An interpretation of web hosting
As its name implies, web hosting is a service, which entails hosting online content. There are different forms and types of hosting, based on the purpose and on the usage. Nonetheless, they all entail hosting files, which, once hosted, are made available through the Web. A web host is actually a hosting server that is linked to the World Wide Web and has its own personal IP address, which permits people to get access to it via the Web. The web server's configuration and its system resources are subject to the type of hosting service it's going to be utilized for.
What are the different forms of hosting?
Based on the objective, the business website hosting service may be:
File Hosting - this form of hosting permits the users to keep their files on a particular server. With the regular file storage web hosting solution, the files that are stashed may only be accessed by the user that's utilizing the service. This web hosting solution generally involves backups of computers , documents, private files and even other web servers. This service may also have given limitations in relation to the disk storage and the root privileges. There may also be web traffic quota limits, but that depends on the particular hosting provider.
Warez Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is quite similar to the previous hosting service form. Still, in contrast with the file storage hosting service, the warez hosting service is utilized for distributing patented content without being given the okay to do so by the patent possessor. To put it briefly - it is associated with the forbidden propagation of files and materials. There are many ways for this to be carried out, but the two principal ways are - through plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and via P2P connections. The first one entails either some web site, or, most typically, simply a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thereby download proprietary materials for free. The second method entails a peer-to-peer connection, utilizing the so-called Torrent web servers, via which users exchange files between each other. There are just a few hosting firms that permit that form of hosting on their web servers, mostly due to all the legal complications that it presupposes. Commonly such web pages are hosted on personal dedicated web hosting servers that are registered by 3rd party corporations either in the Middle East or in Asia.
Email Web Hosting - this service is used with both shared hosting and dedicated hosting servers, based on the user's intention. If you desire to create your own private SMTP email server, then you will need either a virtual server or a dedicated server that provides the access level required to complete such an assignment. For traditional e-mail web hosting purposes, however, you can create a conventional shared web hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain name. This is not a service that's widely famous, since the web site hosting and the e-mail hosting services are being served by 2 separate servers, usually owned by separate hosts.
Web Site Hosting - the most famous and largely used hosting service as of today. It's used for hosting site files, whose sort is dependent on the OS the hosting server is making use of - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files request different server Operating Systems, or else they won't be displayed correctly on the Internet. This type of hosting may have web space and bandwidth limits, root-level access and CPU usage limitations.
Based on the goals and on the usage, the customer should choose the type of web hosting server that he requires for his project, and, of course, the web site hosting company that's going to furnish it. There are various kinds of web servers, based on the specs and the webspace hosting solutions that they provide. These are:
Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared website hosting server includes a smaller quantity of resources, which, of course, reflects on the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small and medium web pages, which do not need big amounts of server space and bandwidth.
Semi-Dedicated Servers Hosting - they function on the very same principle as the shared web space hosting servers. Nevertheless, there are much fewer customers accommodated on the same server. Therefore, each of them will get a bigger share of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, storage space, traffic and CPU. Perfect for hosting huge web portals that do not require complete root access.
VPS hosting - the private virtual web servers are perfect for medium scale online portals, which do demand root-level access to the server's config files. Typically, there are several VPS web hosting accounts accommodated on the same server. Still, each of them is independent from the others and runs its own Operating System.
Dedicated Hosting - a completely dedicated web server configured and accessed by you and only you. It guarantees a tremendous quantity of system resources. It also gives full server root privileges, which makes it an excellent solution for any type of web portal that demands a site hosting service.
The sole question that's left is:
Which website hosting vendor should I opt for?
As mentioned above, there are just a few web hosting providers providing warez web hosting services due to legal troubles. Such web hosts are being closed down almost every month. Therefore, if you want to provide such a service, you should do it on your very own computer. The shared web hosting solution is the most widespread kind of hosting service. Therefore, every web space hosting supplier provides it. Not all of them, however, offer solutions such as VPS servers, semi-dedicated hosting servers and dedicated web servers. Most of the small sized hosting distributors do not have the resources required for maintaining those services. For that reason it's invariably best to pick a larger web hosting company that can provide its customers with all the services that they want. You can quickly ID such hosts by the sorts of solutions that they are offering and by the manner in which they introduce them to the customers. For example, some hosting providers allow you to commence with a small scale site hosting account and afterwards move to a bigger one, if you consider it necessary to do so. This is extremely convenient, because you do not have to migrate web pages between hosting servers and there is no chance of experiencing service interruptions due to all the predicaments that may appear. Companies like PC Aid Hosting provide all kinds of solutions and possess the necessary web server resources and staff to assure that their customers will not encounter any predicaments when changing services, which is what a top hosting vendor is in fact all about.