If you are an individual who wants to show off your interests, special qualities, hobbies, e.t.c. to your friends or anybody outside; then it is the best idea to go for a low cost web hosting or even a free web hosting.
Even for small businesses, low cost web hosting would be the best option to get the maximum exposure for their company, their products and their services. As we all know web hosting is the must for any type of business whether it is small or big. But putting in huge amounts in web hosting for smaller or start up companies is not viable in the most cases and hence cheap web hosting is the great solution for this problem.
Also if it’s your first website, a personal page or many other factors you may choose to go the lost cost web hosting route. In order to have a good website though, there are some things you need to be aware of and look for in a low cost web hosting provider. They are:
1. Storage:
Especially if you want images with your low cost web hosting solution, storage is important. Many low cost hosting services are free for the first 10mb and then start billing you in order to get more storage. Find a host that has at least 50mb of storage so that you don’t risk running out. While 50 MB might not sound like a lot, many of the sites you visit each day likely aren’t much larger then that in size. For starting out this is more then adequate space.
2. Advertisements
Being a low cost web hosting solution, the ISPs some how have to make money, so ads are expected. Lots of low cost web hosting solutions though go overboard with Popup and float-ins, as well as banner ads and plenty more. Try and find a low cost web hosting provider that has non obtrusive advertising. Generally the number of ads goes hand in hand with just how low the price is. So a Dollar a month web hosting or free hosting you can expect a lot of ads.
In short, you need to find a safe low cost web hosting solution that provides you with plenty of storage and no over the top advertising. This way you are ensured to have pleasant experience having your site with low cost web hosting. Also don’t forget it’s not just your experience but those of your visitors as well, if you’re limited to what you can have on your site, or there are hundreds of ads flying at your visitors screen, you’ll have a hard time stopping them from clicking the back button.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Types of Web Hosting
First of all we must determine the meaning of the word “hosting”. So, what is hosting?
Hosting origins from the word “host” which has different meanings that are familiar to you. Hosting means providing place for your website on the web hosting company’s servers and makes it viewable in the Internet
and floating it.
Why can you once need hosting?
Imagine that you have created a website and now you are wondering how
your friends and acquaintances can see it. You place it in your personal computer, but then you come to know that it’s dangerous for your computer’s safety and needs permanent Internet connection. So it causes a lot of inconveniences for you. To avoid them there is web site hosting.
There are different kinds of web site hosting. Let’s have a good look at them:
1.Shared or virtual hosting
2.Dedicated hosting/ server, Co-location
3.VDS/VPS –Virtual Dedicated Server/Virtual Private Server
Before choosing some type of web hosting it’s necessary to consider the way you are going to use it.
Free Shared hosting
If you want to host some non-profit-making or your personal web site it’d be more profitable to use basic shared hosting for no fee. This type of web site hosting is a rather logical choice if you are a junior in web site building or if you want to try some new idea and don’t want to pay. But of course you don’t have to suppose it to grant your site the best conditions, such as proper bandwidth and disk space. Some other features can also be limited, I mean MySQL, PHP support. It often also provides poor web statistics.
Paid Shared hosting
Almost all small businesses, intermediate and large professional sites use shared hosting, ‘cause they don’t need the whole server’s space and besides the whole server costs much. With shared/virtual hosting such necessary features, as multiply e-mail, MySQl, PHP, are supported. The main disadvantage is decrease of your site’s security.
Dedicated hosting /Server
This type of hosting is the best choice for those, who need much storage and bandwidth, and are good in server administration. You’ll be able to use all necessary software, but if you don’t have enough knowledge to administrate your server it will be a little bit difficult for you.
Co-location
It’s a sub type of dedicated hosting and can be compared with your own house which was built specially for you, with your favorite furniture and all. It’s built on your hoster’s (ISP) ground. This service is implied to fulfill only your tasks and is designed for your needs alone. And it’s cost is correspondingly high.
VDS/ VPS
Virtual private server is a type of web site hosting that is based on dividing a physical server into several virtual ones. It costs less though gives same possibilities as Dedicated server. Now, when we’ve examined different types of hosting services, you can decide which type of hosting is the most suitable for you.
Hosting origins from the word “host” which has different meanings that are familiar to you. Hosting means providing place for your website on the web hosting company’s servers and makes it viewable in the Internet
and floating it.
Why can you once need hosting?
Imagine that you have created a website and now you are wondering how
your friends and acquaintances can see it. You place it in your personal computer, but then you come to know that it’s dangerous for your computer’s safety and needs permanent Internet connection. So it causes a lot of inconveniences for you. To avoid them there is web site hosting.
There are different kinds of web site hosting. Let’s have a good look at them:
1.Shared or virtual hosting
2.Dedicated hosting/ server, Co-location
3.VDS/VPS –Virtual Dedicated Server/Virtual Private Server
Before choosing some type of web hosting it’s necessary to consider the way you are going to use it.
