Thursday, February 4, 2010
What is web hosting?
Free Web Hosting
- Ads on Your Website – most free web host providers will put ads and/or banners on your website. There are several free web host providers that will not force ads on your website.
- Web Space - usually you’ll have about 250MB of web space. If you are planning to store photos or video files, you’ll run out of web space pretty fast.
- File Size Limitation – many free hosting providers limit your max website files size, usually it's about a half megabyte.
- Account Expiration – you may find your website unavailable after some period. Check what the default expiration time is.
- Hardware Limitation – if you have medium of higher traffic, free web provider can cut it by web server’s hardware limitations. For example: percentage of server's CPU and/or memory. But, if you have a few visitors per day, there is no reason to worry about it.
- FTP Access – it’s the easiest and quickest way to upload/download files from your website. Most free hosting providers don't have this option.
- First Year for Free – some of the paid hosting companies offer you first year for free, but you’ll need to supply a valid credit card. If you’ll cancel the service before the end of the first year, web host provider will charge your credit card.
- Technical Support - can be helpful if you have problems or questions. Unfortunately, most free web hosts either don't has technical support or won't respond to your applications. Some free web hosts have video tutorials and/or online documentation.
Important of the Web Hosting
Users access the websites on the internet by sending requests to the internet. The software used to make these requests is known as a web client. Most commonly used web client is a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape or Opera.
Why do you need web hosting?
Reasons for not hosting a website on your home computer:
1. Server and server software (web server, mail server, firewall, virus protection etc.) can be expensive.
2. The server needs a 24/7 high speed connection to the internet, which is relatively costly.
3. Setting up all the configurations including mail server, FTP server and DNS server can be complicated.
4. Server maintenance requires 24 hour support, special skills and knowledge.
Now-a-days web hosting is very cheap (usually starting from under $5/month) due to intense competition in the web hosting industry. There are free web hosting companies also, however, they are not recommended for professional or company websites. The free web hosts will recover their costs by showing ads on your website, and provides less flexibility in terms of having your own domain names and email addresses.
Web Hosting From Canada
UK WEB HOSTING :
How do I transfer my domain name?
The registrant should update the contact information through the sponsoring registrar. EnterSys cannot do this for you; you must do it through the registrar.
For Registrar-to-Registrar Transfers:
1. Obtain the authorization code from the current sponsoring registrar of the domain. Please consult the WHOIS to find out who the sponsoring registrar is.
2. After you receive your authorization code, supply it to the new (gaining) registrar.
3. The new (gaining) registrar should then initiate the transfer. Once initiated, the transfer will be completed in five 24-hour periods.
4. EnterSys advises that you change your auth code after a transfer. You can do this through your new registration.
Domain Transfers
You might be transferring to us to consolidate all your web services in one location or to simply take advantage of our convenient web hosting or Unlimited Free email plans. Either way, the transfer process depends on the registrar with whom you currently have your Domain Name registered.
Domain transfers are just $10 per domain name and we'll extend your subscription Free for one year. You can transfer any existing domain you have that has a .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz or .us extension
Domain Name Registrations Sri Lanka
We offer a full range of domain name services including registration, domain management, domain parking, web hosting, search engine submissions and E-marketing.
If you've already registered your domain elsewhere we offer domain transfers. Our prices are competitive and all our customers get access to our control panel and great support.Take advantage of Web Design Sri Lanka's outstanding services to establish your online presence.
Web Design and Web Hosting in Sri Lanka
Our forte is to take your requirement, apply our understanding of technical methodologies and propose simple, affordable, innovative & technical features that help you to achieve your goals - while taking into account commercial considerations & timeframe with high level of communication and support.
Businesses as well as users have become more dynamic and reactive in their thinking because of the Information Technology; they expect to see up-to-date information immediately and in very proper manner. By choosing Multimedia Solutions you get more than our programming and design work. You also get our years of experience and expertise, in developing an Application unique to your business needs.
