Web Hosting

Information about Web Hosting

Types of Internet hosting service

Full-featured hosting services Virtual private server Dedicated hosting Colocation centre Web hosting Free hosting Shared hosting Clustered hosting Reseller hosting Application-specific Blog hosting Guild hosting Image hosting Video hosting Wiki farms File hosting Remote backup service Game server hosting DNS hosting E-mail hosting

An example of "rack mounted" servers.

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide 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 center. Webhosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation.

Service scope

The scopes of hosting services vary widely. The most basic is webpage and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with little processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service for free to their subscribers. People can also obtain Web page hosting from other, alternative service providers. Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or cheap. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages. A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides 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 an interface control panel (e.g. cPanel, Plesk or others) for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Recently, Web.com holds many patents it claims cover broad methods for website building and web control panels. Hostopia, a large wholesale host, recently purchased a license to use that technology from web.com for 10% of retail revenues^[1]. Web.com recently sued Go Daddy as well for similar patent infringement ^[2].

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 hosting company. To find a web hosting company, there are searchable directories that can be used. One must be extremely careful when searching for a new company due to the fact that many of the people promoting service providers are actually affiliates and the reviews are biased.

Hosting reliability and uptime

Multiple racks of servers, and how a datacenter commonly looks.

Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. Many providers state that they aim for a 99.9% uptime, but there may be server restarts and planned (or unplanned) maintenance in any hosting environment.

A common claim from the popular hosting providers is '99% or 99.9% server uptime' but this often refers only to a server being powered on and doesn't account for network downtime. Real downtime can potentially be larger than the percentage guaranteed by the provider. Many providers tie uptime, and accessibility, into their own Service Level Agreement, or SLA. SLAs may or may not include refunds, or reduced costs if performance goals are not met.

Types of hosting

A typical server "cage," commonly seen in colocation centres.

Internet hosting services can run Web servers; see Internet hosting services.

Hosting services limited to the Web:

Free web hosting service: is free, (sometimes) advertisement-supported web hosting, and is often limited when compared to paid hosting.
Shared web hosting service: one's Web site is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.
Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a provider. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server.
Virtual Dedicated Server: slicing up a server into virtual servers. each user feels like they're on their own dedicated server, but they're actually sharing a server with many other users. The users may have root access to their own virtual space.
Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.
Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of the web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes.
Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization.
Grid hosting: relatively a new web hosting buzz, this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes. Being highly fault tolerant, this system is breaking new grounds when it comes to the network stability factor.

Some specific types of hosting provided by web host service providers:

File hosting service: hosts not web pages but files
Image hosting service
Video hosting service
Blog hosting service
One-click hosting
Shopping cart software

Obtaining hosting

Web hosting is often provided as part of a general Internet access plan; there are many free and paid providers offering these services.

A customer needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use. Such considerations include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software. A typical configuration for a Linux server is the LAMP platform: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. The webhosting client may want to have other services, such as email for their business domain, databases or multi-media services for streaming media. A customer may also choose Windows for its hosting platform. The customer still can choose from PHP, Perl, and Python but may also use ASP .Net or Classic ASP.

Web hosting packages often include a Web Content Management System, so the end-user doesn't have to worry about the more technical aspects.

One may also search the Internet to find active webhosting message boards that may provide feedback on what type of webhosting company may suit his/her needs.

References

1. ^ Yahoo! Finance: Hostopia Licenses Web.com's Patents
2. ^ The Street: Go Daddy Gets Sued

• • [ e] Website management
Concepts	Drop registrar Forum administrator Overselling Viewable With Any Browser Web content Web content management system Web hosting service Web server Webmaster
Website and hosting tools	List of content management systems CPanel Ensim Pro H-Sphere Helm, Web Hosting Control Panel ISPConfig Plesk WebSpray
Domain managers and registrars	AusRegistry CZ.NIC CIRA CNNICDENIC DNS Belgium Domainz ENom Go Daddy Melbourne IT Museum Domain Management Association Network Solutions NeuStar OLM.net Register.com Tucows Web.com

An Internet hosting service is a service that runs Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content to the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered.

A common kind of hosting is web hosting.
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virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine.
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dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting where the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone.
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colocation centre (collocation center) ("colo") or carrier hotel is a type of data center where multiple customers locate network, server and storage gear and interconnect to a variety of telecommunications and other network service provider(s) with a minimum
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free web hosting service is a web hosting service that is free, usually advertisement-supported and of limited functionality. Free web hosts will either provide a subdomain (yoursite.example.com) (e.g. Freeservers, 50megs, Byethost, Trap17, Qupis) or a directory (www.example.
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shared web hosting service or virtual hosting service refers to a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. Each site "sits" on its own partition, or section of the server to keep it separate from other sites.
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Clustered hosting technology is designed to eliminate the problems inherent with typical shared hosting infrastructures. This technology provides customers with a “clustered” handling of security, load balancing, and necessary website resources.
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Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting wherein the account owner has the ability to use his/her allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host websites on behalf of third parties.
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Weblog software (also called blog software or blogware) is a category of software which consists of a specialized form of content management systems specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.
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guild hosting or clan hosting service is a specialized type of web hosting service designed to support online gaming communities, generally referred to as guilds or clans.
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Please help Wikipedia by adding references. See the for details.
This article has been tagged since September 2007.

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video hosting service, also said a video sharing video service allows individuals to uplink video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that video.
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file hosting service, online file storage service, or online media center is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host static content, typically large files that are not web pages. Typically they allow web and FTP access.
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remote, online, or managed backup service is a service that provides users with an online system for backing up and storing computer files. Managed backup providers are companies that provide this type of service.
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game server is a server used by game clients. Any video game played over the internet generally requires a connection to a game server.

How it works

Data is sent from the game client to the game server, from there the game server processes the data and sends it back out to
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DNS hosting service is a service that runs Domain Name System servers. Most, but not all, domain name registrars include DNS hosting service with registration. Free DNS hosting services also exist.
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e-mail hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs e-mail servers.

E-mail hosting services usually offer premium e-mail at a cost as opposed to advertising supported free e-mail or free webmail.
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A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN.
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World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, a user views web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigates between them using hyperlinks.
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (air conditioning, fire
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A Web page or webpage is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links.
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Uploading and downloading are related terms used to describe the transfer of electronic data between two computers or similar systems. More colloquially, they are sometimes applied to transfers to/from removable media such as CDs.
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FTP or File Transfer Protocol is used to transfer data from one computer to another over the Internet, or through a network.

Specifically, FTP is a commonly used protocol for exchanging files over any network that supports the TCP/IP protocol (such as the Internet or
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Internet service provider (abbr. ISP, also called Internet access provider or IAP) is a business or organization that provides consumers or businesses access to the Internet and related services. In the past, most ISPs were run by the phone companies.
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"Personal home page" redirects here.

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database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system so that a computer program or person using a query language can consult it to answer queries. The records retrieved in answer to queries are information that can be used to make decisions.
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PHP

Paradigm: imperative, object-oriented
Appeared in: 1995
Designed by: Rasmus Lerdorf
Developer: The PHP Group
Latest release: 5.2.4/ 30 August 2007
Typing discipline: Dynamic, weak (duck typing)
Influenced by: C, Perl
Java, C++, Python
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