $35-50 per hour on average while those based in the US and Western Europe ask for $150-200 per hour. As for the duration of the development, this depends on the range of features you want to include in your app and what OS you want it to work on.

If you want to launch the app on both Android and iOS, you have to choose between native development (basically, developers create two separate apps from scratch), hybrid (combining shared code basis with OS-specific code), progressive web app (websites that look and feel like apps) and cross-platform development.

If we suppose you opt for native app development, here's our estimation of how much time each development stage can take (and how much it would cost you):

• documentation - 40 hours on average (from $1,600 at $40 hourly rate to $6,000 at $150 hourly rate);
• user interface and user experience design - 60 hours on average (from $2,400 at $40 hourly rate to $9,000 at $150 hourly rate);
• front-end and back-end development - 400 hours on average (from $16,000 at $40 hourly rate to $60,000 at $150 hourly rate);
• quality assurance and testing - 80 hours on average (from $3,200 at $40 hourly rate to $12,000 at $150 hourly rate).

Therefore, a native event app for one OS may cost you anywhere from $23,200 to $87,000 on average depending on the developers' hourly rates.

However, keep in mind that getting an app to work requires more than a one-time payment. You need to update it and support it, which requires regular investments. Besides, you should consider marketing costs.

In Conclusion

All in all, the event app market is relatively young, so find your niche and conquer while the competition is not that cutthroat. Surely, event app development is not a piece of cake - you need to dedicate enough time for preparing for it and make sure you keep your hand on the pulse of the development.

Are you ready to conquer your niche? Reach to us with your idea, and we'll make it a reality!