If you are confused when it comes to finding the best type of web hosting for your business, small or big, knowing the basics and types of hosting would surely help you make the right choice.
If you all are ready to get into the preparation mode to create an online store, it is easy to get confused with a plethora of available options and thousands of web hosting providers making a claim to be your partner for hosting. This is where a clear understanding of how to identify the right web host and package comes into the picture.
Without web hosting no one would be able to see your website, you would have no traffic and the website itself would pretty much be non-existent. Web hosting is a hugely important part of any website, as every site needs some form of hosting. This is why it is crucial to pick the right kind of hosting for your needs. The kind of hosting you will need depends on the size of your company, the size of your website, the resources you have and how involved you want to be in the maintenance of your hosting.
Free Web Hosting
Free web hosting, is ideal for very small websites, usually personal websites meant to be shared with a small audience, such as family and friends. It is good for those who don’t want to pay for their hosting, but it will be limited in the options available to you. Those looking to have a professional looking site with minimal adverts and more website customisation will probably want something more advanced that will have a fee. Free hosting is not really a useful option for businesses who will need more control than the fee hosting provider will be able to give them.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is probably the cheapest option available. This option is great for personal websites, blogs and small businesses. Because you share the use of a webserver with a number of other websites the costs are shared and are therefore much smaller per customer. With shared hosting you also get the use of shared applications and resources. This option would not be appropriate for larger websites or websites with high amounts of traffic, as shared hosting would not have the resources to support them.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is all about having the complete control of a physical web server where a site is hosted and the option of hosting multiple domains or a single website, it comes at a high price and considered to be best suited for big companies or those with big hosting budget. This is for those with high numbers of visitors and that need more resources in order to carry out their business, dedicated hosting is the solution. A hosting provider will rent out a server that is ‘dedicated’ hosting and running just your website. It is the right solution for ecommerce sites and big websites. If you decide to go with dedicated hosting you will have to choose whether you want a managed or an unmanaged plan. Having a managed dedicated hosting plan, where the server, its maintenance and servicing are looked after by the hosting company, is perfect for those who have large hosting needs but don’t have the resources or staff to manage it. Unmanaged, on the other hand, is more suitable for those who understand server management or have the staff to look after the hosting.
Virtual Private Server
Virtual Private Server (VPS) is also called Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS). You may have surprised by this term but it simply means that there is one server but the resource allocation is in such a way that each customer will get a dedicated environment. Customer has the feeling that no one else is using this server hence it is called virtual dedicated server. It is secure system because though the CPU and RAM is shared but file system is unique. If someone hacks a website then he will not be able to disturb other website because you have your own file system and only you can access that. A VPS is much cheaper solution than a dedicated server.
The disadvantage is that hosting providers oversell shared space. It means selling physical resources more than hosting providers have mentioned in the terms of service (TOS). If there are more customers and everyone has shared the physical resources and you oversell then overall robust environment can not be provided.
Collocated Web Hosting
If you are not satisfied with managed hosting then you can choose to buy your own server from vendor, install all the required hardware and software and place it in some data center. You only use the infrastructure provided by the data center. You will have full control of the server with the infrastructure and administration facility of the data center. Most providers offer secure cages to place the server inside. The big companies on the Internet use this kind of hosting. You can best customize your server using this kind of hosting. You can increase the hardware and can install the software as you like. You are responsible to buy hardware and software and you are responsible for it if anything goes wrong.
You as a customer manage the server and you are responsible for any problem. If you hire some service as a part of TOS then you will have to pay extra.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting offers high uptime and hugely scalable resources. It can be particularly useful for customers who run large ecommerce sites or streaming sites. Some of the giants of the internet use cloud hosting because of its reliability; Amazon and Google are well known for their use of cloud hosting. Cloud hosting can be beneficial for smaller businesses that want to ensure their website has minimal downtime and want resources that can easily be scaled up as the website grows. Cloud hosting is often considered an expensive option, but in the past year the cost has lowered and it is more accessible.
Conclusion
In fact nowadays, clients consider website hosting solutions to be more like a complete web package and therefore are the web hosting provider provides them with some extra features, it would surely attract more clients and would be able to maintain better relations with the old clients. Additional business solutions such as customized designing of the web sites, providing shop site facility which helps the client to shop and buy a million products in just one go, spam and virus blocking services, search engine optimization, etc.