Server maintenance
Most web hosting companies carry out periodic maintenance on their servers to ensure optimum performance. It usually carried out on weekends when traffic to most websites is less, to minimize the inconvenience caused to customers.
Usually server maintenance involves taking backup of data, deleting unwanted files which have been created. A daily or weekly backup of data is take and stored in a location which is at a distance from the server.
New versions of the Server OS and application software are frequently released and these upgrades are carried out during server maintenance . The server is usually off line for a short time, usually less than twenty minutes.