Today, with a flood of websites, everyone in this planet will be aware of web hosting. If you haven’t heard of the word “web hosting”, then you are probably living in some other planet. That is the extent of the popularity of web hosting today. Everyone in this world knows that web hosting is a service where some space is rented in the web server to accommodate your website. This is only a basic definition of web hosting. Just keep reading on the article to go deep into web hosting and know the 3 most important terminologies used in modern web hosting.
1. The Server type
Two common server types used today fro web hosting are dedicated and shared servers. Both the types of web hosting have their own application. While shared servers are useful for small websites (cheap and sufficient for small websites with less visitors). As the name indicates, your websites will be accommodated in the servers along with some other websites too. The server space will be shared among several websites. On the other hand, the dedicated servers (where one server will be made available exclusively for one website) enable faster surfing experience for the visitors. The pricing of the dedicated server type web hosting will be higher when compared to the shared ones. People have a misconception that the shared web hosting will get a slow surfing experience. For the moment of truth, the shared web hosting option can also provide the same speed as the dedicated hosting provided the fact that you choose the best shared web hosting service provider.
2. Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a measure of data transferred through a website. The downloads, uploads and the page views in a website are measured as bandwidth. Most of the web hosting services providers limits the bandwidth allocated to a website. The website will be no longer functional once the data usage exceeds the bandwidth allocated to the particular website. Hence the bandwidth is one of the important factors to be considered while choosing the web hosting plan for your website.
3. Types of Operating system
Most of the today’s web servers are running on UNIX operating systems. One of the main advantages of UNIX operating systems is that they are open source. It means that the source codes of the UNIX operating systems are readily available for editing. UNIX operating systems have taken many forms today. Among the different forms of UNIX operating systems, Linux and BSD are the most popular ones.
Another very popular, renowned operating systems for web hosting is Windows. The windows based servers are well known for their user friendliness. However, the windows based servers are costly when compared to the UNIX based ones. Moreover, the windows servers are not open source. However, with the popularity of Microsoft and the user friendliness of the windows operating system, they are widely used by the web hosting service providers to day.
These are some of the must know terminologies of web hosting.
There are many web hosting companies available willing to host your website for various monthly fees. Most of these fees are based on bandwidth usage, storage usage and anything else they can think of to add on fees.
Each company offers similar packages which include add-ons like support for programming languages such as PHP, ASP, Perl, database support such as MySQL or even a shopping cart for those of you interested in selling items from your website. If you have a need there is probably a company able to meet it for you and if not you may have just found yourself a business opportunity.
Don’t want to to pay the fees? Then I have a possible solution for you and I say possible because it will take a little patience to set everything up but if you’re willing I’ll show you how to setup your own computer to host your webpage yourself for free. Well not actually free you will still have to pay for the electric and your time to set it up but pretty close to free.
In order for you computer to act as a server it needs to be setup like one. And this is How. Every computer running Windows probably has a built in server that just needs to be started but I prefer using Apache Web server. Don’t panic it is also free.
Many of you may have read or heard how difficult it is to setup Apache server on your computer and not to discount those unfortunate soles in any way but there is a much easier way to install Apache along with several other items that may come in handy as your knowledge increases. (MySql, PHP, phpMyAdmin, Filezilla FTP Server, and Mercury Mail Transport System). Now all of these additional programs are beyond the scope of this article but I wanted to at least mention them.
Sound scary? Take some deep breaths or maybe count to 10 because it’s really not that bad. Okay here we go!
Setting up the Apache Web Server On your computer!
Apache is an open source software that is free for everyone to use and the best place I�ve found for downloading the program is ApacheFriends.org.
Apache Friends have an installation package available for download that takes all the headaches out of the setup process and pretty much does it all for you. To get started click on the link below and download (based on your computer’s operating system) the right version of what is called ? XAMPP
They have a download for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris. I downloaded and setup the installation package for windows so there might be some differences between my version and the one you will need however there is instructions available for each platform.
To get the ball rolling create a folder on your C drive called x or maybe xampp. x is shorter and to the point so I’ll use that. Now we need to double click the xampp installation package that we previously downloaded. The program start and ask you to select your language, once selected click next and then you’ll be prompted to enter in the path or location of the folder we previously setup.( “c:\x”) then click next. Here you will be prompted to create an icon on the desktop etc.
