|
Web Hosting
Web
hosting is a service that provides individuals, organizations and users
with online systems for storing information, images, video, or any content
accessible via the Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a
server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet
connectivity, typically in a data centre. Web hosts can also provide data
centre space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own
to be located in their data centre.
Service Scope
The
scopes of provider services vary widely. The most basic is file keeping (or
Web page serving), where Web pages and other files can be uploaded via FTP
or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as
is" or with little processing. Many ISPs offer this service for free
to its subscribers. People can also obtain Web page provision from services
such as GeoCities or Yahoo!. Web page provision is typically free,
advertisement sponsored, or cheap.
Web
page provision is typically sufficient only for personal home pages. A
complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provide database
support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, 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 required. The host may also provide a Web interface (e.g. cPanel) 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 company.
Types of Account
Hosting can be split up into several general types:
Free
account: just about all the free web service available is extremely
limited when compared to a paid service. Free web hosts generally require
their own ads on your site, only allow web-based uploading and editing of
your site, and have very tight disk space and traffic limits. Still, most
people get their start via free web accounts..
Image:
providing only a few different formats of images. This type of account is often free and most require registrations. Most image hosts
allow hotlinking, so that you can upload images on their servers and not
waste space/bandwidth on yours.
Shared: one's Web site is placed on the same
machine as several hundred
other sites. A problem with another site on the server can bring all of
the sites down. A shared account also brings with it some restrictions
regarding what exactly can be done, although these restrictions are
nowhere near as restrictive as for free hosting.
Clustered: designed to eliminate the problems inherent with typical shared
service infrastructures, it offers the benefits of a dedicated machine, but
at affordable shared account prices. This service technology platform
provides customers with a “clustered” handling of security, load
balancing, and necessary Web site resources. Resources are virtualized
beyond the limits of one physical machine and dynamic load balancing
disperses traffic to ensure performance is optimal for all customer
accounts.
Reseller: designed for those who want to become Web
landlords themselves. One
gets a large amount of space and bandwidth that can be divided up among as
many sites as the user wants to put on his account. A reseller account is
placed on the same machine with other reseller accounts, just like with
shared providers but there are fewer accounts.
Virtual
Private Server (or Virtual Dedicated Server) provision: Virtual Private
machine technology enables one physical machine to house several Virtual
Environments which behave exactly like an isolated stand-alone machine.
This is often a much more affordable solution than a dedicated server,
normally offering all the same benefits, such as root access.
Dedicated:
with dedicated provision, one gets a server of one's own. They have
no restrictions, except for those designed to maintain the integrity of
the Web host's network (for instance, banning sites with adult content due
to the increase risk of attack by hackers and grey legal issues for the
ISP). Unless a separate plan is purchased from the host, the user is also
generally on his own. This can be an expensive proposition, as the
purchase of the dedicated server itself is generally far more expensive
compared to shared provision.
Colocated:
this involves a machine the user purchases himself and installs at
the host's data center. Besides unmonitored reboots, the user must pay
extra for many services the dedicated facility provides by default. Colocated
hosting is generally chosen by people with administration
experience and those with more significant needs than which can be
satisfied by dedicated or shared account. This is usually the most
expensive and least cost effective option if you are not colocating many
machines.
Obtaining hosting
Web provision is often provided as part of a general Internet access plan;
there are many free and paid providers offering these services. The free
services generally have restrictions on how the space can be used,
including but not limited to: advertising, bandwidth restrictions, and
programs that can be used to edit sites.
Businesses
are generally restricted to using a paid Web host to host their site on.
Paid Web hosts usually provide many more features, including 24/7 support
and personalized assistance. Sites hosted on paid Web hosts also tend to
load more quickly since each machine hosts fewer sites, giving each site a
larger proportion of resources.
A
customer also needs to evaluate the requirements of the application. Such
considerations include database server software, scripting software, and
operating system. Active Server Pages (ASP) web sites usually require a
Microsoft Windows based platform. Most providers provide
Linux-based web provision which offers a wide range of different software. A
typical configuration for a Linux machine is the LAMP Platform. This
includes Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (or Python, Perl or Ruby). Usually
there is limited interoperability between the two, although Linux servers
can integrate with Windows file services through Samba, and many Linux
hosts provide support for Microsoft FrontPage extensions.
Regardless
of whether one is a business or has a personal site that needs to be
hosted, it has to be created first. HTML experience is usually required to
create a site (and more advanced languages can be used for interactive
content, such as ASP or those languages used in a LAMP setup), but those
without design experience can hire a Web designer to do the heavy lifting.
Once the site is online there's not much else that's required: the host
generally handles the technical behind-the-scenes work with the server.
|