Web Hosting Information

How to Get Better Technical Support


Whenever you have a technical question that needs answering, you want that answer as fast as possible, right? In the instantaneous world of the internet, patience has become a rare commodity, and the time you spend unable to send or receive email or waiting for your website to come back online can mean lost revenue. If you want to get a timely response from your support technician, there are things you can do as a customer to speed up the process:

7 Key Ingredients for Rock Solid Website Hosting


Every website needs a great web host, however when you are looking online for a host you may be overwhelmed with the wide variety available ranging from absolutely free to relatively expensive. How do you know what you need and what is the best choice? The answer to this depends on your business and whether you will have a lot of business or none at all, however you always want to have more space than you think you will need as well as the following options for a great web host.

Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt1


Discover how to go about choosing a web hosting provider in ways that 99.5% of the advice on the Internet never mention.

UNIX vs. Windows- What Server Operating System Should You Use for Your Web Hosting?


So you?ve decided to create a website? The most obvious thing that you need is of course web hosting. Among other things, like cost and features, you?ll need to decide which server you?ll need: Windows (NT, 2000 or XP) or Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.).

Low Cost Web Hosting Services ? Dont Forget About Uptime


Once you have your company?s web site up and running, it is vital that you do everything possible to keep it that way. Nothing sets off alarms in a customer?s head faster than a non accessible web site or one that has features which do not work. A web site is literally your company?s window to the world and every aspect of the site; including the design, content, accessibility, ease of navigation, and uptime, says a lot about your company.

Multiple Website Hosting - Subdomains are the Answer!


Many business owners find themselves in a quandary over the ways to make the most of their company?s web site. This is especially true of those who have the need to maintain more than one web site but do not wish to pay for multiple hosting accounts. If this is you, a subdomain may be the answer.

Internet Domain Registration - Establishing and Transferring Your Domain Name


If you?re in business, one of the most important things to you may be your ability to establish an internet presence. Operating some type of functional web site for your business helps your customers find you, can present additional marketing opportunities through e-commerce, and offers advertising opportunities that you can not get elsewhere. Companies that do not have a web site lose business to companies that do all the time.

CGI Web Hosting ? 3 Essential Scripts for Your Business


If there?s one thing that people love it is a web site that has plenty of automated features. Sites that are highly interactive tend to get the most traffic and generate the most business for the companies that run them. Automated features can also play a ?behind the scenes? role, making your site easier to use, run smoothly and allow for things like online sales and password protection.

How to Choose a Web Hosting Company?


Nowadays, anybody can afford to order a feature-packed web hosting plan for next to nothing; however, affordable price is not the only criterion which should be considered when purchasing web hosting services. In this article, I'll explain the basics of what you should look for in choosing a web hosting company, not just concentrating on the best price and features, but also on reliability and honesty. You're investing your money and effort into finding paying customers and you wouldn't like to lose them in order to save a few dollars per month on a web hosting service.

Dedicated Server Price Check


The price of dedicated hosting services has really come down in the past couple of years. In fact, prices have dropped so much for the "budget dedicated server" market. While competitive conditions in both the hosting industry and the computer hardware industry have contributed to the reduction in dedicated hosting costs, don't think that prices were that inflated in the first place. Budget servers are fantastic but it takes more than a competitive market to offer services at such great prices. Much thanks to the great overbuilds of networks, data centers and computer hardware in the dot-com days, companies with a bit of buying power can acquire the hard-resources it takes to provide a good quality un-managed dedicated server for a great price. Finding a dedicated server for $199 a month or less these days is not that difficult. When shopping for your dedicated server, consider more than just price. Managed Services Before just lining up the amount of ram, the processor speed, the data transfer and the price ask yourself - what else can this company do for me that I need now, or may need down the road. While there are plenty that do it, a 1 person effort to maintain a mission critical or high traffic server is no easy task. It helps to have others helping look out for your interests as well. Check to see if your host provides managed services such as backups, monitoring, firewalls and intrusion detection. Sometime they may be included in the plan but nearly always can be negotiated in at a reasonable price and can be well worth the investment. Technical Support The level of support received with your dedicated services is important as well. Some dedicated hosts offer email only support in order to keep costs down while others flat out charge a fee for a support ticket. Your preferred method of receiving support plus the level and frequency in which you will need it should certainly be considered. The Quality of Your Network Most dedicated hosting providers these days have pretty substantial internet connectivity. Nonetheless, it is something you should be aware of. Look for a host that has redundant connectivity via multiple providers insuring as much connectivity uptime as possible. Some of the major connectivity providers these days are Sprint, UUNet, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest and Cogent. Summary A very cheap server deal does not simply mean you are dealing with an overly generous hosting company or that another provider is ripping you off at a higher rate. While some hosts do price more competitively than others, there are associates costs that must be covered. When shopping for your next dedicated server just keeps in mind you may not always be comparing apples to apples. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com