Free Shared hosting
If you want to host some non-profit-making or your personal web site it’d be more profitable to use basic shared hosting for no fee. This type of web site hosting is a rather logical choice if you are a junior in web site building or if you want to try some new idea and don’t want to pay. But of course you don’t have to suppose it to grant your site the best conditions, such as proper bandwidth and disk space. Some other features can also be limited, I mean MySQL, PHP support. It often also provides poor web statistics.
Paid Shared hosting
Almost all small businesses, intermediate and large professional sites use shared hosting, ‘cause they don’t need the whole server’s space and besides the whole server costs much. With shared/virtual hosting such necessary features, as multiply e-mail, MySQl, PHP, are supported. The main disadvantage is decrease of your site’s security.
Dedicated hosting /Server
This type of hosting is the best choice for those, who need much storage and bandwidth, and are good in server administration. You’ll be able to use all necessary software, but if you don’t have enough knowledge to administrate your server it will be a little bit difficult for you.
Co-location
It’s a sub type of dedicated hosting and can be compared with your own house which was built specially for you, with your favorite furniture and all. It’s built on your hoster’s (ISP) ground. This service is implied to fulfill only your tasks and is designed for your needs alone. And it’s cost is correspondingly high.
VDS/ VPS
Virtual private server is a type of web site hosting that is based on dividing a physical server into several virtual ones. It costs less though gives same possibilities as Dedicated server. Now, when we’ve examined different types of hosting services, you can decide which type of hosting is the most suitable for you.
Tips for Choosing a Good Web Host
1. Starts with you. Determine your needs. Space, bandwidth and budget.
a) Space – Cover your needs and allow for expansion if needed.
b) Bandwidth- Same as above.
c) Budget – Set a realistic budget for yourself. How much are you willing to spend? Lowest price too highest. Being a little flexible on your price will give more hosting choices.
2. Follow some basic guidelines for even considering a hosting provider.
a) Does the host have phone number? At the very least a web host should provide you with a contact phone number. This doesn’t have to be a 24-hour a day number but your future host should be available during normal business hours in their respective time zone. A toll free shows a willingness to provide convenience for their customers.
b) Do they provide at least 24/7 Support Desk? Support is important, this is a must. You should have access to support 24 hours a day. Test the support desk. Choose anytime of the day or night and contact the support desk to test response times, ask any questions you might have. A response time under an hour is good; less than thirty minutes is considered excellent.
c) Take a good look at their web site. This sometimes can be over looked but I believe this says something very important about the hosting company. If they care about how they present themselves to the public, they are more apt to care about other things like service and maintaining a high reputation.
d) The hosting company should provide you with an Acceptable Use Policy, Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy as well. It is in your best interest that you read these policies and understand them before you pay for services.
e) Do they have an Uptime Guarantee? We won’t set a number on this but a hosting provider should be willing to disclose what their commitment to service is. A professional company will have this included in their Terms of Service.
f) Do they provide a Money Back Guarantee? Again, this should listed in their Terms of Service.
g) Payment Options – A host should provide their customers with more than one payment option. Credit cards and other payment option such as PayPal or something comparable.
3. Make a list of at least four to five possible hosting providers that fit your needs from the guidelines above and do some research.
a) Search these forums and others to see what type of information you can find on the host.
b) Compare features and price of the hosts on your list.
c) Contact the host either by phone, email or support desk and ask any questions you might have.
d) Check Testimonials – If the host has a list of testimonials if possible send an email to one of those customers and ask for their feedback on the host. Most people are happy to give a recommendation. This can also help determine if the testimonial real or a fabrication.
e) Finally you might want to consider doing a ping test if you can, check some customers web sites if listed, see how fast they load.
f) Make your choice, sign up and good luck.
There are so many hosting companies out there today, and the choices are close to endless. These guidelines are not fool proof in anyway but if you follow them you will have a better chance finding a host that you can trust in delivering quality service and save you from moving from host to host. In twelve years of buying web hosting and dedicated servers I have never once had a provider suddenly disappear on me in the middle of the night. Good luck and good hunting.
a) Space – Cover your needs and allow for expansion if needed.
b) Bandwidth- Same as above.
c) Budget – Set a realistic budget for yourself. How much are you willing to spend? Lowest price too highest. Being a little flexible on your price will give more hosting choices.
2. Follow some basic guidelines for even considering a hosting provider.
a) Does the host have phone number? At the very least a web host should provide you with a contact phone number. This doesn’t have to be a 24-hour a day number but your future host should be available during normal business hours in their respective time zone. A toll free shows a willingness to provide convenience for their customers.
b) Do they provide at least 24/7 Support Desk? Support is important, this is a must. You should have access to support 24 hours a day. Test the support desk. Choose anytime of the day or night and contact the support desk to test response times, ask any questions you might have. A response time under an hour is good; less than thirty minutes is considered excellent.
c) Take a good look at their web site. This sometimes can be over looked but I believe this says something very important about the hosting company. If they care about how they present themselves to the public, they are more apt to care about other things like service and maintaining a high reputation.
d) The hosting company should provide you with an Acceptable Use Policy, Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy as well. It is in your best interest that you read these policies and understand them before you pay for services.
e) Do they have an Uptime Guarantee? We won’t set a number on this but a hosting provider should be willing to disclose what their commitment to service is. A professional company will have this included in their Terms of Service.
f) Do they provide a Money Back Guarantee? Again, this should listed in their Terms of Service.
g) Payment Options – A host should provide their customers with more than one payment option. Credit cards and other payment option such as PayPal or something comparable.
