If you want the rest of the world to see your website you need someone else to ‘host’ your website so it is accessible to the public via the internet. In very simple terms this is what a web server is, a computer that is always on and connected to the internet. Hosting is just companies that rent out servers.

When someone puts in the web address for your website it points towards that server and hey presto, your website is served. (DNS is also involved here and your domain name registrar but that is another post) But not all hosting services are equal and certainly not all servers are. A server can range from, at the lower end of the spectrum, a repurposed desktop machine which is converted to a server (this is more common than you might think and is a viable solution for less critical infrastructure) to dedicated high-end servers and cloud services. To give you a idea with one provider you can rent some basic hosting for under a dollar a month and with another host you can rent a dedicated high-end box for over $300. So how exactly do you pick what you need?

I must declare a very big warning here- as the saying goes “pay peanuts and you get monkeys” and this is so true in the web hosting environment. If you choose your web host purely because they are the cheapest then you run the very real risk of ending up in a “bad neighbourhood” This is a server which spammers have also dumped their sites on for short term goals. Once they have trashed the “neighbourhood/server” they then move onto other cheap servers and give them a bad name- which reflects on every other website on the same server- so don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is only me saying this Google does as well!!!

Shared VS Dedicated VS Cloud VS Specialist

These are the four main environments in which your website may be hosted and each has it’s own pros and cons. Let’s address these individually, as each is suited to different applications.

Shared hosting

Most sites don’t need a whole server to themselves, and because of economies of scale it’s a lot more cost effective for hosting companies to have fewer large servers than more smaller ones.
You rent a space on a physical server and a virtual server is created within that space. So you still have your own dedicated environment, but it exists alongside lots of others within a single physical server.
By creating a virtual environment it means that you get a set share of the resources on the server and someone else doing something stupid with theirs shouldn’t affect yours. It’s a good option for small business or where you don’t require tons of resources.
Your host will take care of server requirements, not your website security requirements (again another post) but the server security needs.

Dedicated hosting

This is where instead of your own space next to everyone else as in a shared hosting setup, you rent an entire server. If you’re dealing with critical infrastructure or high volumes of traffic, this may well be the best solution for you. You can either rent a whole server with an environment already set up for you or you can opt to rent just the box and deploy what you want on there.

In reality unless you’re a developer or sysadmin specialist, renting just the box is not going to be the right solution. Even having an entire physical server is overkill for most sites, unless you have very high bandwidth, security and infrastructure requirements. Cloud based solutions have increasingly becoming a better fit for these requirements as well.

If you’re going down the dedicated hosting route you should be aware of the maintenance responsibilities. Unlike shared hosting where it’s the responsibility of the hosting company to keep the physical machine up and running, on a dedicated box monitoring is often left to you.

Cloud services

Cloud hosting is closer to shared than dedicated hosting in that you’re renting a virtual environment. However instead of having a set share of resources you have a ‘pay as you go’ model. You pay for the resources you use, scaling instantly.
This is the best fit for those businesses with dynamic requirements that require very flexible solutions. You can use a small amount of resources and then scale up massively for peak periods.
Because of the sheer scale needed cloud services are generally only offered by larger or specialist hosting companies. Amazon Web Services is one of the most well known. As the cost of storage comes down more and more solutions are appearing, but this is still one of the most expensive forms of hosting as that kind of flexibility doesn’t come cheap.

Specialist hosting

There are also a few specialist solutions out there with hosting services tailored to more niche markets. A good example is WordPress hosting, where it’s a hosting company that just services WordPress sites.
Generally specialist hosting isn’t the cheapest in the market, however it is usually still very cost effective and you should find a good plan for ~$30 a month.

So how much bandwidth / storage and everything else do I need?

Good question 🙂 This can be a hard one to estimate. Bandwidth is a bit of a misused term within hosting as well. Instead of meaning the amount or volume of traffic that can be handled (as in how much traffic can it handle at once) hosting services tend to mean the amount of data transfer allowed. A bit like the download / upload limit on your internet connection that you need to consider when looking at plans.

