We answer some of the questions we've received about Episerver's DXC Service, looking at maintenance fees, SLAs, upgrades, and more.
In our recent blog about Episerver’s Digital Experience Cloud (DXC) Service, we looked at the value that this powerful platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering provides to website owners. Since then, we’ve received a number of questions about the DXC Service, so we wanted to take some time to address these queries and provide further understanding of how organizations can utilize Episerver’s content management system (CMS) technologies:
What Are the Annual Software Maintenance Fees?
Believe it or not, the annual software maintenance cost for the DXC Service is $0. Since the Digital Experience Cloud is a PaaS option, all maintenance costs are covered in the monthly subscription, and no additional annual maintenance fees are required.
Can I Use Multiple Production Servers?
Many websites hosted on physical servers utilize multi-tier environments that include multiple production servers and technologies like load balancing to ensure that the site will be able to handle the amount of traffic visiting the site. However, with the DXC Service, you won’t need to worry about that, since resources and server nodes will automatically scale to meet your site’s traffic needs. This is part of the elastic scaling that is included in the Digital Experience Cloud.
Best of all, because you pay for the DXC Service based on the number of annual pageviews your site receives, this scaling will not incur any additional fees, unless you exceed your annual pageview limit.
How Does the DXC Service Work With My Existing Failover Configuration?
The DXC Service includes the option for automatic geographic failover, ensuring that if the virtual servers hosting your site ever become unavailable in a certain region, users in this region will be redirected to working servers without any interruption of service. Unless you have the business requirements to use your existing failover services, failover can be handled by the DXC Service directly.
Will All My CMS Upgrades Be Installed “Automagically” in the DXC Service?
No. The DXC Service is a PaaS rather than a SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution. Since everybody’s implementation is unique, any individual modules or upgrades will need to be configured for the DXC Service. Your implementation partner will be able to work with you to manage your CMS software upgrades and ensure that your website retains its full functionality when using the Digital Experience Cloud.
What’s the Difference Between My Current Hosting SLA and Episerver’s Application SLA?
When you host your website through a hosting company, that company’s SLA (service level agreement) only covers the physical hosting equipment, guaranteeing the power, bandwidth, and uptime of the web server(s). Episerver’s DXC Service is hosted on Microsoft Azure, which provides a SLA that is similar to, if not better than, any hosting solution on the market.
However, Episerver’s application SLA goes beyond the hardware that your website utilizes and ensures that your actual site software will be running correctly. In effect, you have two SLAs: the SLA that comes with Azure hosting and Episerver’s application SLA. This is a unique differentiator in the CMS space, providing an extra layer of confidence that your website will always be operational.
Do You Have Any Other Questions?
We hope we’ve cleared up any confusion you might have about Episerver’s DXC Service, but if you have any other questions, or if you want to know more about how to implement the Digital Experience Cloud for your website, feel free to contact us or leave a comment below. Please stay tuned to the Diagram blog, where we’ll be following up and answering more questions as they come in!
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