Our Approach

Design Methodology

We design a site that helps your visitors do what they came to do. Only then will they do what you want them to. Every element in your web design plays a part: The colours, the fonts, the images, the layout, the Information Architecture (IA), the menu positioning... They all either help or hinder.

We employ an informed usability design process to research, design and test the total user experience. It's repeatable, scientific and reliable.

Development Methodology

Having designed a user-friendly site, we set about developing it so that the finished product is as usable as the design.

Managed Web Hosting

Every Copticom website comes complete with secure, fully managed business/enterprise-grade hosting. We own our own servers and manage them ourselves, in a secure, climate-controlled data centre. This means you'll enjoy more control, faster response times, and superior uptime and reliability than you'd get from an "off-the-shelf" web host.

• One point of contact – You have only one point of contact for all matters relating to your site: Your Copticom project manager. If you want to update something or upload a file, you call your project manager. When you want to add some functionality, you call your project manager. If there's a problem, you call your project manager.
• 24/7 proactive uptime monitoring – We have someone monitoring your site 24/7. In the unlikely event of a problem, you probably won't even notice it. We'll have it fixed before it comes to your attention.
• Appropriate server technologies – The same people who developed your site also host it. We define the actual physical requirements of the your web server during development to ensure maximum suitability and performance. And you'll never hear “our servers don't support that functionality”.
• We're accountable - Because we manage everything and we own the server that hosts your site, we're fully accountable for any problems. So no more finger-pointing and blame shifting; the buck stops here.
• Superior uptime, data security and performance – We own our own servers in state-of-the art data centres:
• • 3 backbone carriers – Our routers connect to three different backbone carriers via OC-12 and Gig fibre links. Your site's traffic is dynamically routed to the most appropriate backbone for maximum network reliability and performance.
  • Virtual Private Servers (VPS) – All Copticom websites are hosted on virtual private servers (VPS). Even if your website is hosted on the same physical computer as other websites, it still has its own dedicated server environment, and the operating system and hosting software of that environment are all dedicated to your site. This means if someone else's site is hosted on the same computer, and that site has problems, your site is unaffected because it's contained within a discrete environment.
  • Uninterrupted power supply – The data centre is connected to two separate hydroelectric utility grids, with automatic fail-over. It also has standby diesel generators that are tested weekly and can provide emergency power indefinitely. If any one of these power supply sources goes down, we automatically switch to the backup with no impact on your site. (We use redundant universal power supply (UPS) systems to carry the power load during the transition.)
  • Security – The data centre is protected by multi-layered electronic security, including electronic entry, motion and breach alarms, and video surveillance. It also uses 24/7 onsite security, firewall security and network security.
  • Climate control – Servers within the data centre are cooled by redundant HVAC systems that use 10 and 25 tonne geothermal heat pumps to reduce the temperature inside the data centre to an optimum 18 degrees centigrade. Each unit is connected to UPS power and is continuously monitored.
  • Backup – We use an enterprise level centralised backup, management and data recovery solution, that leverages both storage area network and tape infrastructure. It automatically backs up daily to disk, then moves the data to tape with smart data store technology.
• Flexibility – Because we host your website on a virtual private server (VPS), we can quickly and easily assign more (or less) physical resources to it, and even switch it to another physical host computer, with relatively short notice (e.g. if you're expecting a big traffic spike).
• Shared and dedicated servers – We can host your site on a shared server or we can assign it a machine all of its own. It all depends on your requirements (which, obviously, we're very familiar with, having designed and developed your site!). Importantly, all our sites are hosted on virtual private servers (VPS). So if your site is on a shared server, it will have its own dedicated server environment – the operating system and hosting software of that environment are dedicated to your site. This means if another site on the physical host computer has problems, your site is unaffected because it's contained within a discrete environment. It also means we can quickly and easily assign more (or less) physical resources to your site, and even switch you to another physical host computer, with relatively short notice (e.g. if you're expecting a big traffic spike).

Refinement Methodology

So we've designed and developed your site, and now we're hosting it. This is where we get the opportunity to see how your visitors use it 'in the wild', and to refine it to deliver ever-improving results for your business. (This stage is optional)