A to Z of Web Hosting

What is Web hosting?

A website is a combination of name address and physical data storage. Domain is the name address and physical house for any domain is a web hosting. A web hosting is basically a disk or cloud-based data storage system. A host stores pages of a website and makes them available to computers that are connected to the internet. A domain name is an IP (Internet Protocol), which is the numerical address and difficult to remember. An alphabetic name is easy to remember and that’s why domain names are often masked with the alphabetic name.

How does a web hosting service work?

Hosting is actually a collection of storage drive (SATA or SSD), manage, control, integrate with a database management application program interface (API). For example, Apache HTTP, Nginx, Caddy etc. Words on hosting will not clear out confusions, a visual will help it better. So here is a physical architecture diagram of a functional hosting. Web hosting is a space provider for web pages, documents, images, applications, database. The term “web hosting” refers to a third-party company that lease their computer or servers to the customer and provide Internet connectivity so that other users can access to the files on that website.

Classification of hosting services:

• Shared hosting
• Dedicated hosting
• Virtual hosting
• Reseller hosting
• Managed hosting
• Colocation hosting
• Cloud hosting
• Clustered hosting
• Home server

Shared hosting

Shared hosting: Shared hosting services are as they named. In a single space, there are multiple blocks for multiple users (domains). They are often low cost-oriented and easy to operate.

Dedicated hosting

Dedicated hosting: In a single space only one user hosts a site. Dedicated hosting is costly due to its single-user direction. It is much more complex than others hosting. Application program interface (API), database, and physical disks space etc. all things need to manage and customizable by a user.

Virtual hosting

Virtual hosting: Virtual hosting services are consisting of a single or multiple server pools. For that, Virtual servers can share resources like physical memory, processor cycles, storage, etc.

Reseller hosting

Reseller hosting: As it is sound, reseller hosting services are third-party hosting services. Where a buyer purchases a stock of hosting and resell to other users.

Managed hosting

Managed hosting: Managed to host services are likely the same as dedicated hosting except in managed hosting, a hosting firm maintain all the systems on behalf of a customer.

Colocation hosting

Colocation Hosting: Colocation hosting or colo, is a data hosting service where a firm can rent space, hardware. Buildings, power, bandwidth, security, devices all necessary things are provided by a colo firm.

Cloud hosting

Cloud hosting: A multiple connected servers forms an interconnected networking data exchange system. For that data, access becomes more remote. A cloud hosting is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Clustered hosting

Clustered hosting: Multiple spread objective- oriented servers (physical drives or nodes) forms a clustered hosting. In a clustered hosting different types of servers are separated by their objectivity, for that availability increases, and change of classing reduces.

Home server

Home server: A home server is a privet hosting within a single machine. For example, an e-sports local tournament moderator is privet hosting. Where one- person host tournaments with a privet pc, maintains schedules and rankings.

Some features of Best hosting services:

There are tons of hosting available in the market today. But not all of those are the best hosting service for customers. Any best hosting services need to obtain some features which will solely increase customer satisfaction. A few criteria of the best hosting service are given below.

• Amount of data space: The primary concern with hosting is how much data space is available within an affordable price range. Generally, 500 MB to 50 GB space available for personal websites. And for commercial custom options are widely available. ADN Server’s “Dedicated Server DS4 with 1 TB space” is one of the best hosting services for commercial use.
• The total amount of bandwidth: Bandwidth is a total number of uploads and downloads within a given time, generally monthly. Bandwidth is another prime factor when it comes to select the best web hosting service. A poor bandwidth leads to slow response time, which will drive customers out of a particular site.
• Subdomains: Subdomains are domain under a main registered domain. How many subdomain names are available under a specific hosting that is an important factor before choosing the best hosting service. A personal website one to two subdomains, where a business might want ten subdomains depending on the business.
• Webmail: Webmail is another factor before seeking for best hosting service. A total number of mail address, availability of sending and receiving emails using the same domain name, webmail interface, etc. are factor which need to check out.
• Database: Database management system or DMS is another major stone before subscribing a plan. Type of database, DMS itself (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server,), database back up those are some criteria to help make a decision.
• CMS: Content management system or CMS is the framework by which a website performs its designs, modeling, process, and executions. The wide range of CMS offering and easy to install is the factor for the lookout. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal are few popular CMS.
• Responsive website: Now this day’s websites are browsing from diverse devices. Each device has its own screen proportion and its difficult to individually selecting them. So, responsiveness is another feature for consideration.
• Shell access: Access into a server via command line over SSH is a helpful thing for self- developers.
• Languages: Rubie on rail, python, php.net this is the popular language for the server system. The availability of diverse languages makes hosting services more market efficient.
• Backup: A hosting service provides backup for a client. But who frequent is it? That is the main question. Generally, daily, weekly, monthly backup service is common.
• Uptime: Uptime is the online availability of a website. A long-range of time online availability gathers a great number of traffic for the website.

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Security

The security of digital data is a major concern. A secure web hosting is not a single thing, rather it is consisting of several things individually. It is important to consider a number of security measures when it comes to secure web hosting.

• Firewalls: Firewall is an application layered network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffics based on given commands. Firewalls generally can block IP addresses, filter out unrecognized connections. A firewall is one of the major primary concern for secure web hosting.
• DDoS Protection: Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS is a traffic attack, where hackers flooded a network with a large number of incoming requests at a time. Which eventually led the site down. DDoS is an automated request. A secure web hosting service has a policy against DDoS to protect their customer.
• Anti- Virus: A secure web hosting uses anti-virus on their hosting computers to protect customers from malware, trojan horses, spyware, browser helper objects (BHOs) etc.
• Security Monitor: Although security software’s are important to protect but it is impossible to ensure 100% protection from attackers. For that reason, computer systems constantly analyzed data and networks.
• Spam Filter: Over flooded incoming email can cause the effect like DDoS. That’s why a secure web hosting depends on filtering incoming emails. Organizing email to specific criteria is email filtering and it is the second layer of security.
• HTTPS and SSL: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS and Secure Sockets Layer are communication protocol and cryptographic protocols respectively. HTTPS and SSL protect websites communications and SSL protects sensitive data by encrypting those. A secure web hosting includes those encryptions with their plans.
• Domain Name Privacy: Domain name privacy is an on-demand service. Basically, DNP hides all the actual information of a client and protects them from unwanted attention.

Successful case studies

GetSetLive:

GetSetLive is web service company founded in 2009. They faced a tough competitive market and they made it out with their strategy. Basically, they focused on marketing strategy to empower their business. For marketing, they used tools, such as

• Affiliate Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Blogs
• SEO and Guest Posting
• Personal relationship with clients
• Referral