At the bottom of this screen the software will provide options for installation. You can install either or all of Apache, MySQL, and Fileszilla. I selected all of them and then clicked install but you begin with only setting up Apache if you like. At this point you will see the software begin to install and once it’s finished you will receive a message stating “Installation Complete” and a popup box asking if you would like to start the Xampp Control Panel now? Click yes.
Xampp Control Panel should now open and if we look at it we can see that Apache has the word “Running” beside it. MySQL and Fileszilla will to if you installed them as well. If the word “Running” is not there you can click on the button labeled start beside each one to get them running.
Once these are running you should be able to open your web browser and type http: //localhost/xampp/splash.php to see a page that was created through the installation process. Feel free to explore the different information that is available by selecting your language.
Now your all setup and rolling right? Okay maybe not yet.Where do we put the web pages we have created?
If you navigate to your C: drive and then locate and open the folder we called x you will see several folders along with a number of files. For now we are going to be interested in the folder called “htdocs” this is where you will keep the index.htm or start page. If an index file already exists then rename it for now and then open up notepad and type the following.
THIS ACTUALLY WORKED!
Then save it as index.htm or index.html file. Now let’s try out our new web server by opening up your web browser and typing in http: //localhost/index.htm, http: //localhost/index.html or just type in http: //127.0.0.1 which is sort of an alis for your computers home ip address. If the words above in bold displays then it’s working and your all set.
Source: http://www.a1articles.com/
There are literally hundreds of thousands of web hosting companies out there. Many of these companies offer both Windows hosting and Linux hosting plans. Windows plans usually cost more because of the license costs imposed by Microsoft. Knowing this, how can you know when you need Windows hosting and when Linux hosting will work just as well or better? Keep reading to find out.
Windows operating systems are found on something like 95% of all personal computers in the world. With such a total dominance, Microsoft Windows is top of mind to most new people looking for web hosting.
In the web server world though, Windows based servers are behind less than 20% of all websites on the internet. This is according to the latest web server survey from Vpshostingsearch.com. By choosing a Linux hosting plan, you will find yourself in good company.
When do you have to use Windows Hosting?
1. .NET technologies including ASP.net are not available on Linux platforms. If you have a website built with Microsoft .NET technologies you will have to choose a Windows hosting plan. In fact, if you need ASP without .NET features, most Linux hosting plans do not offer support for it.
2. Access Databases are only available with a Windows hosting plan. Access runs on a Microsoft Windows platform and cannot run on a Linux Operating system.
3. MSSQL is an enterprise class database put out by Microsoft. If you need an enterprise class database there are some alternatives that run on a Linux platform but if you need Microsoft’s MSSQL database, a Windows hosting plan will have to be your choice.
4. If you are using Microsoft’s Sharepoint services like some of the Sharepoint features found in Frontpage 2003, a Windows Hosting plan is your only choice.
What is the advantage to choosing Linux Hosting?
All the major services you need to run an enterprise class website are available on Linux based systems for free. Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP are being used together to provide the infrastructure behind some of the most traffic intensive sites on the internet.
PHP runs better on a Linux server than on a Windows server. Having said that, unless you are putting a heavy load on your PHP scripts, this will not be noticable.
In general, Linux hosting plans are at least 20% cheaper than Windows hosting plans. If you don’t need any of the features mentioned above, Linux hosting is a fine choice for your needs.
For Microsoft specific technologies, Windows hosting plans are usually your best bet. For everthing else, Linux hosting plans will usually do quite well. With the cost savings usually found with Linux hosting plans, Linux hosting is usually the right choice for you.
Source: http://www.ezinearticles.com/
The abbreviation VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. Before going any further let us elucidate upon the term “server”. Simply speaking, a server refers to a computer system which plays the role of a host to different files or data and can provide access to many through the network. Thus, servers are an indispensable part of any organization, where simultaneously several computers are required to access common data, which ideally are stored in one location or server.
A virtual private server is the process of compartmentalizing a particular physical server into several servers in such a manner, that each server can run independently on its own private, dedicated machine. Let us now come to understand what is hosting service. Hosting service refers to those organizations which let out space on the server they own for use by their customers, and also provide internet connections.