In business since April 2003, Multimedia Solutions has worked in a RUP based (Rational Unified Process) methodology; our projects are completed in a structured manner with complete industry-standard documentation.
Dedicated Server of web Hosting
Having a dedicated server is a completely different from normal virtual (shared) hosting. The server is now fully yours - the entire hard disk and all the bandwidth allocated can be used as you want. There is no longer any CPU Usage restriction. If you need, you can use up 100% CPU utilization. You can put all your sites on this one server without having to worry about paying hosting fees for each site added.
But along with these new liberations come new responsibilities. Most important is to ensure that you server is always patched and up to date. There are new updates being constantly released, which if not applied to your server could let a hacker could gain inner access to your server.
Because management can be so difficult, there are usually two types of dedicated hosting offered:
- Unmanaged - your host will not help you maintain the server. Far more cheaper than managed dedicated, you should only opt for an unmanaged server if you are well versed with how a server functions. The server will be given to you either with a plain operating system installation or with a control panel installed. It is your duty to take care of all upgrades, patches, configuration, security, and fixing any problems. In such a situation, it might be worthwhile to hire a system administrator to ensure that your server is always in good condition
- Managed - your host will assist you in the upkeep of your server. This can be quite expensive, but for those without the technical skills it can be very helpful. By choosing to go with a managed dedicated server, the web host will help you with the above-mentioned administrator responsibilities. While more expensive, it will save you the headache of trying to get your server to work if there are any problems.
Dedicated servers come either as just plain installations (where only the operating system and basic services are installed) or with a control panel. The control panel lets you easily modify most server features from a web page. It should be noted that the control panel will have limitations, and will not provide access to everything.
It should be noted that with a dedicated server, even though you may be paying a set up fee, the server is usually owned by the company . you are only renting it for the time being.Bandwidth of Web Hosing
You need to realistically think of how much bandwidth your site will need. Unless your site has a lot of downloads or a large advertising push, it will be unlikely that you will need many gigabytes of transfer - 5 gigabytes should be enough. Any more, and you will just be paying extra for something to use. On that note though, you should be careful and make sure you always do have some extra bandwidth - many hosts charge $2.00 and more for every gigabyte of transfer you use extra. That can add up very quickly
Like most things, bandwidth is not created equally. There are varying degrees of performance delivered by carriers (the actual companies that provide the internet connection). One company may provide expensive, but super-fast connections while another could provide slow but cheap bandwidth. It is good to test it yourself by visiting the web host's page multiple times throughout the day to see how fast their response loads up. A slow loading website could be a sign of a slow and over-loaded internet connection.
Also like most things, internet connections can break. To ensure that your site does not go down, most hosts use multiple carriers for their internet connection. It is a good thing to look up a host's network of connection (usually found on its own or in the about section) and see that they have multiple connections. It is also important to note carriers designated as 'backup connections.' These carriers are only used when the primary connections go down. So while a web host might have a large network of internet connections, that does not matter if only a couple are actually being used.
Lastly, the size of the pipe should be noticed. The 'pipe' is the actual internet connection, and its size refers to the speed at which data is transferred. Just like a home connection can be 33.6k and 56k (which refers to the speed of the connection), internet connections are measured in Gig-E, OC3, DS3, and so forth. The faster the pipe, the more data it can handle, and thus usually the better it is.
Cheap Web Hosting
There are hosts that while offering cheap prices do back that up with excellent performance and service, but there are things to be noted:
- Look very closely to what is written in their terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policy (AUP) documents. Some hosts try to limit the activity of the customer through these two.
- Unlimited bandwidth or space. As explained on our scams page , offering either of those two as unlimited is not possible.
- The quality of bandwidth and the overall performance. Some hosts scrimp on these to give you cheaper prices. Do a self test - visit the host's website multiple times in a day to see that it remains fast loading.
- In general, Windows Hosting is more expensive than Unix hosting.
- Test out the support, and take a look over the online documentation. If you are paying less than $10 a month (which is roughly 30 cents a day), do not expect to receive an answer right after email the host. Many hosts now offer flash tutorials online which can be an excellent way to learn how a feature works.
