Perhaps it does not play well with mobile phones. You want to add more content for your members but you need security. You look for providers of the services you need. You see a variety of sites and after visiting a few, you are perhaps more confused about which provider to choose. You have a budget and choices. Take advantage of free quotes. Here are some of the up front questions...
What is the goal of your place on the net?
Is your place a business or an social organization? While this is a general definition, the vision of you have for your business or organization shapes the initial design requirements and platform choices. This is the baseline for the quote. As a stakeholder, the keys to remember are active data, bandwidth and security. While you might put security first, active data is often the largest expense and complicates security. Also, active data can push a website into a formal application.
Active Data: Any information stored on a website that is transitional. An example would be a shopping cart. Typically managed by a cookie. The data is stored with an identifier to the "user" or as an anonymous entry with a product list. The transaction completes with a valid method of payment. As you add layers to this information, the complexity of the project increases past what the basic frameworks and HTML provide. A complex user or member profile with varying levels of access requires an application. When a websites vision reaches an application, then it is time to look to the cloud.
Who do you really want using your web site?
For example, your club wants to update their website. Perhaps, event turn it into an application. Who do you want on your site? You have your knowns: the Board wants better reporting. In fact make it a dashboard app that runs on an iPhone. Members want to socialize, share photographs and attend events. Ease of payment and membership management is on their list but a bit further down. Club management? Streamline member and facility management. Make the chargeable and scheduled events a self service and easy payment process. Then you add in the basic accounting and account management and voila, you are done. While this sounds like it has gone way over into the application world and $$$, the demands of this site are still within the frameworks and tools available.
Now, it is time to talk about security...
Minimum Two Factor Authentication...ok, we are done.
It boils down to what information you are going to put into the DMZ(public space) and what is going to be in the fort. Now, the DMZ is a tricky place and requires care when placing information there. The information you want safe? That depends on risk versus cost. If you needed to build a fort to keep animals out, wood would suffice. To keep determined humans out? I leave that your your version of determined humans to specify the fort. Same thing applies to the web. Security is a concern. Making sure information is protected and backed up is the key part of any care plan. Two Factor or multi-authentication protocols ensure positive confirmation of your identity. How the data is stored is another factor. In the many years I have been in this industry, anything that is not true open source that is "free" or "loss leader" means either;
Starter account with upgrades
Minimum Two Factor Authentication...ok, we are done.
This scenario is used by companies like Microsoft. A nominal amount of storage is granted based on the subscription level. The data stored on the Azure cloud is stored with private keys only you have access to. The data storage facilities are rather impressive as well. There are other providers for secure data as well.
I learned about Microsoft's approach to securing customer data as part of their TAP program for Cloud Storage and Backup of server data. My companies participation was part of Small Company Manager's vision to get a few small companies to participate in an event usually reserved for the Fortune 500 crowd.
This type of storage requires more resources and has a higher cost. The benefit... A really strong fort? Security and data sharing need to be explored as well when looking at potential hosting choices.
You are the product
This one is trickier and all depends on the End User License Agreement and those pesky "allows". For the most part, not using any platform that you allow your data to be "shared" on is risky. Perhaps you set up your company site on a platform with a lot of users. Not so innocent when all of your information and that of your contacts gets sold to advertisers. You know, those pesky pop ups or side bar crud.
Social networks top the charts for sharing and can be beneficial. Blending use of these public forums with private sites can be an effective hybrid. Does your company have a public and employee only site? Sounds like a hybrid to me.
Bad jokes, I know. That is why I did not quit my day job. :)
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