Web hosting Information

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Webhosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation.

Types of hosting

Hosting services limited to the Web:

• Free web hosting service: is free, (sometimes) advertisement-supported web hosting, and is often limited when compared to paid hosting.
• Shared web hosting service: one's Web site is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.
• Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a provider. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server.
• Virtual Dedicated Server: dividing a server into virtual servers, where each user feels like they're on their own dedicated server, but they're actually sharing a server with many other users. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. This is also known as a virtual private server or VPS.
• Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.
• Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
• Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of the web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes.
• Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization.
• Grid hosting : this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
  

What should I consider when choosing a cheap web hosting account?

There are four basic items you should think about when selecting the right web hosting account:

• How large will your web site be? Estimate the number of pages your web site will have and their content. How many images, music files, video files or other content do you plan to add? The more pages and files, the more disk space you will require.
• How busy will your web site be? Estimate the number of customers who will visit your site on a busy day. The more people on your web site, the more data transfer you will require.
• How many email accounts will you need? You will probably want a separate email for each employee and a few addresses for things like sales@my-business.com or info@my-business.com.
• How important will your web site be to your business? Is it so critical that without a web site your business will fold, or is it more of a competitive advantage that increases your visibility in the market? The more people who use the site and the more it affects their decisions and actions, the more important a web site is to your business.