Uptime.com Blog

Is Having Your Web Host in Romania a Problem?

Chances are your web hosting provider does not have your data in a facility near your business, or in the United States, or even North America. It’s more likely somewhere overseas such as Romania or Singapore or Dublin.

Website hosting companies can be found all over the world. With broadband Internet speeds and transcontinental connections, website providers can supply web hosting with lag times only milliseconds off of domestic providers.

These overseas hosts usually come at a discount over domestic providers, but as you can expect, include additional risks. So what is right for your company? It depends on what type of information is on your website and the response time of your providers.

When an Overseas Data Center is Trouble

Keeping your website up is incredibly important. Each minute your website goes down it costs you money, either in lost sales or lost potential customers, not to mention the internal time spent remedying the problem.

As soon as you learn your site is down you’ll want to get it back online. If you had to call someone halfway across the world, would you feel comfortable? In some cases, the answer is yes, but with distance and language barriers, the potential for problems can arise.

And then there is the issue of security. While your data center may have excellent network security, you have no idea if it is in a safe place. Data centers invest a lot in physical security, outside protections that keep malicious actors from physically going inside the data center and taking what they want.

If your facility is in a part of the world known for unpredictability that may be a problem.

The Benefits of an Overseas Data Center

With that said, the cost savings and guarantees put in your contract from your provider may make hosting your information outside the United States worth the risk. A number of large companies including Amazon, Google and Salesforce have data facilities across the world.

They do it for the same reasons your business would: cost. By saving money, they can improve their bottom line. If you are going to have your site hosted elsewhere, be very careful of the contract language and make sure it provides a remedy in case anything happens. If you do that, you should be able to have a website host anywhere in the world.

Michael Esposito