Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Choosing The Best Web Server For Your Online Business

What is a web server? Basically, a web server embodies the theory of supply and demand: it supplies your website when the people demand it. When a user wants to view your website, the server finds the URL?s file and uploads it to the user?s browser. However, there are many different kinds of servers to choose from, so how do you find the right one?

The Virtual Private Server is a great choice for larger businesses that have complicated needs. It?s best if you have some experience working the program, because you have to know how to control the settings, but if you can read and understand the manual, you?ll be fine. The plus to a Virtual Private Server is that it?s a single server that branches out, letting you work independently while paying with the other host customers. You can also have up to 50 websites. It can be costly at over 100 dollars a month, but if you?re concerned about security and control, a Virtual Private Server is probably the way to go.

The more popular server is Virtual Hosting. This is a single server that is shared with many users. Because it?s controlled by an administrator, you don?t need to worry about technical skills. However, you don?t have as much control as you would with a Virtual Private Server, because every time you want to change something in your settings, you have to contact the admininstrator. Secondly, you?re only allowed one website, so if you want to start a second site, you have to create a new account. The good news is, it?s a great deal at only about 20 to 50 dollars per month. So if you have a small business with just one or two websites, and you don?t want to worry about technical skills , Virtual Hosting is the best choice.

You also have to think about web server software. One type is Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). It only works with NT-based server systems, as NT is a Microsoft product. It has crash protection and plenty of support, so you don?t have to worry about viruses. Also, if you use NT, you get IIS free with it.

However, the most popular type is Apache. It?s always free, and while it isn?t supported like IIS, it?s always updated and easy to use. So if you?re looking for something safe, IIS is a great choice, but Apache is more popular for a reason.

These are only a few of the servers and software you have to choose from, but they?re a start. If you do your research and think of what will best benefit your business or webpage, you can make a well-informed decision that will let you be a successful host.

Robert Michael is a writer for Daily Servers which is an excellent place to find servers links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.dailyservers.com

Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, January 18, 2008

About Dedicated Servers

A web hosting service provides its clients some space on its web server on monthly or yearly rate through which clients can use of setting up and running a website of their choice which can be accessed through the World Wide Web. A large number of web hosting services have come up.

The various types of web hosting services found today are:

1) Free web hosting service: Free web hosting service provides limited storage space and there are no additional features like data base support.

2) Shared web hosting service: Shared web hosting service supports many websites on the same server, all of which may use the same resources.

3) Reseller web hosting service: In this type of service, clients could themselves become web hosts again and resell their storage space on the server to other clients.

4) Virtual dedicated service: Though all clients may use the same server, they may not realize this because their servers have been virtually separated.

5) Dedicated hosting service: Dedicated hosting service the client can rent or lease a web server and own complete control over it.

6) Colocation web hosting service: In this case, the client can buy the server and virtually own it. He can use it resources for any purpose.

Among all these services dedicated services are most popular. Before deciding if a dedicated server is for you, you should consider the level of your website. If you operate a small business or a basic website, a dedicated server is likely not the best choice. However, if you have a high traffic, large, and massive website, a dedicated server will be the likely choice.

Overall, it is important to understand your space needs, reliability, bandwidth, and budget prior to choosing dedicated server website hosting. Generally, a large website, a large company, with high traffic, may want to consider a dedicated server. A small business, with minimal traffic, will likely want to stick with shared servers.

The only disadvantage of a dedicated server is mostly very expensive. Make sure to consider the price with that of the total cost of shared server space. If a dedicated server has a best hosting option for your business, ultimately it is worthy to pay.

To know more about Dedicated Servers and various hosting plans visit http://www.gigenet.com/

Derek is content writer for gigenet.com; Visit the site(http://www.gigenet.com) for more information about Dedicated servers.

Labels: , , , ,

Monday, January 7, 2008

Cheap Dedicated Server: The Ins and Outs Of Hosting Service Selection

In this article I will go over the ins and outs of shared packages (supervised and unmanaged), reseller hosting, virtual private server accounts, personalized hosting, and even arrangements your own sites on your own individual-only servers. Stick on by!

Finding a cheap dedicated server web hosting purchase can be a harrowing session especially if you are a beginner to this topic. Essentially, hundreds of posts across the internet are being passed back and forth debating the merits of various exclusive server hosting offerings.