Dedicated Server vs. Co-location Web Hosting


So - you know shared hosting no longer cuts it, and your single office connection is not enough to host a web server - so which is best, leasing a dedicated server or buying your own server and co-locating it someone's data center? Difference For those that are unsure of the difference, here it is in a nutshell. When you co-locate, you are simply renting space within someone else's facility to store your own server or servers. It's like a high tech gym locker that you are renting all or part of to house your servers. You either ship or deliver your server to your provider. Additional services provided with co-location vary from host to host but it certainly won't include the actual server. With a dedicated server you are getting all the features of co-location, plus the actual web server itself. Which is better? While it certainly depends on your particular needs, and there are excellent situations for both the dedicated server option is quickly becoming a better choice in more and more cases. If you already own a web server, or cluster that you prefer to use, then obviously co-location may be your best choice. If you are considering buying new equipment and shipping it off for co-location - please reconsider. The prices and equipment available in dedicated hosting these days are outstanding plus relieve you of the burden of hardware. Most hosts keep identical spare parts on hand for the types of servers used and are quick to react if something fails. Depending on your arrangement with a colocation deal hardware failure could mean paying to have a server shipped back (or you drive to get it), having it fixed yourself then sending it back to the data center. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com

Managed Vs. Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting


"Unmanaged dedicated servers" - this is a pretty uninviting term to many, especially the non-gurus, but in most cases is not as "non-servicing" as it seems. In fact, I think someone one day soon, ( who knows maybe me ) will coin a new phrase to replace the term "unmanaged" - similar to how "used cars" is now "pre-owned" or how "apartment complexes" are now "rental communities". The truth is that unless you just picked a lousy provider or have unreasonable expectations, unmanaged hosting offers more service and support than most think. The Difference While exact definitions vary among providers, generally speaking managed hosting means your provider takes complete or near complete care of your server. This can include anything from basic system maintenance and patches to applications maintenance, security, monitoring, etc. Someone that needs dedicated hosting and wants to rely on their host for pretty much anything and everything regarding their server needs to strike a relationship with a managed service provider. Full blown managed services involve lots of skilled people hours. Not only that, since every managed customer is unique, it's hard for a managed provider to be overly systematic. For this - expect to pay a great deal more than today's budget server provider but if your needs demand it, and you choose a solid provider it should be money well spent. Unmanaged dedicated hosting obviously refers to dedicated servers with less, little or none of the skilled people support you'd expect to find in managed. You signup, you pay, and in a few minutes to a few hours you get a welcome email with IP address, login, FAQ's, etc. - Beyond that you are pretty much on your own. Relax - you are not really as own your own as it seems. First off, most unmanaged providers do in fact offer technical support, and most that we've seen is very good. If you choose unmanaged dedicated service you do need to have someone on your team that knows the technical side a good bit, but they don't necessarily have to be experts. While you may have to wait 12 - 24 hours or you may even have to pay extra for it, nearly all the unmanaged providers I know do have high level techs available to handle serious issues. In addition most providers give some sort of immediate reboot service. Unless you've been tinkering with some critical config files or have a hardware failure, a reboot can help with a range of issues. Lastly, unmanaged providers may not support you or whatever you put on your server after you move in, but they do stand by the hardware and software they sell you. If a hard drive crashes they are going to replace it for you (although you had better be doing your backups) and if your system crashes most will fix it for you. Summary The bottom line is if you've got mission critical needs and don't have the in-house staff to efficiently keep your servers performing the way they should, then you are going to need managed services. Even still it's a more cost effective route that hiring your own staff and most likely you will receive a higher, more consistent level of service. If your needs are more basic, and or you or your staff has the time and know-how to perform 75% - 80% of your server's maintenance then an affordable unmanaged service should do you just fine. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) Web Hosting


