Friday, June 3, 2011

Shared Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Web Hosting

Shared Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Web Hosting
By Matt Ewing


With the rapid advancement of internet services web hosting has become a much sought after activity as far as online businesses are concerned. A web hosting company provides you the space to 'host' either your personal homepage or your business profile and webpage. Using a web hosting company can prove very beneficial to you, as even your prospective employers might want to take a look at your personal thoughts and other details from your very own web page. Businesses too can be successfully expanded and consolidated over the internet by building great networks through your business website. For all of this to work, one must understand the importance of web hosting.

Paid hosting, free hosting, file web hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting and clustered hosting are some of the many types of web hosting. Choose among these available ones while selecting your web host which is appropriate for your demands and requirements.

Some common types of web hosting are mentioned below:

Shared hosting

In simple terms, this is a situation where a solitary server hosts and supports several web pages. This suits fledgling businesses perfectly who are unable to spend large to acquire dedicated servers and therefore does away with other expenses like maintaining a system administrator.

The shared web hosting provider, much like dedicated hosting, provides the customers a lot of features like management of server, backup of files, security updates, etc.

Web hosting is primarily done in two ways: the IP address based way and the name based way. In the IP address way, the host who has his own individual IP address provides each of the sites he hosts with their own SSL certificate, thereby endowing a sense of security to the websites. While for name based hosting, the various web sites hosted are provided with a single IP address which is to be used by all.

Using a shared host might come cheap, but it comes without the sense of security that is there in IP based hosting.

The incompatibility with relatively old browsers is one of the many disadvantages of the name based hosting system. A failure to send out requests carrying the host name will occur with a HTTP/1.0 browser without up gradation. Hand name based hosts cannot support HTPPS websites because they share the same digital certificates. It is virtually impossible to access if the Domain Name System (DNS) conks out any website hosted by a name based web host.

So keeping aside the cost benefits of a shared web hosting system, its lack of features like lower disk space and bandwidth, slow speed of the site due to many others using the same server, etc., clearly outweighs the cost benefit. A webmaster can have little control over things like the system software and the scripts. However, the silver lining is that if you don't use the website for extensive business purpose, and if you can adjust with the flaws of a shared web host, there is nothing better than that. However, you must be acquainted with Virtual Private Server [VPS] if you wish to have greater control over your website.

Virtual Private Server

The software of the divides it into many 'virtual machines' though it has a single server like a shared server. Each such VPS gets their own allotted RAM, disc space etc though the server's total resources are still shared by the various websites being hosted. Using the allocated resources, each operates completely independently.

Due to the fact that webmasters are allowed more freedom than a shared host, they can perform various operations by running a different operating system and having their unique script and software, which wouldn't affect other websites using the same server.

The root level access to the main server that you get in a VPS is virtually similar to the freedoms associated with dedicated servers. Only in case of a VPS you can install software of your choice, create accounts etc all at a comparatively lesser price than a dedicated server.

Because of the internal division of a VPS system, the sense of security is much greater than a shared hosting service. In the latter, all sites are at a risk if the main server is hacked into, but that is not the case in a VPS system.

As far as the division of the server is concerned, it usually occurs evenly with the total equal distribution of resources among the number of websites that are sharing the server. So, if there are 10 websites on a VPS server, everything starting from the disk space to the RAM is divided into 10 parts, with each website getting 10% of the whole.

Dedicated Web Hosting

As mentioned earlier, dedicated hosting is meant for huge concerns who wish to have sufficient control of the website in their hands. In this case, a website gets a single server for its individual capacity, thus giving webmasters total control of the website. Besides the software, all other factors like supervision of power, security, etc. is addresses by the web hosting company.

If your website requirements are large bandwidth, greater resources like disk space and if you are looking for a high quality, customized server, opting for a dedicated host seems to be the perfect solution. You can then choose a host of features for your website like operating system, settings, software and multi-media necessities. A dedicated hosting service is also the answer to all those who cannot afford to purchase a server of their own, but want similar services.

Your expenses can be saved up to 85% with a dedicated server. You may not have the financial resources and technical know-how to maintain, install and run your own IT staff but have a high traffic to your website. Then, if you can not pay for a network administrator, the programs will run everything smoothly and most of the other functions.

As you know that you are the only one using this server, a dedicated server thus offers 100% assurance and security to you. Downtime problems and security issues are also solved if there are no other sites on the server. Companies feel safer using a managed dedicated host providing additional data security. This is especially true for companies that have client databases and other important information up on their sites.

So while the costs of a shared host are less, they are never very secure and never so easily accessible as dedicated web hosts are. Using the latter might require you to shell out some extra expenses, but given that it gives you a very higher level of safety than a shared server makes the additional expenses worth incurring. For purposes of business growth, a dedicated server is a must!




About the Author:



Shared Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Web Hosting

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
My Simple Clean News powered by blogger.com
Blogerized By Zomskin Design by Blogger Templates Simple Clean