Some Backend Things We Just Do

The one constant about having a web company is that things always change. In the past we told you about changes we made to all of our websites to ensure they are secure and accessible. In the last year there seem to have been more changes than usual! Specifically:

  1. Changing hosting providers: Our long-time server provider shut down so we needed to find a new and trusted host.
  2. Upgrading to GA4: Google upgraded their Google Analytics version from 3 to 4, which forced us to update that code on all the sites we host.
  3. Updating software: Ever evolving standards in software have created more possiblities for our websites and custom apps.

We detail these changes below.

Changing Hosting Providers

With the evolution of cloud hosting, the environment has changed for the managed server provider that hosted our websites. About a year ago they announced their plans to wind down their business. Smaller businesses such as theirs are no longer able to compete with the likes of larger players such as Amazon Web Services and a host of cloud service providers. 

So we needed to find new hosts, based in Canada, and we wanted to find the companies that are as responsible as possible given the environmental impact of internet servers. NOTE: We do buy offsets to ensure that we are a Net Zero company. Have a look at our Environmental Policy!

For websites, we are hosted on a French-owned company, OVHCloud, which is a sustainable cloud pioneer based in Canada. Unless you were a client who handles their own DNS, you would not have noticed this change to the hosting of our servers as it was made on the back end of your site to keep it working seamlessly. 

To host our custom software applications, we chose Fly.io because they provide a secure environment, with a very simple deployments so that we can make updates quickly and efficiently. We moved our hosted software applications to Fly.io over the past year.

We also use monitoring software to automatically detect and address any technical problems that might arise with our cloud based servers. This ensures our applications continuously run smoothly.

Upgrading to Google Analytics 4

Google is upgraded its Google Analytics product and ended the use of the last version, "Universal Analytics", as of July 1st, 2023. We have gone through our sites to update the analytics so, if you are looking at your analytics, you will have the updated version. Let us know if you have any questions about this, including "what are analytics?" :)

 Using the Latest Software

We continue to use the Bootstrap Framework, now on version 5, which allows us to create engaging, content-rich websites that help our clients reach their online goals.

We are also pleased to be working with Phoenix-Elixir as the basis of our custom software products. It ensures the reliability, concurrency (i.e. the collection of techniques and mechanisms that enable a computer program to perform several different tasks simultaneously, or apparently simultaneously), and interactivity of our custom apps--so our clients can focus on putting them to good use in the meaningful work they do!