A Virtual Private Server (VPS), also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), provides the features of a dedicated server for multiple web hosting customers to share. At first instance it sounds contradictory, how can you have a dedicated server if it is being shared by multiple users? Isn't that a regular shared or virtual hosting environment? It is true that with a Virtual Private Server you still share system resources like the CPU and RAM with other users but the resources are allocated in such a way that you cannot tell that the system has anyone else on it, much like a dedicated server. So resources are usually setup in such a way that each hosting client is only allowed to use an allocated percent, meaning that resources assigned to you will always available to you. Advantages of Virtual Private Server (VPS) web hosting Most hosting customers would rather have complete control of their server environments. They don't want to be hosted on a server with tens or hundreds of other users, who could easily use up all the resources or cause the server environment to be unstable. But at the same time most websites don't need a dedicated server. The Virtual Private Server (VPS) alternative is a very attractive niche hosting solution for a fairly large chunk of web hosting clients who would like the stability of a dedicated server but on a smaller scale. With the resources setup in such a way that each person can only use what is allocated to them, your site will be more consistent because it will always have the same amount of access to the CPU, memory, and bandwidth. Virtual Private Servers are also more secure since even as you share the memory and CPU time, you are allocated your own file system. If a website on the server is hacked, the hackers will only have access to that particular file system and would not harm the other websites. A VPS is also much cheaper than a dedicated server. Disadvantages of Virtual Private Server (VPS) web hosting Now that you have read the pros of a VPS you are probably thinking that this is the best thing since sliced bread. Well, almost - as is the case with every other type of hosting service, not all providers setup or define Virtual Private Servers, also known as Virtual Dedicated Servers, the exact same way. You must make sure that your provider guarantees that their setup is robust enough to handle operations at a peak level. A trick used by many providers in the reselling and shared space is 'overselling'. What this means is selling more in terms of services than what physically available, with the hope that the end users wouldn't use up all the service that were advertised to them. In the realm of VPS this can be a bit more serious, since at least the expectation is that you are operating in a more robust environment and many clients could be running more intensive applications like message boards or custom web applications. A shortfall of resources could end up causing problems for everyone hosted on such a server, therefore negating the benefits of a VPS. In a shared or dedicated environment you might be able to access more resources during peak or spike periods but since the VPS environment limits you to to your slice of the server resources, it can be a drawback. As if the technology rich lingo of regular web hosting wasn't enough, the VPS services add a few new wrinkles. Apart from storage space and bandwidth you must also deal with CPU cycles and RAM. So you will see ads for hosting that might include *** MHz and *** MB RAM to go with the usual hosting related features. It is somewhat harder to figure out how much CPU time or RAM you might need, so seek out a hosting provider that will provide you with some benchmarks and the ability to upgrade or downgrade the VPS service if needed. Conclusion - Allows complete control of your virtual server and its resources - Allows you to run web applications without adversely affecting other clients - Flexible - cheaper than dedicated hosting, more expensive than shared Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com

Web Hosting Operating Systems Explained


A few time ago appeared a lot disagreements between opinions on the internet regarding, which is the best operating system for web hosting. There are people who hate windows, there are people who love FreeBSD and many others.

Useful Tips When Applying For A Web Host Provider


Once you have considered the design for your website and it is ready to be hosted, there are some matters to be considered when choosing the adequate web host:

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