Which Type of Web Hosting is Right for You?
By: David O Connell
When is comes to web hosting, you have many options to choose from. Depending on the type of website you want to build, you can choose from free web hosting, standard web hosting, shared web hosting, dedicated web hosting, or co-location web hosting. For those who are unfamiliar with some of these options, deciding which host to choose can be daunting and time consuming.
Free Web Hosting If you want to create a personal web page or a small website for non-business use, then free web hosting is a good option. Instead of paying monthly fees, you agree to allow the service to post online ads on your site. While you have no control over the types of ads, free web hosting is an option for those who have a small budget or those who want to test their website first before investing money in a more expensive web host service.
Standard Web Hosting Most web hosting services that cater to small and medium businesses fall into this category. Unlike free web hosts, you will have to pay a start-up fee and a monthly fee to use the services provided by the host. There is a wide array of features available through these types of web hosts. Common features include: · Website creation tools · Reports and website statistics · 100 or more email addresses · Free domain name · Varying amounts of disk space, file storage and bandwidth · Access to multiple scripts · Ability to manage your site through a control panel When researching standard web hosts, look carefully at what they have to offer. Some offer different monthly packages that contain more features than others.
Dedicated Web Hosting If you don't want to share a server with other websites, you can choose a dedicated web hosting service or a web host that provides these types of options. While this will cost more each month, you will have more control over the server. This means you can schedule maintenance, upgrades and other events at your convenience.
Shared Web Hosting Even though most websites that rely on standard web hosting services are stored on shared servers, many web hosting services offer 'shared web hosting', which means you will only share a server machine with one or two other subscribers instead of hundreds. If you're looking for a way to reduce your risk of cyber theft or hacking, sharing a server with as few subscribers as possible can help. This service will cost more than standard web hosting.
Co-location Co-location is similar to dedicated web hosting, except you only pay for an Internet connection and storage for your equipment. You will be responsible for purchasing and maintaining a server machine. For those who want to have complete control over their business, co-location is the best option available. There are two types of co-location, managed and unmanaged. If your company lacks an IT department, you can turn over management responsibilities to the web host. If your company has an IT department, then you will just have to pay for the Internet connection and the storage costs.
Before you choose a web host you should take into consideration what type of web hosting you will require for your business. The type of web hosting offered is just as important as the quality of your chosen web host.
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Failover hosting explained
By: Lalit Manjrekar
Whether you use a shared server hosting or a dedicated hosting plan, your web site along with all the files associated with it reside on a single server. Therefore, in case of a problem on the server, your web site may experience outages. Web hosts generally have the technology and the backup to ensure that these outages never occur. However, in case your business requires 100% Web performance, then a failover hosting is your best bet.
Unlike in a shared server hosting service, in failover hosting, your web site and all the files associated with it are available on a number of servers. Since identical copies of your account are maintained across multiple enterprise class servers, you can be sure that your outage time will be minimal. The moment there is a problem with your primary Web server, the secondary or tertiary server in the failover cluster will take over. The technology in the failover system will detect the problem and rectify it while the traffic to your web site is immediately is rerouted to the next server in the cluster. Each of these servers is a high end server.
Failover servers are highly recommended in the case of high end, resource hungry web sites. This technology races the reliability factor of your web site to levels that have not been witnessed before. Additionally, this technology also improves the performance of your web site since all the resources of a single server are not shared between websites. With the failover technology, any queries to a database are routed to a dedicated database. This maximizes the resources on the main web server. The resulting improvement in performance and speed is quite apparent in large websites.
If your data is time sensitive and if continual access to your web site is crucial to business, then a failover hosting system can provide you with the security, speed and performance you want. Obviously, the complicated system that is used in a failover hosting comes at a price. Because of the presence of multiple servers, failover hosting is slightly more expensive than traditional hosting services. But for people who are very serious about real-time performance and reliability, the advantage of a failover system is much more important than the cost factor involved.
Failover or failsafe hosting, as the name implies, is a cutting edge hosting technology that ensures minimal to zero downtime for web sites that are hosted on the system. This hosting plan is different from traditional shared server hosting plans.
The failover hosting system is most useful in cases of websites that need to ensure minimal outages.
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