DATA HANDLING WITHIN JOBMAN
Overview
This page is intended to describe our infrastructure from a client’s perspective. It should help potential clients understand how we manage the infrastructure that their data will be stored in.
Servers
We have several servers that we use to provide the Jobman application to clients. Currently, we are putting new clients onto a cloud server that is hosted by Linode in a Sydney data centre. Linode is one of the largest cloud hosting providers available to us, and they have an enviable uptime record. We haven’t had any downtime on our Linode server since we commissioned it, late 2020.
This solution has been working well for both our clients, and us.
The other servers that are part of the application include:
- Source code and deployment server (VM located in a Perth data centre, colocated ESXi hardware managed by Servers Australia)
- Backup server (VM located in a Perth data centre, managed by HostAway)
We have dozens of other servers that provide services to other clients, however the ones above are what are involved with new clients.
Backups
We place a strong emphasis on maintaining reliable backups. Sites that are hosted on our hosted server are backed up in two independent places:
- Linode’s built in backup solution, built and managed by Linode
- Our own backup solution, built and maintained by us
We periodically audit these backups, to ensure that they are working, and that client sites are able to be rebuilt from these backups.
Our own backup routine backs up client data every 4 hours, and stores multiple versions of their databases. We keep 4-hourly, daily, weekly and monthly backups, going back 3 months. Linode’s backup solution stores daily, weekly and bi-weekly backups.
Both backup solutions are stored offsite compared to the server. In our case, the backup server is on opposite side of Australia to the application server.
Monitoring
We monitor all our servers with Grafana Cloud, which automatically alerts us to potential issues before they become a problem. For example, if a server gets above 85% disk usage, we will receive an alert to let us know that we need to allocate more resources to it. This monitoring system allows us to zoom in on any point in time, to closely examine metrics within a small time frame if required. This has proven very useful to diagnose issues in the past.
We also monitor certain sites with UptimeRobot, which periodically checks to see if the application is available to the internet.
Status reporting
Our status page is located at: status.jobman.com.au. You can subscribe to updates on this page if you want to. This automatically monitors our services, and will alert you if there is a problem. We also send out messages to this page if there is an issue, or if we have scheduled some maintenance on our servers.
Security
Security is very important to us, which is why we do the following to our servers:
- Turn off root access to our servers
- Require ssh keys to log in (password authentication is disabled)
- Enable fail2ban, which automatically blocks hacking attempts
- Use long passwords for when they are required
- Automatically update the OS every day
On the application level, we also ensure that users who use the Jobman application use hard to guess passwords (minimum length, requiring upper and lowercase letters, as well as a non-alphanumeric character).
Confidentiality
Our staff are required to keep all your data confidential, this forms part of their Contract Of Employment. We would never disclose your sales data to anyone, not even your staff.
As part of our service, staff are able to log into your Jobman Application, using an extremely long password that is changed whenever there is a change in our staff. This is required for training and support purposes. We would normally only log into your site when solving support issues, or helping with training.
The biggest risk to your data security is a staff member leaving, and still being able to log in. We recommend setting their staff status to “Inactive” as part of your offboarding process.