Monthly Empoweren Platform & Website Hosting Fee

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1 Monthly Empoweren Platform & Website Hosting Fee

2 Empoweren CMS & Hosting Explained The Empoweren CMS is a hosted solution designed for businesses and organizations that do not have the time, desire, or in-house expertise to set up and manage content management software or the IT infrastructure needed to run it properly. The monthly fee associated with your website consists of four primary components: Website Hosting The cost to store data used to display your website so it is accessible through the Internet. Costs vary based on the amount of storage space and bandwidth the site requires. In general, sites with a lot of content, high resolution imagery, videos, downloads, and other large files require more storage space and use more bandwidth. Bandwidth usage also correlates to how many visitors the site attracts, how long they stay on the site and the size of the files being delivered. Note: Google considers how long visitors stay on a site in its ranking algorithm so it can be very helpful to engage visitors with videos, photo galleries and infographics that require more storage and bandwidth. Empoweren Platform Maintenance The Empoweren system that powers your website needs to be constantly maintained for optimal performance. We monitor CPU, RAM & Hard Drive performance on a daily basis to ensure that sites are performing properly and redirect resources when sites spike in traffic. Furthermore, we install Operating System updates to our server as often as they are released, typically every 2-3 weeks. This keeps us up-to-date for the monthly PCI scans, patches any security issues that were discovered, and improves functionality. Empoweren Enhancements As a cloud based solution, there is no need to download updates or pay for most upgrades to the system. New features are constantly being added to the system to increase its functionality and value. Plus, unlike other open source systems like WordPress or Joomla, we design our modules to integrate with the core system and keep them maintained. Server Administration Our technical team monitors and manages updates to the servers for optimal performance and security. The Infographic on the following page details our service offering. We feel that it is critical to understand these 4 elements as many website owners do not understand that basic hosting of an HTML or Wordpress site rarely includes Maintenance, Enhancement and Server Administration. These elements of our monthly program are essential to keep safe, secure and up to date with the most recent advancements in technology. page 2

3 Website Hosting & Maintenance Infographic page 3

4 Other Important Information 1. Where are Empoweren websites hosted? All Empoweren sites are hosted on dedicated servers at Connectria, a Tier 3 Data Center in St. Louis, MO that offers the following: Industry Leading Network and Power Uptime - These Tier 3 data centers are designed with N+1 redundancy to support industry leading service level agreements, while 24-hour support engineers proactively monitor over one thousand environmental and technical elements to identify potential issues before they impact our systems. Comprehensive Network Security - An intrusion detection and prevention systems with managed firewall solutions provide the highest level of electronic security to keep your data safe. Exhaustive Physical Security - Facilities maintain the highest level of security utilizing biometrics, proximity cards, CCTV, and restricted access protecting your data from unauthorized personnel. Faster Data Transfers - An intelligently routed network that improves network performance by 39.6% over standard BGP networks, making sure your data follows the most efficient path available. 2. How is the Empoweren system maintenance performed? As a hosted solution, our programmers push through all necessary updates and upgrades to the core Empoweren system. For those currently on a CMS, your IT department will no longer have to be involved in these periodic updates or maintain responsibility for software licenses in order to keep your site running. For those graduating from basic HTML websites hosted on simple shared servers, you will avoid the challenges involved with setting up and managing hosting for a robust CMS. Note: Certain modules or customized site elements may require additional maintenance. 3. Do servers ever go down? Will your site ever go offline? As with all systems, Empoweren does require periodic maintenance and we refresh it periodically (a few times a year). This may cause the site to go down for several seconds to a few minutes per event. This maintenance is typically performed outside of normal business hours, so any downtime effects will be minimal. Unfortunately, cyber attacks, equipment failure and other issues can also cause servers to go down. Our system detects errors and both Connectria and Empoweren personnel address the issues to get the sites up as quickly as possible. Connectria provides a 100% power and network uptime and a 60 minute hardware replacement, but it is practically impossible to ensure 100% uptime without utilizing co-location services that would increase monthly fee significantly. page 4

5 Other Important Information (cont.) The Empoweren system is designed with redundancy in regards to your site s database so that if one server goes down, visitors are sent to another server in our network. In summary, the costs to ensure that a website will never go offline are cost prohibitive to our existing client base, but we have made every effort to design our environment be as safe and reliable possible while still providing a good value. 4. Will you be the owner of the content of your webpages? The Empoweren system essentially converts YOUR content, graphics, formatting and images into HTML code. While you do not own the code that converts your content into HTML or powers the Admin section of your site, you do own all of the HTML content generated and any data in the database. 5. Can you move your site to another hosting company? While your website is built and maintained using the Empoweren System, you are the owner of your content, graphics, etc As such, you can take this information and move it to another platform (CMS) or run the HTML code on another server. As a cloud based solution, the code that runs Empoweren cannot be moved so you would lose the back end functionality that we provide and maintain. 6. Who maintains control over the operational quality of your website? Operational Quality is a somewhat subjective phrases, but often relates to load times, appearance, and browser compatibility. Because Empoweren allows users editorial control over many site elements, some companies/organizations experience quality issues as their site evolves. For instance, people loading large images or videos have experienced issues with download times and we have had to update the graphics or video files to make them run faster. 7. Does Empoweren require a yearly contract? All of our contracts are open ended and can be cancelled at any time. To minimize costs associated with billing, clients not engaged in full service programs with Captiva Marketing are typically billed quarterly or yearly. Unused fees can be refunded if the site is moved or shut down. 8. Will your website be compatible with mobile browsers, tablets, or other new technology? Empoweren is essentially a tool that allows non-technical users to convert text and images into HTML content and stores them in a database. How this content displays is typically related to the design elements applied to the Empoweren system. Periodically, updates in the browsers or new technology may require modifications to design templates, javascript code or navigation systems. Fees may apply if designs specific to one s site need to be adapted to changes in technology as these are outside of our control. page 5