The bottomline is this, Finding a cheap dedicated packages server solution is not difficult. Here is the rule of thumb for beginners:

1. shared web hosting mostly gives you less performance as you are Basically sharing your web hosting with many other hosting subscribers, sometimes countless or even hundreds of thousands of them. Also, you will get less access to the technical aspects of the arrangements. Clearly this is a good answer for beginners. 2. reseller hosting gives you a bit more flexibility, but ultimately all the shared accounts will be sharing resources such as CPU and Ram. You get a bit more control in that you can setup accounts and your own domain names. This is an attractive packages alternative for those with lower to medium trafficked sites. 3. vps web hosting is pretty much the same as the previous options in terms of it still being a 'shared' answer, but it gives you far more control over your own hosting environment, and giving you greater resources allocated solely for your needs. This is normally the step individuals pursue who do not need a full-blown personalized server package off the bat. 4. individual-only server hosting is what it sounds like, you get the whole shebang, total access to your web hosting machine and you are free to alter the server requirements to whatever you desire. You get better performance and flexibility.

Those previously mentioned opportunities are mainly what's found to website owners all over. It's not persistently cut and dry in terms of how to decide on the best setups solution. I.e. you should never base it solely on price. Reputation and years of operation of the firm are crucial points. Do not entrust your internet existence to unstable operations!

Magnificent windows dedicated server items can be downloaded from my web page.

http://www.24hrdedicatedhosting.com/windows-dedicated-server/

Labels: , , , ,

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Dedicated Servers - Backup and Recovery Strategies for Web Hosting Companies

What kind of backup recovery strategy should a company have for its dedicated server? Web hosting companies have been debating this architecture since their existence began. It is really a question pondered by the whole IT community. There are many right solutions, dependent on your company's ability to handle downtime. The correct solution for you will factor in the amount of redundant protection you need against the overall cost.

Before we discuss the different options for backing up and recovering your dedicated server, we should mention that the server hardware, data center, and fiber connection are all critical to reliability. This article is specifically focused on strategies to backup and recover your server's data.

At a minimum, you can create a partition in your hard drive and backup your server weekly or monthly. There is no cost to this kind of solution, but the downsides are obvious. If your hard drive crashes, you will lose your backup as well. This kind of solution is only recommended if you can afford to lose all of your data, which most web hosting companies cannot.

Next, you can contract a remote backup service to set up offsite backups. These backups can be run daily, weekly, or monthly. The cost of this solution is around $30-$50/month depending on the web hosting provider. This option gives you a solid backup in case your hard drive crashes. The downside is that recovery time will take 6-12 hours or more depending on how much data you have. The data has to be manually copied over, and this is a slow process. If you can afford the cost, this solution is part of an overall backup system, but it is not recommended as your only solution.

The next backup option is to have a second hard drive installed on your server and have it set up to do daily, weekly, or monthly backups. Most web hosting companies that provide dedicated servers will charge between $15-$30 for a second hard drive. This is a nice compliment to the previous solution if you have the budget for both. The recovery time is faster then a remote backup. But unlike a remote backup, if your dedicated server or the datacenter are down, then you cannot access the backup. For most small web hosting companies this is not a problem. If their entire server or datacenter are down, they have larger issues to worry about. We recommend this as a complimentary option with a remote backup.

Next, a web hosting company can use mirrored RAID drives. This option will cost $50-$80/month more, but it provides the fastest possible recovery in case of a hard drive crash. You can just reboot using the mirrored drive, and you are back in business. The cost is a little higher, but this is a nice luxury. The downside of this option is that if your server is unavailable, then you still cannot reach your data. Additionally, if the hard drive becomes corrupted it will also corrupt your backup. This is why we recommend mirrored drives as part of a larger solution that includes other backup systems.

Finally, there are mirrored servers. This entails the largest cost and is really not necessary, except for those web hosting companies that can tolerate no downtime at all. In this scenario, if the server itself dies you can have another server ready to take the load. In fact, if your company is large enough, you might already need this kind of solution for performance. Some websites require multiple servers to handle the performance, and it is load balanced across them. In this case, if a server dies the system still runs. This is the best solution but it is not always necessary. And, of course it is costly.

We recommend a weekly remote backup to provide you with a fail safe version. Even if the datacenter burns down, you will have a copy of your data. To this we would add either mirrored RAID drives or a second hard drive, depending on your hosting company's needs. If you are more worried about recovery time from hard drive crashes, which is the most frequent hardware problem with dedicated servers, then go with the RAID drives. If you are more worried about the hard drive getting corrupted, go with the second hard drive.

We hope this article provides you with the information you need to adequately back up your dedicated server! Rodney Ringler is President of Advantage1 Web Services, Inc., which owns a network of Web Hosting Informational Websites including HostChart.com, ResellerConnection.com, FoundHost.com, ResellerForums.com, and HostingKnowledge.net. Rodney has over 15 years industry experience from programming to internet marketing

Labels: , , ,