Website Hosting Overview
Website Hosting has changed considerably over the years. It all started out where you had to have a dedicated server for each website, which was a very expensive proposition that only the largest companies could afford.
Today you have multiple choices for hosting your site. It can be on a shared server, a server that is part of a cluster, a virtual server, a dedicated server or "in the cloud." You have your choice of operating systems and hosting environments. There are commercial and open source applications that will help you become more productive, keep in touch with your customers, sell products on-line or express your thoughts in a blog.
In order to make selecting your hosting package easier we have broken this down for you based on typical usage.
Typical Hosting Usage
Managed Private Servers
- Medium to large websites, handles more visitors
- Static content
- Dynamic content - Blog; Forums; CMS
- Small, medium or large online catalog
- Small, medium or large webstore
- Many open source applications available
- Windows ASP.NET scripts
- Perl or PHP scripts
- Each virtual instance is stand alone
- MySQL or MS SQL databases
- Greater isolation than virtual servers
- Greater control over Apache server configuration
- Server root login (Linux)
- Can scale by adding RAM and resources
- Higher cost
Virtual Servers
- Small to Medium Websites
- Static content
- Dynamic content - Blog; Forums; CMS
- Small or medium online catalog
- Small or medium webstore
- Many open source applications available
- Windows ASP.NET scripts
- Perl or PHP scripts
- Each virtual instance is stand alone
- MySQL or MS SQL databases
- Greater isolation than shared servers
- Greater control over server configuration
- Server root or admin login
- Run custom DLL's (Windows) and applications
- Easier to scale virtual server
- Medium Cost
Shared Hosting
- Static content
- Dynamic content - Blog; Forums; CMS
- Small online catalog
- Small webstore - using processor like PayPal
- Many open source applications available
- Windows ASP.NET scripts
- Perl or PHP scripts
- MySQL or MS SQL database
- There are many customers on a single server
- Limited isolation between customers
- May have scaling issues
- Low cost