3. Make a list of at least four to five possible hosting providers that fit your needs from the guidelines above and do some research.
a) Search these forums and others to see what type of information you can find on the host.
b) Compare features and price of the hosts on your list.
c) Contact the host either by phone, email or support desk and ask any questions you might have.
d) Check Testimonials – If the host has a list of testimonials if possible send an email to one of those customers and ask for their feedback on the host. Most people are happy to give a recommendation. This can also help determine if the testimonial real or a fabrication.
e) Finally you might want to consider doing a ping test if you can, check some customers web sites if listed, see how fast they load.
f) Make your choice, sign up and good luck.
There are so many hosting companies out there today, and the choices are close to endless. These guidelines are not fool proof in anyway but if you follow them you will have a better chance finding a host that you can trust in delivering quality service and save you from moving from host to host. In twelve years of buying web hosting and dedicated servers I have never once had a provider suddenly disappear on me in the middle of the night. Good luck and good hunting.
Web Hosting Guide for Beginner
First and foremost, for non-IT savvy, it might be a little tough for them to comprehend the meaning of web hosting. I believe if you search it on any search engine, of course there will be answer and explanation for them. But, how far do you really understand? Honestly, when I first get to know this term few years back, I had problem understanding myself. Then, I found one simple explanation that might be easy for people to understand. So, today, if anyone were to ask me what is “web hosting”, i’d explain as follows…
Imagine you are homeless and you want to rent a room or buy a house. In order to get a shelter for yourself, you need a room. So, you imagine yourself as the website and the room as the hosting that you need to place yourself in. That means your website need a web hosting. Then, that’s the time you start finding yourself a web hosting provider. Here, web hosting provider would be the house owner who rents you the room. So, in order for your website to be available and browsed by Internet users, you need to make sure your website is hosted in a web server provided by a web hosting provider.
So, when you finally understand what web hosting is, next will be the time to find out more about the different types of web hosting available. You have shared hosting, dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and colocation hosting. You name it, the Internet has it! So many to remember and differentiate..so, let’s get the ball rolling with…
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting means that a web server has its resources shared by many other websites. Or you can put it as, in a house, there are many tenants. Usually small or normal e-commerce businesses will choose this type of hosting. Websites with high traffic might not be able to choose this type of hosting due to insufficient webspace.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting refers to hosting in which you rent a server from your web hosting provider and will be placed at your web hosting provider’s datacentre. They will provide software installation and connection to Internet. This will indicates that the website owner has control over the server as they don’t share it with other websites. In short, dedicated hosting is where only 1 user hosted on the server machine and have a full privilege over the server to manage it by themself. The server machine will be still belongs to the web hosting provider.
Colocation Hosting
Well, this hosting has the features which are almost the same as dedicated hosting EXCEPT that you provide your own server and web hosting provider just help you to plug it into their datacentre. You need to install own software and hardwares. Everything is DIY.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting is a hosting where the account owner has the priviledge to allocate the webspace and bandwidth access and resell them to his clients. This shows that reseller hosts act like a middleman and is usually not responsible for any software or hardware intallation. They only buy webspace and resell to clients.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It is almost the same as dedicated server. Hence, it’s sometimes called Virtual Dedicated Server. Generally, it means that the account owner has the feeling as though his owns a dedicated server. In real sense, it’s actually separating a physical server into several independent hosting spaces or VPS-es, each isolated from the other.This will allow you to create and manage multiple sites and domains and take full control of your VPS with root/administrator access which allows you to access the virtual hard disk, RAM and to reboot your private server independently from other VPS-es.
Domain Name
After we are done with the different types of hosting, there is something else which I want to touch on. It is none other than the “domain name”. So, ever wonder what is domain name? Wow, sounds technical? Not really actually. Don’t be scared. Last time, when I saw the words domain name, it freaked me out too. Now, when I got used to it, it’s not that nerve-wracking after all. So, domain name is just the normal web address or url (Uniform Resource Locator) you type in the “address” area when you open a browser. Examples of domain name are “exabytes.com”. You know? Just the normal web address. Well, since it’s a web address, it’s a unique name. Hence, there will be no other same domain name. In fact, domain name is actually corresponding with numeric IP address. So, every domain name will have its numeric IP address. For example, the IP address for exabytes.com is 72.18.131.206
When you see exabytes.com, ever wonder “.com” stands for what? It actually stands for commercial. Whenever you see .com, .org, .net or others which ends after the final dot or period (.) of a url, it is known as top-level domain. It actually tells you what kind of website it is, indirectly. And the commonly used domain name extension nowadays will be .org, .net, .com. However, there are a lot of new domain extension up for grab lately such as .aero, .info, .museum, and .name. Next in the list that I shall explain is, Country Level Domain Name. Examples of country level domain name is exabytes.com.my. It has “.my” as its country code top-level domain (ccTLD). .my here represents the country “Malaysia”. Of course, different country will have different ccTLD. For example, .jp stands for Japan, .au for Australia, .ca for Canada.
