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What Types Of Hosting Are There?
Running a website necessitates the use of a server. The
website itself is hosted on this server, similar to a
powerful computer, and whenever a user opens your
website or downloads files from one of your pages the
server is called to return the appropriate page or the
proper file. The server is a hugely important aspect of
running a website and the proper care should always be
taken to ensure that you have access to a powerful
server providing you with all of the necessary needs. As
such, there are a wide variety of hosting accounts
available that fall into several categories.
Free Hosting
Free hosting is, quite simply, the wrong choice for a
business website. It is often the wrong choice for any
website because of the restrictions, potential poor
performance, and forced advertising.
The premise of free website hosting can be one of
several. It is possible to find paid hosting services
that offer a free package. This is a function and
feature limited version of a paid hosting account and
generally uses advertising to link to the website of the
host. Upgrades are generally readily available that will
remove the advertising and give you access to many of
the features that you have previously been missing.
If you are setting up a personal website that is not a
mission critical business website and that you don’t
intend to monetize through advertising then there is no
major reason not to choose free hosting. However, be
aware that because the service provider is offering the
hosting for free it means that they invariably do not
offer any kind of guarantees regarding network uptime or
any other matter. The amount of disk space, bandwidth,
emails, and functions are always limited with free
accounts.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the step up from free hosting and the
most popular option with hosts and with clients. Tens or
often hundreds of websites are hosted on a single
server. This allows the host to profit from selling
numerous packages on one machine and gives the client
the advantage of not having to serve forced
advertisements.
In many ways shared hosting offers the most from a
hosting plan, presuming you don’t receive masses of
traffic or your website isn’t excessively large. Because
of the amount of competition hosts find themselves
offering more and more in the way of features as well as
lower and lower prices in a bid to attract customers
away from their competition. Obviously, this means a
massive benefit to you as a hosting customer. Free
scripts and applications have become the norm, as have
dynamic elements that you can add to your site or use to
develop your site.
Shared hosting is available on both Windows and Unix
servers. Unix is the most popular because it offers
greater opportunity for development as well as reduced
costs. However, if you want to run any Windows based
applications on your website or on your server then you
will need to opt for the less competitive Windows server
packages.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is similar to
shared hosting in many ways. A number of websites are
hosted on one server but are partitioned accurately to
ensure that you don’t suffer at the hands of high risk
scripts or excessive bandwidth and disk space of other
websites. Usually the number of websites hosted on a
single machine is heavily restricted when compared to
shared hosting and it is not uncommon to see a single
server with ten or less VPS customers on.
Similar features and functions are offered with VPS when
compared to shared hosting as well and while it costs a
little more it does offer increased stability, greater
disk space and bandwidth, and greater flexibility
concerning what you can and can’t do with your account.
VPS hosting is relatively popular with hosting
suppliers, although there are only a limited number of
hosts that offer this service. If you find you have
reached the confines of a VPS hosting account it may not
be a simple process to upgrade and receive higher
bandwidth or disk space. In some cases it is necessary
for the host to change you to a different server.
Managed badly this can cause interruption to your
website.
Dedicated Server Hosting
Dedicated hosting is a powerful way to run your own
website and other Internet based applications. A
dedicated server is precisely that – a server that is
dedicated entirely to your website. You do not share the
server with any other websites but you pay a price
accordingly.
In essence clients lease a dedicated server from a host,
usually on an annual basis. The server is customized
according to your needs and then handed over to you with
the appropriate remote access and management
capabilities. It is uncommon to receive the array of
feature and functions that you would ordinarily receive
with shared hosting or with VPS hosting but you can add
and remove any software that you require or do not
require.
Dedicated servers offer all the usual benefits of
leasing as well. Regular maintenance is provided by the
host and once your annual lease term expires you have
the option to upgrade to a new, improved server. One
advantage that server leasing in this way offers to
standard leasing is that the server is usually kept in
the data center that belongs to the host. This massively
reduces the costs often associated with hosting your own
server on your own premises.
Managed Hosting
Dedicated server hosting is also referred to as
unmanaged dedicated hosting. This is because you, or
somebody you choose, are still responsible for server
administration and management. This is done via your
remote online access but if you do not have the
technical expertise or the financial resource to employ
somebody with that expertise this makes unmanaged
dedicated servers basically useless.
Managed hosting provides the advantages of dedicated
hosting but does not require you to administer or manage
your own server. Usually, managed hosting offers
complete management of the server. This includes the
installation and removal of software, administering of
your server software, upgrades, and routine maintenance.
This level of management can prevent your site from
facing forced downtime and can prevent any problems with
improper installation of software.
Because managed hosting is so powerful and offers many
advantages it is also one of the most expensive options.
If your site traffic or disk space requirements do not
require the use of an entire server then it will likely
prove cost ineffective to use this method.
Colocation Hosting
Data centers are extremely well equipped to look after
the performance and climate of a server. Kept in
anything less than perfectly optimized conditions a
server can suffer from repeated and extended periods of
downtime as well as general poor performance. Colocation
avoids these issues completely.
It is difficult to state what exactly is required from
you with collocation because each server hotel offers
different levels of managed service plans. Some offer a
reasonable level of management freely within the
agreement because this offers you the advantages of not
having to visit the data center for regular maintenance
and it also allows the data center to ensure integrity
and security.
Management level service plans do exist and while some
collocation centers demand that you use their service
plans others may allow authorized, regular access to one
of your technicians. Also be aware that it is possible
to “rent” an entire server room, an entire server rack,
a single shelf, or even a portion of a single shelf. In
most cases the data center owners will do what they can
to accommodate your needs in this respect.
Choosing A Hosting Plan To Suit You
It is obvious that different levels of hosting offer
varying advantages. Shared hosting is the most popular
by far because it generally offers as much disk space
and bandwidth as well as a good enough range of features
and support for the huge majority of websites. However,
more managed plans exist now because of the reduced
price of purchasing a server.
There is of course one option we haven’t included and
that is hosting your own server on your own premises. We
haven’t included this because it is not essentially a
hosting account. You are responsible for everything from
the purchase and the housing of the server to the
administration and even disposal of the server.
Your needs will dictate which option is best for you. We
strongly advise against the use of free hosting for
anything apart from very personal websites and web pages
that will not receive commercial traffic of any
description. If you have a traffic or memory intensive
website then you should consider VPS, dedicated, or
managed hosting and if you intend to run your own email
server, messenger server, and other application server
then look to managed or collocation hosting. |
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