or Raising the Bus Factor

MDI Websites is currently a one man shop, though I do make use of contractors and third party service providers as appropriate. Some clients have expressed concern about their ability to continue using or maintaining their websites or web apps in case I become unavailable. This post describes some of the protections that are in place to protect your business.

Hosting

The websites that I host reside in a state-of-the-art datacenter in Houston, TX. Server maintenance and security is handled by the administrators at the datacenter. The datacenter backs up the data and can restore the sites in the event of a major failure, and my local server takes regular offsite backups. The account is prepaid to allow for transition to another hosting provider without service interruption.

The access credentials for your account are available upon request to MDI Websites. These credentials are also stored securely on my local server. I have prepared a script that will generate letters containing these credentials for my hosting clients, and have left instructions for processing and delivering these letters.

Source code

If so specified in your contract, all source code I write for the project will be delivered to you at project completion to provide for continuity in case I am unavailable or you decide to work with another developer. I can also arrange for the source code to be stored securely in your hosting account so that it will be readily available to another developer.

I make use of standard software libraries and tools where appropriate to simplify handoffs to other developers. If so specified in your contract, I will also provide documentation for custom code to assist a new developer in taking over the project.