There are more to learn in order to excel in web hosting industry. Hopefully this simple guide will help all those novice out there. There are other things you need to know as well. But, it will be in my next article.
Imagine you are homeless and you want to rent a room or buy a house. In order to get a shelter for yourself, you need a room. So, you imagine yourself as the website and the room as the hosting that you need to place yourself in. That means your website need a web hosting. Then, that’s the time you start finding yourself a web hosting provider. Here, web hosting provider would be the house owner who rents you the room. So, in order for your website to be available and browsed by Internet users, you need to make sure your website is hosted in a web server provided by a web hosting provider.
So, when you finally understand what web hosting is, next will be the time to find out more about the different types of web hosting available. You have shared hosting, dedicated hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and colocation hosting. You name it, the Internet has it! So many to remember and differentiate..so, let’s get the ball rolling with…
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting means that a web server has its resources shared by many other websites. Or you can put it as, in a house, there are many tenants. Usually small or normal e-commerce businesses will choose this type of hosting. Websites with high traffic might not be able to choose this type of hosting due to insufficient webspace.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting refers to hosting in which you rent a server from your web hosting provider and will be placed at your web hosting provider’s datacentre. They will provide software installation and connection to Internet. This will indicates that the website owner has control over the server as they don’t share it with other websites. In short, dedicated hosting is where only 1 user hosted on the server machine and have a full privilege over the server to manage it by themself. The server machine will be still belongs to the web hosting provider.
Colocation Hosting
Well, this hosting has the features which are almost the same as dedicated hosting EXCEPT that you provide your own server and web hosting provider just help you to plug it into their datacentre. You need to install own software and hardwares. Everything is DIY.
Reseller Hosting
Reseller Hosting is a hosting where the account owner has the priviledge to allocate the webspace and bandwidth access and resell them to his clients. This shows that reseller hosts act like a middleman and is usually not responsible for any software or hardware intallation. They only buy webspace and resell to clients.
VPS Hosting
VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It is almost the same as dedicated server. Hence, it’s sometimes called Virtual Dedicated Server. Generally, it means that the account owner has the feeling as though his owns a dedicated server. In real sense, it’s actually separating a physical server into several independent hosting spaces or VPS-es, each isolated from the other.This will allow you to create and manage multiple sites and domains and take full control of your VPS with root/administrator access which allows you to access the virtual hard disk, RAM and to reboot your private server independently from other VPS-es.
Domain Name
After we are done with the different types of hosting, there is something else which I want to touch on. It is none other than the “domain name”. So, ever wonder what is domain name? Wow, sounds technical? Not really actually. Don’t be scared. Last time, when I saw the words domain name, it freaked me out too. Now, when I got used to it, it’s not that nerve-wracking after all. So, domain name is just the normal web address or url (Uniform Resource Locator) you type in the “address” area when you open a browser. Examples of domain name are “exabytes.com”. You know? Just the normal web address. Well, since it’s a web address, it’s a unique name. Hence, there will be no other same domain name. In fact, domain name is actually corresponding with numeric IP address. So, every domain name will have its numeric IP address. For example, the IP address for exabytes.com is 72.18.131.206
When you see exabytes.com, ever wonder “.com” stands for what? It actually stands for commercial. Whenever you see .com, .org, .net or others which ends after the final dot or period (.) of a url, it is known as top-level domain. It actually tells you what kind of website it is, indirectly. And the commonly used domain name extension nowadays will be .org, .net, .com. However, there are a lot of new domain extension up for grab lately such as .aero, .info, .museum, and .name. Next in the list that I shall explain is, Country Level Domain Name. Examples of country level domain name is exabytes.com.my. It has “.my” as its country code top-level domain (ccTLD). .my here represents the country “Malaysia”. Of course, different country will have different ccTLD. For example, .jp stands for Japan, .au for Australia, .ca for Canada.
There are more to learn in order to excel in web hosting industry. Hopefully this simple guide will help all those novice out there. There are other things you need to know as well. But, it will be in my next article.
