Posts Tagged ‘web hosting’

Free Web Hosting – Is It For You?

If you are a newcomer in the land of the WWW or World Wide Web, you definitely must be wondering about many aspects of the functioning of the web and what are the best possible ways to project your website or domain on the Internet. The best bet for starters, of course, if ‘free web hosting’.

Free web hosting is good, if you are new and want to learn the ropes first hand. It is definitely not a good idea if you are starting a dot.com business. So, what do you get with a free web hosting provider?

First of all you will get a web space on the net FREE OF COST. This is quite a big plus point. Another plus point is that it will provide you with a free email account in most cases. The downside would be that you will not have the permission to have your domain name. You cannot get any technical support for your database, nor can you accept advertisements.

Hence, if you are hosting your web just to post out a few ideas, a hobby broadcast site, or similar things, and then definitely you can choose a free web-hosting provider. Free web hosting is good for those with low traffic. For example you may like to have your website so your friends and family can access and exchange ideas with you. Or just plain curious to see how things work out when you are out there, posting on the Internet.

It is definitely not advisable for a person who wants to run or launch a business on the net, however rosy the free web-hosting provider would paint it. No free web-hosting provider will offer you free traffic transfer space and hence your business will be doomed, or you will end up with huge traffic transfer charges. So also, you would loose out in terms of visitors if and when the server is not up to the mark and has an uptime less than 95%. Poor technical support would be another major obstacle if you have heavy traffic to your website, as any interruption would frustrate your visitors chasing them away from your website.

Besides, the point that would decide anyone who runs a web-based business NOT to choose a free web hosting, is that the company would look cheap and amateurish. The host of your free website will impose advertisements on your website, which you may not like. There are a lot of downside points. A few are enumerated below:

•No tech support
•No guarantee on server uptime
•No free traffic transfer space
•No access to cgi and/or perl script
•No advertisement for money can be hosted on your free website
•No sub-directories
•No secure server for credit card payments
•Very low SEO visibility as search engines bypass free sites often

Having gone through the above, I still reiterate that for beginners who want to see what it looks like to be on the web, for those who want to share things with family and friends, and for hobby purposes, free web hosting is a good option. For any other reason, by all means go for a professional web hosting service.

Virtual Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting

Why do some organizations choose to host their own Web site on their own managed servers, while others contract with a Webhosting company or purchase their ecommerce hosting services through an ISP (Internet service provider)?

While cost (including risk) and flexibility are often the two primary considerations when choosing how to host a website, understanding distinctions among Webhosting options and the pros and cons of each will help you pare down the list to something considerably more manageable, ensuring that you make the best decision.

Webhosting plans can be categorized broadly into two types: virtual server hosting and dedicated server hosting. Small to medium-sized businesses typically choose a virtual server plan where multiple ecommerce web sites are hosted on space within a single server. This service allows you to share a server with others, but your site is further protected or isolated with its own server resources including processor, memory, and disk storage. This arrangement works well for small sites that rely on dynamic generation of content from a backend database, small ecommerce sites, or for customers who wish to manage several separate web sites.

The reason that vendors can offer low-priced domain hosting for virtual private servers is because the customers look the same and require a set of web services that are essentially identical from site to site. Webhosting vendors who are able to package similar services across a huge volume of customers most effectively are generally the most successful since they can capture substantial economies of scale.

Dedicated hosting on the other hand is an option for mid- to large-sized businesses that require or desire the flexibility that comes with dedicated servers. While more expensive, this type of plan generally provides a higher level of security, support, and maintenance with a guaranteed level of availability. Offering this type of guarantee generally reflects a level of redundancy within the vendor’s data-center operations that severely decreases the chances of downtime or removes the risk all together. Depending on the vendor’s plan, flexibility means you can write and run your own custom scripts or applications and even use a content management system to manage the web site but not worry about managing the network, server hardware, or operating system.

The easiest decision will likely be whether you intend to host the site yourself or contract with a webhosting vendor. Scale is the primary decision-making factor. Going it alone takes money and the willingness to assume the activities and risk associated with managing the server hardware, software, and connectivity. For organizations that already have a dedicated IT staff and data center, hosting may be an affordable option. The IT department may, in turn, offer a shared server arrangement where organizational entities such as the organization’s library are provided space on the server. But for those who are unable to tap into existing resources or who are working for companies without IT resources, contracting with an external webhosting provider is the only cost-effective option.

Narrowing the choices down can be difficult since there are so many vendors from which to choose. The first step is to list your requirements for developing, managing, and offering a web site to your users. For very simple sites, the vendor may provide tools for creating and managing your site along with available services to extend your site’s offerings, such as online form capabilities. Alternatively, you can use your own HTML authoring tool and upload pages as needed.

Vendors try to make choosing plans as easy as possible by packaging most-requested services together into specific webhosting plans. Doing so allows customers to more easily select what they need; they also benefit from a cost structure that can be kept fairly low. Most plans require an upfront set-up fee along with a monthly fee covering the plan you choose and any additional services (extra e-mail boxes, additional storage, etc.) that you request.

Finally, choosing a webhosting vendor can be confusing due to the array of options. A winning approach includes developing your list of requirements along with a plan for current and future growth to allow you to substantially clarify how your needs map out against your domain hosting options.

Dedicated Hosting Award Program Call for Entries

Top 10 Dedicated Server Hosting providing providing Dedicated Hosting Reviews to clients, Consultancy and Training to Web Hosting Providers and End Users, announced here today that Call for Entries is open for 2008 Dedicated Hosting Award Program.

Submissions are now being accepted for the following categories and subcategories:

- Server & O/S Hosting
IBM AIX, AS/400, HP-UX Linux, Solaris, VMware, Windows

- Database Hosting
IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server Cluster, MySQL  Oracle 9i / 10g / 11g, Oracle RAC

- Application Hosting
AspenTech, BEA WebLogic, Blackberry Enterprise Server, Citrix, Custom Software, IBM WebSphere, Lotus, Microsoft Exchange, SupportSoft, Verity Hosting, VMware

- Service Provider Hosting
Application Service Provider (ASP), Software as a Service (SaaS)

- Solutions By Industry
Construction, Education,Energy/Utilities, Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Marketing/Media, Retail/Distribution, Technology,Transportation

There will be separate award for each category and subcategory and an overall  best dedicated hosting provider Award for an outstanding service provider who continues to inspire the industry.

To submit an entry, please visit: Dedicated Server Hosting Awards
The options in managed dedicated web hosting have exploded in recent years. Dedicated servers are now available at prices even the smallest businesses can afford, and the future of Web Hosting is Dedicated Servers.

Top 10 Dedicated Hosting Website (http://www.Top10DedicatedHosting.com) categorically defines Dedicated server hosting providers as Cheap Dedicated hosting, Best Dedicated hosting and Managed Dedicated services based on both Linux and Windows platforms and offering options such as Celeron, Pentium 4, Dual Xeon, Xeon Quad Core, Kentsfield, Conroe, Woodcrest and Clovertown Processors, Dual Core AMD Opteron, cPanel, Plesk, WHM, Redhat, Debian, FreeBSD,  CentOS and Windows 2003