The Basics of Website Hosting

Basically, website hosting is the post of your website on the Internet via a server. As soon as your website is on a server, it can be accessed anytime from anywhere. To have your site hosted on the Internet, you need to have certain things.

How the web hosting works

• a website: a page or set of pages to be found under the same domain name;
• a domain name: a unique address to find a certain set of WebPages;
• a software: in this case it would be an operating system, such as Windows NT, Vista or Linux, a web server, credit card software for online payment processing and some needed database;
• hardware: your own server, or web hosting services bought from some web hosting company, various network devices, including routers, switches, network firewall, wiring and storage area;
• connectivity: ISP – Internet Service Provider or MSP – Member Service Provider, providing internet access to the websites;
• an administrator assisting you to configure the server and setup any necessary software; it is also responsible of monitoring the up-time and overall performance of the server ensuring the proper condition of it. The administrator also runs backup files and deals with various traffic reports for the websites.

Basically, hosting refers to the services needed to support a website. There are four basic types of web hosting to select the suitable one for your site and your special requirements. These services are supported by different hardware and software, connectivity services and the price varies one from the other. Here are the four most common web hosting services.
1. Shared hosting shares numerous websites on the same server with the same network connections, same hardware and software resources.
2. In the case of dedicated hosting you own the entire server and you have the possibility to remotely customize it or to sustain multiple usages. Dedicated hosting is suitable for you want to accelerate the transfer of larger amount of data with a substantially high speed.
3. Collocated hosting means that the web hosting provider rented out an area for you to set your server and to provide a high speed connection to the server. This hosting is appropriate for companies able to manage their own servers and requiring high speed data transfer.
4. In-house hosting is similar to collocated hosting, but the server is placed in your own space. You are required to buy the connectivity, necessary hardware and software. You also need to have the technical skills to properly configure the system and to manage the permanent processing of the system.