Here are some simple steps in choosing a host
1. Do your research here and on the internet to find a host that works for you.
2. Every host has had some problems, but that doesn’t make them bad.
3. If you find a host that’s too good to be true, it probably is. Just remember this, you get what you pay for.
4. There’s no such thing as unlimited bandwidth and storage space, so don’t waste your time with hosts that offer this.
5. Once you find a host ask questions to see if they fit your needs, and see how long it takes for them to respond.
6. Go with a host that has a 30 day money back gaurantee.
7. I have nothing agains’t one year hosting payments up front, but if you’re starting out it’s better to pay monthly.
2. Every host has had some problems, but that doesn’t make them bad.
3. If you find a host that’s too good to be true, it probably is. Just remember this, you get what you pay for.
4. There’s no such thing as unlimited bandwidth and storage space, so don’t waste your time with hosts that offer this.
5. Once you find a host ask questions to see if they fit your needs, and see how long it takes for them to respond.
6. Go with a host that has a 30 day money back gaurantee.
7. I have nothing agains’t one year hosting payments up front, but if you’re starting out it’s better to pay monthly.
How To Pick The Best Web Hosting Company
There are a lot of Web Hosting Company. First you should choose Good and Reputable company, then you should Filter that to the Best. Here is the criteria to pick the best Web Hosting Company.
Back End/Network Operations Centers
This is where your accounts are actually housed. Sometimes a hosting provider will lease a part of a larger network and sometimes a hosting provider will develop their own. It is important to find out what kinds and how many fiber optic connections the NOC has. Make sure there is plenty of redundancy built in. Make sure the NOC is managed 24/7, even on holidays. Make sure there are fire suppression systems in place. Last but not least, ask about security. Make sure there are plenty of security measure in place.
Customer Service
Are they friendly? Do they answer their telephones? Are you put on hold and if so, for how long? If you have to leave a message, do they respond quickly? Does the rep on the other end know what they are talking about? Look at their network page and see if they have reports of down time or issue statements about problems.
Technical Support
How long does it take to get questions answered and tasks performed. Send a test support message and gauge the response times. See if they offer 800 toll free support.
Ticketing Systems
Do they have a ticketing system that tracks performance times. This is key. If a hosting company has this, they are serious about improving internally.
Domain Names
Do they offer domain name sales? This can help to consolidate your vendor costs. See about getting a discount on domains if you are buying in bulk on a monthly basis.
Branding You
Does the hosting provider offer branded support? As you grow, you will need to expand and see if the hosting provider will set you up with your own technician in your company name. Do they offer branded control panels and name servers? You need these tools to grow. Find out how easy it is to set these features up for your own account.
Scalable Discounts
If you are growing at a rapid rate, ask for better pricing and discounts. It is ok to ask. It’s even better when you get it and will
reduce your overhead.
Financial Overview
Is that particular company in the red of black? Do they have a good cash flow? How fast is the host growing and can they handle the growth? What are they doing to grow and maintain the customer service level you expect. Are they near a buy out or planning
Back End/Network Operations Centers
This is where your accounts are actually housed. Sometimes a hosting provider will lease a part of a larger network and sometimes a hosting provider will develop their own. It is important to find out what kinds and how many fiber optic connections the NOC has. Make sure there is plenty of redundancy built in. Make sure the NOC is managed 24/7, even on holidays. Make sure there are fire suppression systems in place. Last but not least, ask about security. Make sure there are plenty of security measure in place.
Customer Service
Are they friendly? Do they answer their telephones? Are you put on hold and if so, for how long? If you have to leave a message, do they respond quickly? Does the rep on the other end know what they are talking about? Look at their network page and see if they have reports of down time or issue statements about problems.
Technical Support
How long does it take to get questions answered and tasks performed. Send a test support message and gauge the response times. See if they offer 800 toll free support.
Ticketing Systems
Do they have a ticketing system that tracks performance times. This is key. If a hosting company has this, they are serious about improving internally.
Domain Names
Do they offer domain name sales? This can help to consolidate your vendor costs. See about getting a discount on domains if you are buying in bulk on a monthly basis.
Branding You
Does the hosting provider offer branded support? As you grow, you will need to expand and see if the hosting provider will set you up with your own technician in your company name. Do they offer branded control panels and name servers? You need these tools to grow. Find out how easy it is to set these features up for your own account.
Scalable Discounts
If you are growing at a rapid rate, ask for better pricing and discounts. It is ok to ask. It’s even better when you get it and will
reduce your overhead.
Financial Overview
Is that particular company in the red of black? Do they have a good cash flow? How fast is the host growing and can they handle the growth? What are they doing to grow and maintain the customer service level you expect. Are they near a buy out or planning
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What is VPS Hosting ?
VPS stands for 'Virtual Private Server', this type of hosting is in between shared hosting and a dedicated server hosting, VPS also uses the 'sharing' technology of shared hosting, but able to extend to limiting common resources like CPU and memory to each VPS account. Other than slicing the server resources, it offers a private root environment.