Web Hosting Scams
Web Hosting Scams
In order to help you avoid getting scammed by the unscrupulous hosts that do exist, we have tried to put together the 'tricks' used by such companies to ensnare you:
- Unlimited bandwidth/space - it is simply impossible for a company to offer unlimited space or bandwidth to use. As hosting companies and their associated technologies are themselves limited (i.e. bandwidth or hard disk space), unlimited offerings are usually just an advertising gimmick. Often you will find clauses embedded deep within the company's terms of service contract that negate the unlimited offering. The clauses are usually arbitrary, such as excessive CPU usage will be grounds for account termination.
UnlimBand is a good resource to learn more.
- No Contact - some hosts simply make it impossible to contact them! Even getting an email address so that you can get a hold of them can be a chore. Many cheap hosts prefer to keep communication down.
- Long term contracts only - while cheaper plans may warrant an annual only plan, some hosts provide annual service exclusively. There is no guarantee that even though you have paid them for 12 months that you will get 12 months of service.
- Domain Registration not in your Name - some devious web hosts, while offering to register you domain for you, legally register the domain in their own name! This means that if you try switching hosts, you will lose the domain name - legally it is their posession, and you have no claim on it!
- No Money Back Guarantee - a host should fully satisfy your needs - if not, your money should be returned.
- Complicated uptime Guarantee - some hosts hide behind their TOS with complicated procedures such as the customer having to report the downtime for any downtime. Be careful of this.
Domains
There are two parts to a domain - the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension.
The most popular TLD is the .com extension - it is synonymous with online business. But due to its popularity, getting a good domain name with '.com' is hard - most have been bought and are not available.
Most TLDs have a meaning behind them - .EDUs are used by educational institutes, and .ORGs are supposed to be used by non-profit organizations. A domain with a TLD of 'co.uk' is very likely British-based. There are other TLDs too, such as .cc, .tv, and .tk. These are all associated with either a company or with a country.
Many hosts will register a domain for you if you do not have one (it must be available though). You need to be careful that the domain is registered in your name and not theirs. Also make sure that they are not overcharging - some hosts charge over twice the average.
Web Hosting Choice
Web Hosting Choice is a free research guide to help users choose the right web host for their personal or business website. Our focus is on providing a simple, easy to follow site to help users choose the best web hosting plan most suitable for a small site or for a large e-commerce website.
Obtaining Web hosting
A customer needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use. Such considerations include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software. A typical configuration for a Linux server is the LAMP platform: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. The webhosting client may want to have other services, such as email for their business domain, databases or multi-media services for streaming media. A customer may also choose Windows as the hosting platform. The customer still can choose from PHP, Perl, and Python but may also use ASP .Net or Classic ASP.
Web hosting packages often include a Web Content Management System, so the end-user doesn't have to worry about the more technical aspects. These Web Content Management systems are great for the average user, but for those who want more control over their website design, this feature may not be adequate. You can always use any content management system on your servers and modify them at your will. A few good examples include wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and mediawiki.
One may also search the Internet to find active webhosting message boards and forums that may provide feedback on what type of webhosting company may suit his/her needs.
Types of hosting
Free web hosting service:
offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid hosting.
Shared web hosting service:
one's website 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. The features available with this type of service can be quite extensive. 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 collocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
Virtual Dedicated Server:
also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to many VPSs relationship, however virtualisation may be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server.
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.
Cloud Hosting:
is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. Removing single-point of failures and allowing customers to pay for only what they use versus what they could use.
Clustered hosting:
having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered Servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting capability.
Grid hosting:
This form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
Home server:
usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user's connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. A common way to attain a reliable DNS hostname is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.
The scope of Web hosting
Single page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages. A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, and ASP.NET). These facilities allow the customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. For e-commerce, SSL is also highly recommended.
The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce). They are commonly used by larger companies to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company.