Virtual private server hosting is a modern and greatly popular phenomenon in the world of web hosting services. It combines in the dual benefits of a dedicated server hosting at the economical cost of a shared server hosting. Technically there are wide ranges of VPS hosting services in the market including cPanel and Directadmin control panels, with the provision of instant set up and configuration according to individual needs. The services that the virtual private server hosting companies provide can be of three broad categories-Managed Hosting, Unmanaged Hosting and Unmetered Hosting. The last two categories of services offered are less expensive than the first one.
Coming to the first category of managed virtual private server hosting service, it has some unrivalled key features. These include round the clock, through out the year monitoring by a team of expert, certified system administrators and professionals. Other advantages include terrific networking speed of 120 plus gigabits, and provision of direct internet connectivity and telecom connections through AT&T, AboveNet, Savvis, Verio, Global Crossing, Level 3, and Time Warner Telecom.
The virtual private server hosting service enables one to host Internet or web hosting servers, superior quality radio servers, game servers, adult content servers and personal Unix®, Linux, Windows® servers. Internet access enables one to have a thorough research done in the field of VPS hosting services, weighing the pros and cons of all the competitors and getting the best deal in the market in terms of quality and price.
Source: http://www.ezinearticles.com/
One has resolute to acquire a reseller web hosting account to resell web space. What can be probably the step? Well it’s given as under-
1. Prefer the policy which one wants to put in application.
More open source software programs are based on Linux and not for Windows, this factor which makes Linux quite cheaper. While the majority of programs (Perl, PHP, Flash, etc.) run on both stands, a little will process on only Windows or Linux. Requirement of a Windows platform is must for a site that requires ASP or MS Access.
2. Select the control panel one wants to bring into play.
Control panels for websites can be categorized from basic to advance. As a reseller, one would also have a control panel for him/her to manage and command the hosting accounts.
In selecting the Hosting Automation Software, several panels are compared possessing excellent features for web host resellers.
3. Pick the right host.
One must choose the web host company after taking into consideration all the aspects -. Factors to keep in mind when choosing a web host for a reseller account:
The platform and control panel
Account features
The company’s status - quest for online reviews by customers
The verification of server uptime
The level of support - the gap between the asked support and the support actually provided especially time-sensitive ones?
Elasticity - does the web host have packages that can uplift one in the period of scarcity? Will they modify their steps in the rigid circumstances?
How much experienced is the web host- while an innovative web host probably be very effective, many web-hosting businesses do not survive even for 12 months
Price-one should check what he/she is getting for the price quoted.
Now coming up to Reseller hosting-
4. Set up of one’s own hosting strategy and fees
One should divide and should find out the ratio of bandwidth to disk space that one can put forward. Take into consideration any ratios that fluctuate due to difference in packages, and then one should base his/her packages on that ratio.
One should consider the prices prevailing in the market .However one should also take into account the additional facilities if provided by the host provider.
5. Build up a commercial site
One has three main alternatives for site development:
Crafting a website by putting in use an open website pattern
For crafting of site summon a designer or a design group.
If one is having good designing skills as well as techniques, then there is no harm for him/her to develop a site by his/her own.
There must be an ideal ethics in the information that clients deserve and want to know.
6. Build a site which is e-commerce geared up
To be in a condition of receiving payments for hosting accounts, one will have to set up:
An SSL permit
A trade account
An expense access
7. To set up a helpdesk
A helpdesk permits clients to remain in touch with their provider so as to get desired response of their queries.
8. To systemize billing
With automated billing system, it’s quite easy to register billing as well as to make payments to clients. There are several billing software licenses that are rated on monthly or yearly basis, Life span licenses are also given by some billing software companies at an offered amount.
Examples of some popular billing and payment processing systems:
WHM.Autopilot
Whois.Cart etc
When one chooses a billing software program, he/she must check if it’s friendly with his/her server platform and if support is integrated.
9. Generating a welcome email
One must send a welcome email to his/her client after setting up his/her own hosting accounts .The email should contain:
A confirmation of the plan details, name server names ,a username and temporary password ,a link to the control panel ,links to one’s own knowledge base / FAQ and to his/her own helpdesk etc.
10. Promoting a website
One must put forward his/her site to search engines. One must put his/her knowledge into the minds of his/her family, peers, and colleague’s .One should contain a link to it in one’s signature line in departing mails. However one must not stop here instead should promote his/her website through incoming links, marketing, newsletters, and unique offers.
Source: http://www.a1articles.com/