A shared hosting account owner can only access certain area in the server and generally have no authority to change / update system software. VPS hosting offer a lot more privacy and flexibility, basically a VPS hosting account is given a clean partition in the server with 'root' access to the given partition, VPS account owner can perform any root user function in the allocated partition, including installing any system software needed, and this will not interfere the rest of the VPS account residing on the same server.
This type of hosting is good for website owners that requires certain degree of control over the system software installation that is not possible in a shared hosting environment. Generally, users require some degree of technical knowledge on server management as support from web hosting provider is either not available or require extra fee to attend to certain support requests, this may be extra cost to the website owner if help is needed to do some system maintenance like reset the account to original state, debug or install certain piece of system software, it is important to check through the support level provided to ensure you are not left in the dark when you need help. Hosting fee is higher than shared hosting but slightly less than a dedicated server.
Reference by :http://www.dotservant.com/knowledgebase/webhosting/vpshosting.shtml
What is shared hosting ?
The word 'shared' says it all, this type of hosting basically offer a common pool of hosting resources environment where more than one website is setup to host in the same server, all of the website in the same server will be sharing the server resource. Each website can be given a limit of bandwidth, web space, database creation etc. depending on the shared hosting plan signed up, but the command resources like server CPU / Memory usage are shared among all the website hosting in the same server.
Shared hosting is the most commonly available type of hosting on the internet, and the hosting fee is generally low with lots of resources given for a hosting account that charges several dollars. However, you should be careful not to fall into a marketing trap for those huge shared hosting plans with low hosting fee, there are generally some degree of usage limitations stated in their Term of Use policy, and if you think over it, basically you are unlikely to reach the usage limit given due to the restrictions, the common limitations are :-
* restriction on hosting large files (note that multimedia files are always large and bandwidth hungry)
* daily bandwidth usage limit (suspend too active websites that is taking all the server bandwidth)
* restrict usage on certain type of scripts (suspend heavy scripts that is taking too much of CPU and memory)
Be sure to read through the Acceptable Use policy of your short listed shared hosting provider before signup, or send a pre-sales enquiry to ensure your type of website is acceptable on their server. You don't want to get your website suspended after spending all your advertising budget to drive traffic in because you have not checked the acceptable use policy.
* restriction on hosting large files (note that multimedia files are always large and bandwidth hungry)
* daily bandwidth usage limit (suspend too active websites that is taking all the server bandwidth)
* restrict usage on certain type of scripts (suspend heavy scripts that is taking too much of CPU and memory)
Be sure to read through the Acceptable Use policy of your short listed shared hosting provider before signup, or send a pre-sales enquiry to ensure your type of website is acceptable on their server. You don't want to get your website suspended after spending all your advertising budget to drive traffic in because you have not checked the acceptable use policy.
Generally, if you are not a very technical person and just starting on website development, you can consider shared hosting for the start, and slowly move up as your website requires more hosting resources. The reason being is managing a web hosting server requires technical knowledge on server management, choose a good web host for yourself and let this be done by your shared web host, free yourself out from these technical issues so that you can spend your time on building a good solid website.
What is Managed Hosting ?
Similar to dedicate server hosting, managed hosting service is on a per server rental basis type of hosting too, but slightly differ from general dedicated hosting services by offering partial to full server support to the client. Extra support services like attending to your server software issues for you, monitor your server services to keep them available at all times and attend to any server problems on your behalf are available in managed hosting service.
Basically, managed hosting provider will be monitoring your server for you like a normal technical personnel you have hired to maintain your server, this level of support is generally not available in lower end dedicated server hosting service.
Hosting fee is higher than dedicated hosting and co-location hosting as major portion of the hosting fee goes to the higher level of support provided. There is a note to be taken, be sure to check thoroughly the support level provided of your short-listed web host, there are partial managed hosting and full managed hosting service, which means certain web host offering partial managed hosting may have listed certain type of support requests to be extra chargeable on top of the hosting fee.
What is dedicated server hosting ?
Dedicated server hosting generally refer to renting a whole complete server solely for your own use, no one else will be sharing the server resources and you have full control over the server. In most dedicated hosting services, you are expected to manage the server on your own, dedicated hosting provider will generally have a list of support services that require a fee to be charged if you need such service from the provider, responsibility of a dedicated hosting provider is to provide a functioning server hardware and maintain the network connections, software issues in your rented server is expected to be maintain on your own.
You will need to have advance level of server management skill to handle a dedicated server. Web hosting provider will be replace faulty server hardware for your rented server at their expenses in case of hardware failure.
Hosting fee is much higher than a shared hosting or VPS hosting, and there are different rates depend on the type of server specification you are renting, type of software installed (i.e. windows, Linux etc.) as certain software requires license fee (i.e. windows, coldfusion etc.) and hosting fee for this type of server is generally higher than those with open source software (i.e Linux, PHP, MySQL etc.).
Web Hosting E-Commerce
If you are selling a product or a service, e-commerce might be a smart way to do business.
Internet E-Commerce
E-Commerce is about selling products or services over the Internet.
