» SMS Gateway Reliability – The Chain is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link

Most bulk SMS providers , (including ourselves) will take great pains to point out the merits of direct connections to the UK Networks, and a direct connection is indeed essential for a first class, reliable sms service.

But that is only part of the story. Just as crucial to reliability are the systems in place that connect to the networks. There’s no point in have a direct Network connection if the servers are prone to falling over on a regualr basis. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link, so the saying goes.

So when companies are assessing different sms gateway providers, they should be asking where the provider’s systems are hosted. Server hosting companies vary enormously in quality and offer different services level agreements. SMS gateway providers need to be using specialist hosting companies that will guarantee server ‘up’ time.

In order to eliminate any server issues, Text Marketer uses Rack Space who is recognized as the global market leader in server hosting. They offer a guarantee of 100% up time.

In addition to bullet proof server hosting, Text Marketer has also developed a system architecture that maximizes the reliability of the sms service. Now for non-techies, all this means is that we’ve done all we can to make sure your bulk sms campaigns are delivered as planned. For the more technically minded, you may be interested in a quick overview of how this is achieved.

1. Our servers are based in a load balanced, clustered environment.
The idea is that internet load is balanced between machines and should one machine fall over another can take its place. The application server is the machine that does the processing of our code.

2. Our servers have RAID 1 (or mirrored) disks
This is where you have 2 hard disks in the server that mirror each other, should one fail, the system can keep running.

3. We use 64 bit Unix
All this really means is that we are using the most up to date operating system on our servers.

4. Managed backup
We have systems in place that back our data up to an off-line storage medium. This means should everything fail we still have the data to rebuild our systems.

If you have any specific technical queries, Nick Rich, our Technical Director is the man to speak to. He can be contacted on 0117 2050202

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