Systems Management

A lot of people have been asking this question. Every month 1.2 million people search Google with the term, what is CMS.

In its simplest terms a CMS is a lot like a word processor in that you can edit documents in a WYSIWYG format. WYSIWYG stands for ‘what you see is what you get’, this type of document creation allows you to see exactly what the document will look like as you are typing and adding different elements.

Content management systems are also pretty complex. A good content management system acts more like a database than a word processor. The database is where you can link content together and keep a record of changes made to any web page or web page element.

Electronic content management systems have been around since computers were invented. But content management has been a problem since the beginning of the printing press, and some historians say that the problem began with the first written word.

The scope of this article is beyond the history of the content management systems, instead I’m going to focus on the most used content management systems today and give a brief over view of each system. The most popular content management systems are:

Drupal Joomla WordPress

These are the top three systems in use today as they are all popular among people that don’t know how to create a website or haven’t learned any HTML.

Drupal

Drupal was launched in 2000 in a dorm room at the University of Antwerp by two students who wanted to be able to share information with other each other and other classmates. It was named “Drop” for the first year until the creator, Dries Buytaert, graduated and moved out of the dorm room.

The name Drupal, pronounced “droo-puhl,” comes from the English enunciation of the Dutch word “druppel,” which means “drop.” Drupal is free. It is open source software that is constantly being updated by IT professionals from all over the world. With Drupal you don’t have to know any HTML to create websites as everything is accomplished inside the interface that looks like a word processor. So you can create websites easily and manage all of the web pages from one location.

Joomla

Joomla is also free open source software that allows you to create websites and web pages easily once you get over the learning curve. You’ll have to install and learn all of the modules to begin creating web pages. The Joomla website has extensive documentation on how to use the software and a broad FAQ page to help new people learn the tips and tricks and how to get around the different features of the software.

WordPress

WordPress was released in 2003 and has become the benchmark for automated SEO optimization. WordPress plug-ins automates most of the tasks associated with making a website search engine friendly. This software also has to be installed unless you choose to let WordPress host your website on a subdomain such as “yourwebsite.wordpress.com”.

Having a website hosted by WordPress has its draw backs as you don’t have control over your website and WordPress can ban you if you violate the rules.

WordPress is the easiest to learn of the three content management systems. And in my opinion the best one to start with if you don’t have any experience in creating websites. It is powerful bu nimble and if used correctly any WordPress blog can be made to get high rankings on Google.

Now click on this What is CMS link to see introductory videos for the three content management systems listed in this article.

So why is a Content Management System so important? There are a number of systems to manage websites with and most web designers will offer the best CMS that suits your needs. Some offer unique tools to use on your site, others are designed to enable the website owner to easily make changes to the content of their site as and when they wish. This is aimed at those who may not have strong I.T skills or not feel confident making any changes. They are really simple to use and they can help you make your site professional, unique and ultimately a success. It’s important to choose a good reliable CMS as they important functions such as Security of website and also the Managing Servers, so you need a quick reliable server which will enable you site to run with no problems. The most popular CMS are probably the 3 shown below:

Drupal - this is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. You can use Drupal to build everything from personal blogs to enterprise applications. Thousands of add-on modules and designs let you build any site you can imagine. Drupal is free, flexible, robust and constantly being improved by hundreds of thousands of passionate people from all over the world.
Joomla - Joomla is the world’s most popular open source CMS (content management system). With 2.7 per cent of the Web running on Joomla, the software is used by individuals, small & medium-sized businesses, and large organizations worldwide to easily create & build a variety of websites & web-enabled applications.
WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 25 million people have chosen WordPress and its popularity makes it the most popular CMS on the internet. Those who are not sure what CMS to use should use this statistic as WordPress is very easy to use as one feature is you can edit without having to use HTML code.

These are the main systems used but there are many others out there. But best to speak to your web designer to see which one they would recommend for your site and also which one they believe would be best for you. If you’re not very confident with I.T but still want to be able to have an active part in your websites design, layout and future changes then choosing a CMS that you feel comfortable with it important. But there are also so many support features that come with these CMS that you’re never far away from someone who can help.

Risk management is one of the most important parts of any business activity. Risk management is the assessment of risks related to a product, managerial decision, or any other company policy. It is an important aspect as it familiarizes the faculty with probable risks and also helps put up a backup plan in case of failure and worst case scenario conditions. Risks can be incurred from instability in various fields like finance, marketing, credit, legal issues and also from natural disasters, accidents attack from competitor or adversary etc. Risk management involves avoiding the activities that will lead to a risk or threatening condition and if a threat does occur then having a mechanism in place to deal with it.

Risk management is a simple process if done in a proper manner. It usually comes into play after the development phase of a project or before designing of a new project. There are a few simple pointers one must remember to put up a risk management plan. First of all identify the areas where risk can occur. Then identify the risk. Determine what losses will occur if risk does actually take place. Formulate a plan to ensure that all the processes and activities in the company are carried out in such a way that minimum risk is involved. But sometimes you cannot ensure that risk will not occur like in case of human error or natural disasters. For such cases formulate a risk detection and recovery plan. For new products consider product liabilities and risks involved with the product.

Though no matter how much planning is done only experience can help avoid risks. So regular meetings and discussions must be carried out for up-gradation and re-fabrication of risk management plan. For financial risk management the market should be studied regularly and proper investments and research should be done. Whenever making a decision on company policy or launching a new product all legal liabilities must be considered. It is a must to take human error into consideration. Human error cannot be predicted and hence risk assessment in such cases becomes difficult. But still every possible error should be considered as far as possible and a plan for risk management and recovery must be formulated. This can involve easy undo options or double check mechanism for critical process, auto save on unexpected shutdown etc.

One of the major risk conditions occurs during a natural disaster. Though they don’t occur that often they are the most dangerous in terms of risk for any organization. A company has loads and loads of date stored in databases of different types. This data contains important information like customer records, employee records, sales information, product information, management policies etc. A natural disaster like earthquake, volcano eruption or tornado can destroy these databases and make the company lose all its vital and sensitive information gathered from years of research. To avoid this strong and effective risk management plans for natural calamities must be formulated. Such a risk management plan involves making of duplicate databases with all sensitive information and storing them as backups in some other safe location. Also in case of failure of system these databases can be used to continue operation of critical processes.

Risk management is of great importance in any company policy and must be strongly implemented to ensure optimized working of the organization.