E-Commerce Systems
It is not a very good idea to build your own e-commerce system. Building an e-commerce system is a complicated process, with the potential for a lot of errors.
You might buy a ready-to-use system and run it on your own server. Many systems are available on the market today, and most of them will cover your basic needs for order management and processing. But again, if you are not familiar with hosting your own web site, starting with an e-commerce site is not the right thing.
The best solution, in our opinion, is to find an ISP that offers an e-commerce solution.
E-Commerce and Hosting Providers
E-commerce covers a huge range of products. With different ISPs you will find anything from very simple to very complex solutions.
Most ISPs offer a simple and inexpensive solution, that allow you to run a "virtual store".
Your Checklist
- How does it handle customers?
- How does it handle product catalogs?
- How does it handle orders?
- How does it handle inventory?
- How does it handle back orders?
- How does it handle shipment?
- How does it handle accounts?
- How does it handle billing?
- How does it handle payment?
- How does it handle foreign currency?
- How does it handle credit cards?
- How does it handle taxes?
- How does it handle security?
- How does it handle integrity (encryption)?
Also check if the most time-consuming tasks are automated. Look for automated billing, invoice handling, accounting, and report generation.
Before you sign up with an ISP, surf some other e-commerce sites on their servers. Find out how it works. Try some shopping, and see if you get a good feeling. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.
Tax Issues
Taxes is a complex issue for on-line stores. Especially VAT (Value Added Tax).
If you are selling on-line, you will most likely be in the export business.
Exporting goods may not be the subject of VAT in your country, but often your customers will have to pay their local VAT when they pick up the goods.
In addition, there will be the issue of income tax for your shop, depending on how you report your income from sales.
Before starting an on-line store, be sure to consult a tax adviser.
Web Hosting Types
Hosting can be FREE, SHARED or DEDICATED.
Free Hosting
Some ISPs offer free web hosting.
Free web hosting is best suited for small sites with low traffic, like personal sites. It is not recommended for high traffic or for real business. Technical support is often limited, and technical options are few.
Very often you cannot use your own domain name at a free site. You have to use a name provided by your host like http://www.freesite.com/users/~yoursite.htm. This is hard to type, hard to remember, and not very professional.
| Good: | Bad: |
|---|---|
| Low cost. It's free. | No domain names. |
| Good for family, hobby or personal sites. | Few, limited, or no software options. |
| Free email is often an option. | Limited security options. |
| Limited or no database support. | |
| Limited technical support. |
Shared (Virtual) Hosting
Shared hosting is very cost effective.
With shared hosting, your web site gets its own domain name, and is hosted on a powerful server along with maybe 100 other web sites.
Shared solutions often offer multiple software solutions like e-mail, database, and different editing options. Technical support tends to be good.
| Good: | Bad: |
|---|---|
| Low cost. Cost is shared with others. | Reduced security due to many sites on one server. |
| Good for small business and average traffic. | Restrictions on traffic volume. |
| Multiple software options. | Restricted database support. |
| Own domain name. | Restricted software support. |
| Good support |
Dedicated Hosting
With dedicated hosting, your web site is hosted on a dedicated server.
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option. This option is best suited for large web sites with high traffic, and web sites that use special software.
You should expect dedicated hosting to be very powerful and secure, with almost unlimited software solutions.
| Good: | Bad: |
|---|---|
| Good for large business. | Expensive. |
| Good for high traffic. | Requires higher skills. |
| Multiple domain names. | |
| Powerful email solutions. | |
| Powerful database support. | |
| Strong (unlimited) software support. |
Collocated Hosting
Collocation means "co-location". Collocated hosting lets you place your own web server on the premises (locations) of a service provider.
This is pretty much the same as running your own server in your own office, only that it is located at a place better designed for it.
Most likely an ISP will have dedicated resources like high-security against fire and vandalism, regulated backup power, dedicated Internet connections and more.
| Good: | Bad: |
|---|---|
| High bandwidth. | Expensive. |
| High up-time. | Requires higher skills. |
| High security. | Harder to configure and debug. |
| Unlimited software options. |
Your Checklist
Before you choose your web host, make sure that:
- The hosting type suits your needs
- The hosting type is cost effective
- Upgrading to a better server is possible
- If needed, upgrading to a dedicated server is possible
Before you sign up with an ISP, surf some other web sites on their servers, and try to get a good feeling about their network speed. Also compare the other sites against yours, to see if it looks like you have the same needs. Contacting some of the other customers is also a valuable option.
Example: eUKhost
eUKhost is a leading web hosting company in the United Kingdom.
eUKhost offers services including:
- Shared Hosting
- Reseller Hosting
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Servers
- 24/7/365 Support
on Linux and Windows platforms, powered by control panels such as cPanel/WHM, Plesk and DotNetPanel.
An account can be setup within a few minutes.
Web Hosting Database Technologies
MS SQL Server or Oracle for high traffic database-driven web sites.
MySQL for low-cost database-access.
