Understanding Web HostingPosted by Tennant Horn on March 25th, 2021 You've got your brand-new business all established now and you're prepared to take the next step and set up an internet site to tell the internet that you're here and you've got something to offer. You've found a catchy domain name to call your own and now... what next? Well, the answer is that you should find web hosting for the web site you're going to build. Just what exactly does that mean and how do you figure out what kind of web hosting you will need? First let's start with the basics. Just what is web hosting anyway? In simple terms, web hosting is renting space on a web server. A website is not simply a domain name, this is a collection of files linked together by HTML code to show text and graphics on some type of computer. In order for anybody to see this collection of files you've created, it has to be housed on a computer somewhere that has usage of the internet. Not only any computer will do, needless to say. A web server is a computer setup with special software that allows it to receive requests from the web for the website files it has stored onto it also to send those files out online so the requesting computer can display them. It is very similar to a waiter in a restaurant taking your order and bringing the food that you ask for from the kitchen, hence the name "server." Along with making sure your files is seen by internet users around the world, a web server provides other important services as well. First and foremost is the ability to create email addresses based on your domain name also to send and receive email with them. The web server also has numerous kinds of software installed on it that allow your website to run programs, create and manage databases, display video, and many other functions you will probably find useful. Almost any type of computer can work as a web server, but it is the software that's on it that makes it a server. Once you buy webhosting, the monthly fee you pay goes to the continued maintenance and upgrading of the server's hardware and software, the cost of keeping it online round the clock, 7 days weekly in a secure data center with an easy and powerful internet connection, and to purchase the expertise of individuals who do all that work. It really is completely possible to turn your house or office computer right into a web server if you actually want to, but in most cases it is far more economical to pay someone else who is dedicated to providing this service in a properly reliable manner than it is to try and do it yourself. What kinds of website hosting are there? Shared Hosting - Most websites are not huge affairs with hundreds of pages and thousands of files and graphics, plus they are targeted toward a particular audience, so they will not get as many visitors because the large general sites like Yahoo! which are directed at everybody who uses the internet. As such, the average website therefore won't require the full resources of an entire web server to perform it. Web servers are made to have the ability to handle dozens, even hundreds of websites at once because they are powerful machines. Shared hosting is simply the concept of hosting several website on a particular server. Over 95% of all websites on the internet are being run in a shared enviroment environment. Since the sources of the server can be split among the clients hosted on it, so can the expenses of operating the server, so shared enviroment is universally cheaper than any other type. Shared hosting packages are usually designed in order that each client is allotted some each resource, with different payment levels representing different amounts of resources such as disk space, bandwidth, email addresses, and so on. Shared hosting is also referred to as virtual hosting. Dedicated Hosting - Should you choose have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and contains a tendency to hog resources, then you should have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to talk about the server with anyone else who could take action accidentally or deliberately to crash it. Renting the usage of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the device and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the net hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server. There is also any such thing as semi-dedicated hosting, when a web server is split between a very small number of clients, such as 2 to 4, with strong partitions between each to prevent them from interfering with one another. Since the hosting company continues to be responsible for the upkeep of the server, this type of hosting is also known as managed hosting. For obvious reasons, dedicated hosting always costs significantly more than shared hosting. Server Co-Location - If you really want complete control over every part of your web server, you might very well elect to buy one and keep maintaining it yourself when you have sufficient knowledge. However, chances are that you still don't have the resources to help keep your server completely safe from power outages, roof leaks, thieves, unwary employees and other hazards and keep it online on an easy, high-bandwidth connection always. You will need a data center to provide those services for you. Co-location is the rental of physical security, continuous electrical energy and a fast, reliable web connection for a server that you own. The data center is not responsible for any of the hardware or software maintenance of a co-located server, you are. This can be a cheaper option to dedicated hosting when you have the necessary expertise and time and energy to run a web server yourself. Some web hosts are providing UNIX hosting and Windows hosting. What's the difference? The terms UNIX hosting and Windows hosting refer to the operating system (OS) that is running on the server. Valheim operating-system, of course, is the software that allows the computer to operate and manage all the other hardware and software that's installed on it. Chances are good that you are scanning this on a computer running a version of the Windows operating system, the most popular operating-system on the planet for personal and business computers. Other operating systems that are growing in popularity are Macintosh and various versions of Linux. However, the operating system you use on your computer is irrelevant to which type of hosting you choose. Below are a few of the main top features of UNIX and Windows: UNIX Hosting The majority of the web servers nowadays run on one of the numerous variants of UNIX. The UNIX operating system was originally developed by universities for servers and networking, and several different versions have been compiled by programmers around the world under the open-source protocol, meaning that the code for the operating-system is openly available for programmers to customize and make improvements. Linux and BSD will be the most popular types of UNIX and come in many varieties, such as for example Red Hat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD. Most of these different versions (and far of the software that runs on them) can be obtained for free, which makes UNIX hosting cheaper for a hosting company than other operating systems and allows them to offer lower prices. UNIX hosting platforms are usually regarded as stable, secure, powerful and fast. Most web programming applications can be performed by software that's available for a UNIX platform. "UNIX hosting" has turned into a generic term to refer to any platform that is produced from the original UNIX. Windows Hosting Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows operating system, Windows Server 2003. This is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the cost of operation for the net host and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows was created to be user friendly, nonetheless it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages which will only operate on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. They are popular for several web programming applications, and if you are planning on with them to build your website, you need to find a Windows host. What are some of the terms I need to know when I choose a web host? Disk Space or Storage - Because your site is a collection of files being offered on the net for viewing, they need to be stored somewhere for retrieval and use up space. Each web server includes a finite amount of hard disk drive memory to divide up and provide to hosting customers. Typically that space is divided up by different package levels in order that the more you pay, the more space you're allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you prefer on the web server's hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you need to purchase more disk space from the net host. Bandwidth or Data Transfer - Once you visit a website and view a full page, you are transferring a copy of the files that make up that page online from the net server to your personal computer. If the page you're viewing includes an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, you then have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because this is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the web host has to obtain its internet service provider, so that it too is divided up and wanted to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are often measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only 1 copy of your files needs to be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies could be downloaded for viewing. If your site is viewed more times compared to the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your site may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you might simply be billed for the excess amount used, based on your host's policies. It is possible to always purchase more bandwidth as your site's traffic increases. Uptime - Within an ideal world, every web server would be ready to go and offering your web pages to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to make them fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. Whenever a web host offers you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will be ready to go for 99% of the billing period. If they neglect to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money based on the quantity of excess downtime they experienced. Traffic Statistics - Web site traffic statistics programs make an effort to track visitors to your website. They can track how many times your site was visited, how many visitors were unique and how many returned more than once, which pages were hottest, where the visitors came to your site from, what search terms they used in the search engines, and many other styles of information which could be useful to you in marketing your website to a target audience. These statistics could be displayed in tables, graphs and charts by hour, day, week, month or year. Some statistics programs are better than others and offer more forms of data, better displays, easier navigation or other useful features. Most web hosts today offer some type of traffic statistics software with their hosting packages. CGI Scripts - Many web hosts provide a variety of free CGI scripts making use of their packages. These are things such as hit counters, guestbooks, form mail programs, community forums, along with other programs that allow your site to perform commonly desired functions. You should use the ones your host offers you or you can upload and run custom CGI scripts written by yourself or somebody else to perform different tasks like conducting a survey or processing customer information to create an automatic price quote. Most CGI scripts are written in common programming languages like Perl, PHP or ASP.Like it? Share it! |