A description of website hosting

As its name suggests, web hosting is a service, which involves hosting online content. There are various varieties and kinds of hosting, based on the mission and on the objectives. Nonetheless, they all refer to hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible throughout the Web. A host is in fact a web hosting service that is connected to the Internet and has its very own Internet Protocol address, which permits people to get access to it via the Web. The web hosting server's configuration and its system resources are dependent on the type of web hosting service it's going to be used for.

What are the different forms of web hosting?

Depending on the mission, the professional web hosting service may be:

File Storage Web Hosting - this type of hosting permits the clients to save their files on a particular hosting server. With the traditional file storage web hosting solution, the files that are kept may only be accessed by the customer that's availing of the service. This hosting service generally appertains to backups of computers , docs, personal files and even other web servers. This service may also contain given restrictions with regard to the storage space and the root-level access. There may also be traffic limitations, but that is dependent on the actual service provider.

Warez Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is quite similar to the previous web hosting service form. Yet, unlike the file storage web hosting solution, the warez web hosting service is used for propagating proprietary content without the approval of the license bearer. In brief - it is associated with the illegitimate dissemination of files and docs. There are lots of ways for this to be attained, but the 2 chief methods are - via simple HTTP downloading and through peer-to-peer connections. The first approach involves either a given website, or, most commonly, simply a directory on a web server that's been made available for everyone to access it and thus download proprietary content for free. The second approach entails a peer-to-peer connection, making use of the so-called Torrent servers, through which people swap files between each other. There are very few hosting providers that permit that type of web hosting on their web servers, mostly because of all the legal troubles that it presupposes. Commonly such web sites are hosted on personal dedicated hosting servers that are registered by third-party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Mail Hosting - this solution is relevant with both shared web space hosting and dedicated servers, depending on the user's intention. If you wish to have your own private SMTP mail server, then you will need either a virtual private web server or a dedicated web hosting server that provides the level of access needed to carry out such a task. For conventional electronic mail web hosting ends, however, you can avail of a conventional shared hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain. This is not a solution that's very used, since the web hosting and the e-mail hosting services are being served by two different servers, often belonging to different web hosting providers.

Web Site Hosting - the most famous and immensely used hosting service these days. It's utilized for hosting website files, whose sort is dependent on the Operating System the hosting server is using - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files require different web hosting server Operating Systems, or else they won't be exhibited properly on the Web. This kind of hosting may involve disk space and traffic limitations, server root access and CPU usage limitations.

Depending on the purpose and on the usage, the user should select the kind of hosting server that he demands for his work, and, of course, the webspace hosting vendor that's going to provide it. There are several sorts of web hosting servers, depending on the configuration and the web hosting solutions that they offer. These are:

Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared web page hosting server provides a smaller amount of system resources, which, of course, reflects on the cost of the service. It can be utilized for hosting small sized and medium scale web pages, which do not demand large amounts of server storage space and traffic.

Semi-Dedicated - they perform on the same principle as the shared web hosting servers. Yet, there are much fewer customers hosted on the same hosting server. Hence, each of them will receive a larger share of the hosting server's resources like RAM, web storage space, web traffic and CPU. Ideal for hosting immense web sites that do not need complete server root access.

VPS - the virtual web servers are ideal for middle size websites, which do need root access to the server's configuration files. Normally, there are a few virtual private web hosting server accounts accommodated on the same physical machine. Even so, each of them is insulated from the rest and has its own Operating System.

Dedicated Server Hosting - a fully dedicated web server configured and accessed by you and only you. It ensures a tremendous amount of system resources. It also gives full root-level access, which renders it the optimal environment for any type of online portal that necessitates a hosting service.

The only question that's left is:

Which web hosting company should I settle on?

As already mentioned, there are very few hosting providers offering warez web hosting solutions due to judicial complications. Such companies are being shut down practically every month. Therefore, if you want to start such a service, you should do it on your very own PC. The shared web space hosting solution is the most widespread kind of hosting service. So, each and every web site hosting firm offers it. Not all of them, however, provide services such as virtual hosting servers, semi-dedicated web servers and dedicated web hosting servers. Most of the small scale web site hosting distributors do not have the resources demanded for offering those solutions. Because of that it's always best to choose a bigger web host that can furnish its customers with all the services that they are searching for. You can quickly ID such hosting companies by the kinds of solutions that they are making available and by the way that they introduce them to the clients. For instance, some hosting providers allow you to start with a small sized web hosting package and subsequently upgrade to a more powerful one, if you find it compulsory to do so. This is extremely convenient, because you do not need to move web portals between hosting servers and there is no danger of suffering network downtime because of all the problems that may appear. Web hosts like Web Hosting Indy offer all types of services and possess the required server resources and staff to guarantee that their clients will not face any hassles when changing services, which is what a top hosting firm is actually all about.