The speed of your hosting is important as well, however this is a bit harder to work out in advance. Because so many different factors will affect the connection speed of both you and your audience to the website. This can be vary massively from person to person depending on everything from connection speed to time of day or how many people are trying to connect at once.

The storage is just that – how much hard drive space you’ll be allocated. If you have a giant database and tons of media files you’ll need more storage. You may well need to search around for something to fit if you’ve got high storage and low bandwidth requirements as the two usually scale directly together.
Also be aware if you are going to leave your email on the server such in the case of imap email accounts then this is going to add to your storage space requirements.

A note on unlimited hosting

You’ll find that lots of services offer ‘unlimited’ hosting, meaning it’s all you can eat storage and data. Of course it’s not really unlimited – otherwise Google would be hosting their data centres for a few dollars a month 😉 All of these unlimited solutions will have some actual limits and fair usage policies.
Most will start throttling your connection after you reach a certain point, you may have to do some digging with different providers to find out where that point is. Like any unlimited service they rely on the majority of people underusing the resource available and capping those who overuse. But something will definitely be limited and this will mean that you will be up sold to a more expensive plan. The limiting factor could be the number of files, bandwidth, storage etc- buyer beware!!

So what’s best for you?

Really this depends on what you’re looking to host. If you’re just starting out look for a provider who offers great support that you can actually talk to either via phone, email or live chat. Test out any potential new hosts by emailing them and seeing how long it takes for them to reply to you. If they take forever to reply to a presales question there is a good chance they will take even longer to reply to a support issue.
When you are starting out go for a small package – you shouldn’t be looking to pay more than $30 a month for whatever you choose. You’ll find you can always upgrade and generally providers on shared hosting are good at monitoring and letting you know if you’d be better off on a bigger plan (this is how they make their money after all, they won’t have any problem with upgrading you to something more expensive).
Remember, hosting services will always be happy to scale up your solutions, so start with what you think might be just enough and upgrade as you need.

You can talk to us at UAC Infotech if you want get a great hosting plan that can grow with you 🙂

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Selecting a web host

For a monthly fee or yearly Web hosting companies will connect your site to the Internet at high speed via one of their Web servers, allowing the site to be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection and a Web browser. The host provides your site with space on a server, and also offers Web server software, access to its high-speed Internet connection, tools for managing and maintaining your site, customer support, e-commerce features, and more. There are many ISP and Web hosting options to choose from, so use the following list to find one that meets your needs.

What to Look for in a Web Hosting Company

• Shared hosting or dedicated server. Shared hosting is an arrangement in which your site is housed on the same host server with several other Web sites. This is an economical solution for smaller sites. Paying the host for your own dedicated server, a solution used by larger and busier sites, provides faster access and ensures that your site will be accessible to visitors 100 percent of the time (instead of sharing Web server speed and power with other sites). Does your ISP or Web hosting provider offer both options?
• Hard-disk storage space. Smaller sites may need only 300-500 MB (megabytes) of Web site storage space, while busier e-commerce sites may need more. As your site grows, your ISP should be able to accommodate you with a range of options.
• Availability. Your site must be accessible to customers 24 hours a day. ISPs and Web hosts maximize the availability of the sites they host using techniques like load balancing and clustering.
• E-mail accounts. E-mail accounts that match your domain name are often available from your ISP. Are they included with your monthly access and hosting fee?
• Support. A big part of the value of turning to an ISP or Web host is that you don’t have to worry about keeping the Web server running. Does your host offer 24×7 customer service?

Hosting reliability and uptime

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

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.

The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. 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 because many of the people promoting service providers are actually affiliates and the reviews are biased.

• 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. This is by far the most common type of hosting account people use.
• 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: dividing a server into virtual servers, where 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. This is also known as a virtual private server or VPS.
• 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 : this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.