MS Access for low traffic web sites.
Web Databases
If your web site needs to update large quantities of information via the web, you will need a database to store your information.
There are many different database systems available for web hosting. The most common are MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, and MS Access.
Using the SQL Language
SQL is the language for accessing databases.
If you want your web site to be able to store and retrieve data from a database, your web server should have access to a database-system that uses the SQL language.
If you want to learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.
SQL Server
Microsoft's SQL Server is a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
SQL Server is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.
Oracle
Oracle is also a popular database software for database-driven web sites with high traffic.
Oracle is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.
MySQL
MySQL is also a popular database software for web sites.
MySQL is a very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system.
MySQL is an inexpensive alternative to the expensive Microsoft and Oracle solutions.
Access
When a web site requires only a simple database, Microsoft Access can be a solution.
Access is not well suited for very high-traffic, and not as powerful as MySQL, SQL Server, or Oracle.
Web Hosting Technologies
This section describes some of the most common hosting technologies.
Windows Hosting
Windows hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Windows operating system.
You should choose Windows hosting if you plan to use ASP (Active Server Pages) as server scripting, or if you plan to use a database like Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server. Windows hosting is also the best choice if you plan to develop your web site using Microsoft Front Page.
Unix Hosting
Unix hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Unix operating system.
Unix was the first (original) web server operating system, and it is known for being reliable and stable. Often less expensive than Windows.
Linux Hosting
Linux hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Linux operating system.
CGI
CGI scripts are executables that will execute on the server to produce dynamic and interactive web pages.
Most ISPs offer some kind of CGI capabilities. ISPs often offer preinstalled, ready to run, guest-books, page-counters, and chat-forums solutions in CGI.
CGI is most common on Unix or Linux servers.
ASP - Active Server Pages
ASP is a server-side scripting technology developed by Microsoft.
With ASP you can create dynamic web pages by putting script code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser. Both VBScript and JavaScript can be used.
ASP is a standard component in Windows 95,98, 2000, and XP. It can be activated on all computers running Windows.
If you want to learn more about ASP, please visit our ASP tutorial.
PHP
PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP.
PHP is perfectly suited for Web development, and can be embedded directly into the HTML code.
The PHP syntax is very similar to Perl and C.
PHP is often used together with Apache (web server) on various operating systems. It also supports ISAPI and can be used with Microsoft's IIS on Windows.
PHP supports many databases, such as MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.
If you want to learn more about PHP, please visit our PHP tutorial.
JSP
JSP is a server-side technology much like ASP, developed by Sun.
With JSP you can create dynamic web pages by putting Java code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser.
Since JSP uses Java, the technology is not restricted to any server-specific platform.
Cold Fusion
Cold Fusion is another server-side scripting language used to develop dynamic web pages.
Cold Fusion is developed by Adobe.
Chili!Soft ASP
Microsoft's ASP technology runs only on Windows platforms.
However, Chili!Soft ASP is a software product that allows ASP to run on UNIX and some other platforms.
Microsoft FrontPage
FrontPage is a website design tool developed by Microsoft.
FrontPage allows users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Most Windows hosting solutions support FrontPage server extensions for users that use FrontPage to develop their web site.
If you plan to use FrontPage, you should look for a Windows hosting solution.
Adobe Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is a website design tool owned by Adobe Systems.
Dreamweaver allow users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Dreamweaver has support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.
Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems.
Secure Server
A secure server can transmit data encrypted.
If you plan to do online creditcard transactions, or other types of web communication that needs to be protected against unauthorized access, your ISP must provide a secure server.
Web Hosting E-mail Services
Hosting services should include e-mail accounts and e-mail services.
E-mail Accounts
Hosting solutions should include e-mail accounts for each person in your company.
E-mail addresses should appear something like this:
john@mycompany.com
john.doe@mycompany.com
jdoe@mycompany.com
POP E-mail
POP stands for Post Office Protocol. POP is a standard client/server protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received and held on your internet server until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.
IMAP Email
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is another standard protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received, and held on your internet server, until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.
IMAP represents an improvement over POP because e-mail stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from several computers (a computer at home, a workstation at the office, etc.), without having to transfer messages back and forth between computers. POP was designed to support e-mail access on one single computer.
Web-based E-mail
Web-based e-mail services enable you to access your e-mail via a web browser. You log into your e-mail account via the Web to send and retrieve e-mail. Being able to access your e-mail from any browser anywhere in the world is a very attractive option.
Examples of web-based e-mail services are Gmail and Hotmail.
E-mail Forwarding
E-mail forwarding allows you to have multiple e-mail personalities.
With e-mail forwarding, you can setup aliases for other e-mail accounts like:
postmaster@mycompany.com should be forwarded to peter@mycompany.com
sales@mycompany.com should be forwarded to mary@mycompany.com
Mailing Lists
Some service providers offer mailing list capabilities. This is valuable if you plan to send out e-mails to a large number of users.
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