What Type Of Web Hosting Do I Need For My Website?

In the past I have made a few blunders when I have purchased Web Hosting accounts for my websites. So, I am going to give you the heads up, so those who are new to this can avoid similar pitfalls. Before, deciding on what type hosting you will require, you need research on finding a good hosting company that will ensure your website will be up and running at all times within the 99.9% efficiency. One thing the web has no shortage of is web hosting companies. You will have to consider your budget, and the type of service you are looking for: Self managed or fully managed. If you are simply planning to design a personal website of about 5 pages, your requirements will be pretty simple, where as if you are planning to build an e-commerce website with secure payment capabilities and shopping cart, your requirements will be quite substantial.

What’s Your Budget?

The bottom line, the web hosting service you choose will be determined by how much you can spend and the type of features you end up with. There are web hosting accounts out there ranging from as little as $3.99 per month all the way into paying into the 100’s of dollar per month bracket. While working with your budget, there is couple of things to consider: Are you planning to make a profit from your website? If you creating a website for family and friends. The obvious answer is no. On the other hand, if you planning to make a profit, you will want to secure a web hosting service that comes with all the tools you will need to managed your website at full capacity with no or minimal interruptions – Speed, security and reliability are very important to the success of any online business. This will sure affect the cost of your web hosting account. Trying to cheap your way out of this by purchasing a lesser account not capable of handling your website needs, can and will result in some costly downtime for your business. I have made this mistake in the past and paid for it, where only half of my visitors were able to get to my website and the majority of my emails were not reaching its destination. I lost $1000’s of dollars of potential business over those few months and that was a painful learning experience to be frank.

Free Web Space

There are quite a few free web hosting services available on the internet. However, they do come with some annoyances. Most are pretty restricted: Small amount of disk space, no server-side scripting, very little bandwidth transfer allowance, and no guaranteed uptime. In addition to that, many times these free web hosting companies used your hosting account to deliver advertisements from their advertisers. My advice, only use these services if you are not creating a professional website intended for use by your customers – Perfect for a personal website.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared-Hosting also known as Virtual Hosting by far is the most inexpensive form of web hosting you can purchase. You can find some of these hosting plans for as low as $3.99 per month: More than suitable for small website intended to give your business a web presence. This type of hosting account is very reliable with only a few drawbacks – On some of these servers, shared-hosting accounts can contain many other websites that share the same resources as your website. Too many sites on one server can put quite a load on the server, resulting in a slow site at peak times. Furthermore, you don’t have much control over the server should you need install any special software for more complex web applications. Lastly, all it takes is to have one shared-hosting account compromised and all other sites can or will be compromised as well. This security risk is one to avoid if you are dealing with secure transactions and database management.

Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) also known a Virtual Dedicated Server is a perfect go between Shared-Hosting and Dedicated Server Hosting in terms of power and price. Each VPS functions like a standalone PC and is completely isolated from the other virtual private servers running on the same physical server. Having each VPS isolated creates a more secure environment than a regular shared-hosting plan but at much lower cost than a Dedicated Hosting Server. You are able to install any software you wish and thinker with all the bells and whistles, but this means you are managing the server yourself. A scary thought when you have to be installing security updates, fixing problems, and so on – Which requires some degree of server administration skills. There are some companies who offer the best of both worlds: Managed Virtual Private Servers is where the hosting company looks after system updates and fixes, but you still have full control over your server. This option is more expensive than the regular Virtual Private Server.

Dedicated Server Hosting

A Dedicated Server is a standalone Web Server machine that you rent from a hosting company. A Dedicated Server Hosting account gives you full super-user access that gives you full control and the ability install any software, updates and changes you want and need. Dedicated Servers is a step up from the VPS’s and you do not need to worry about any security issues from other servers operating on the same machines. These types of servers are designed to host a high-traffic site or a group of sites, and give full control over the exact configuration of your Web server and its installed applications. Like the Virtual Private Server, you’re responsible for keeping the machine up to date with security patches, as well as installing software and troubleshooting problems with the server.

Managed Server Hosting

A Managed Server also known as a Managed Dedicated Server is managed by your hosting company, however, you maintain full control. No need to worry about installing any upgrades, security patches, or troubleshooting and fixing problems with the server. Managed Dedicated Servers are more expensive than Dedicated Servers since you are paying for the support staff and server costs. This is a perfect solution for running a high-traffic website and without having to worry about the headaches that come with maintaining and keeping a web server up and running.

What type Architecture to Use?

The type of architecture you decide to use on your web server is dependent on the Operating system installed. If you are running a Linux-Based web server, you are likely to use a combination of PHP & MySQL for the application backend and if your operating is Windows, you are more than likely going to use ASP .NET and SQL.

Domain Name Hosting

Your domain name can be hosted at different location than your web hosting account – You just have to point your domain name to the correct DNS addresses associated with your web hosting account. If you do not own a domain name, then you’ll need to find a registrar to register your domain name with. Some well known domain registrars include GoDaddy (I am sure you have seen commercials), Network Solutions, and Yahoo. Once you register your domain name, all you have to do is add the correct DNS addresses which points to your web server.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2009 at 7:32 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.