Friday, March 28, 2008

-What is UNIX Hosting

UNIX hosting is the most common web hosting platform today. The term UNIX refers to a computer operating system which provides the base operating system architecture for many open source companies including Solaris (Sun), Linux (GNU) and others. UNIX has been around for years and is the choice language for mid-frame computer users. UNIX hosting solutions is considered more available due to open source distribution of its operating system. LINUX hosting is a version of UNIX that has gained popularity because of its stability as an operating system. You will find these two terms being used interchangeably, which effectively refers to the same type of hosting solution.
-When it comes to choosing between UNIX and Windows hosting, the main thing to look for is what functions and programming languages that will be required by your website. Primarily, it is a choice between PHP and ASP, in which the former comes with UNIX hosting while the latter comes with Windows hosting. In addition, for plain and ordinary web sites which uses HTML pages with no or little database or dynamic pages, in most cases UNIX hosting would be the best option. UNIX should also be the option should your web site requirements include the use of PERL, PHP or Python.
-UNIX hosting is associated with reliability, security and high-performance. UNIX hosting is an open system, which means that its source code is publicly available for free from various web sites. In addition, UNIX hosting providers usually provide free tools and applications that have been written primarily for the UNIX community. These companies are also more technically oriented and most of the systems on offer are custom designed. In terms of complexity, UNIX hosting is a very cost-effective choice, due to its efficient use of hardware. This enables an increased web sites per server ratio, resulting in a decrease of cost of hosting. Naturally for this reason, UNIX hosting is normally cheaper than Windows hosting.
-For those concerned on e-Commerce solutions, most UNIX website hosting plans come with features such as free shopping carts. Websites hosted in UNIX web hosting services normally have very high up-time in the order of 99%. Therefore, UNIX website hosting for e-commerce is the logical choice and has become a trend in the market.
-The main disadvantage of using UNIX hosting is that your provider may only allow access to your account via Telnet or SSH. Also, when considering the UNIX operating system and UNIX hosting, users need to consider their own technical abilities. A strong working knowledge of UNIX commands is an advantage in order to do customizations beyond the basic needs. There’ll be some minimal time required on learning the basics before you can fully utilize the advantages of UNIX hosting.

-In conclusion, the UNIX hosting solution should be your choice if you are using PHP scripting for your website, and also if your website is pretty basic with mainly HTML language. It is also a more affordable option compared to Windows hosting due to its open-source concept. On top of all, it is widely regarded as more stable, secure and scalable.

What is Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting package where we can split up the allocated bandwidth and disk space of a hosting account, and then resell to other individual users as separate hosting accounts. It effectively means that we can buy hosting space from providers in bulk and then subdivide it to be resold to other customers. It is a method for people to start making money of their own with web hosting. Interestingly, reseller hosting requires very little knowledge on how to get started. Hence, practically everyone who is comfortable with the internet can start their own reseller hosting business.
-The reseller hosting concept is a rapidly growing industry. This is due to the simple fact that it is an inexpensive way for hosting entrepreneurs to start doing business in this field. This type of hosting is normally used by companies or individuals who want to start a small web hosting company, and also chosen by developers, designers or internet consultants. From the cost point of view, it is a cost-efficient method for webmasters who want to manage and host multiple number of sites with separate control panels. It definitely has the potential to be a very profitable business if the costs and margins are well-managed. Resellers are able to offer custom-made hosting packages for specific customers that perhaps not offered by any of the current hosting providers. This added by the fact that resellers can better control the quality of service since they can pick their servers of choice.
-In most cases, the resellers will be given freedom by the hosting provider to create their own packages and offers. Alternatively, most hosting providers would offer predefined packages for resellers to directly sell to customers. Some hosting providers even provide ready sites for resellers to use as a platform to promote their products. To manage the hosting accounts, resellers will be given an interface called the Web Hosting Manager. From there, they can get access to features which typically include payment systems, forms, applications and others. From here, resellers can manage their tasks such as adding domains and setting up DNS entries.
Overall, reseller hosting is great for small businesses or even individuals who intend to generate online profit through the web hosting business. Fortunately, the amount of effort required for resellers to set up this business has been greatly reduced by the ready-made hosting packages and website templates offered by hosting providers. This enables resellers to immediately launch their business without too much start-up hassle and effort. Considering that the market for web hosting is huge, there will be no shortage of demand and there are always opportunities for you in this business

What is PHP Hosting

PHP hosting is a server-side scripting environment that is used to create dynamic web pages. PHP is an abbreviation for Hypertext Preprocessor, an open source language widely used by programmers and web developers. The fact that it is open source gives it a lot of advantages over proprietary programming languages. Due to this reason, PHP has been the most famous server-side scripting language and almost all hosting providers offer PHP hosting services nowadays.
-PHP is an object oriented language. The way PHP hosting works is that the web server would filter a request document using PHP and generates the output from PHP to the web browser. These documents are usually in HTML format with PHP tags inside. The tags can be run on both Windows and UNIX servers. In terms of output text, PHP is capable to generate any format such as XHTML and XML.
-With PHP, web developers would be able to perform any CGI tasks, such as generate dynamic contents or send and receive cookies. PHP is also capable of outputting PDF files, Flash videos and images on the fly at high speed. This is possible due to its ability to save the required files in its file system and forming a server-side cache.
-There are a host of advantages of using a PHP hosting. For beginners, it is a relatively easy language to learn and work on. While for seasoned developers, there are a lot of advanced applications and features that comes with PHP hosting. In terms of cost, it is one of the cheapest hosting solutions as it is an open-source technology. There are also programming tools that come free with PHP hosting, contributed by programmers worldwide.
-PHP is especially strong in relational databases, which are used for dynamic contents, product catalogs and e-commerce applications. The relational database application that comes with PHP is called MySQL, which is also open-source. It is known for its high reliability, precision and flexibility. These advantages have made it the more preferred alternative compared to proprietary databases systems.
-Overall, PHP hosting is one of the most complete hosting packages available in the industry. It is perfect both for beginners who require easy-to-use hosting services and for advanced users who require powerful web applications. The value that it offers is even more significant due to its inexpensive pricing, especially compared to proprietary hosting services.

Managed hosting is a hosting solution whereby the hosting provider takes care of all the running and administrative tasks of your dedicated server. It is the perfect solution for customers who are looking for a full turnkey service of managing a web server, encompassing hardware, software, space, network and all related requirements. It is commonly subscribed by companies who are looking for a dedicated support to provide 100% service uptime while maintaining a level of control on their servers. The infrastructure, technical support and responsiveness of support provided by the hosting provider are definitely greater than other hosting services.

-Managed hosting breaks the traditional method of having to spend capital expenditure up front in purchasing and setting up hardware and software for a server, into an operating expenditure-based model of paying monthly fee for a fully managed service. From a company’s point of view, it is very similar to outsourcing the IT and technical aspects of their online business.

-This hosting service is ideal for large online businesses that prefer to focus their effort on their core business rather than having to spend extra resources and time of managing their dedicated servers. Managed hosting greatly alleviates the issues security and performance normally associated to an unmanaged or shared hosting environment. While looking expensive on the outset, managed hosting is actually the cost-effective solution due to the fact that technical expertise, uptime, responsiveness and reliable infrastructure will be guaranteed at a fixed cost.

-The service included in a managed hosting extends to products such as private networks, database administration and security products. There are also hosting providers that include managed SQL server hosting services. In terms of server administration, customers can expect services such as load balancing, managed storage, database hosting, connectivity, reporting and monitoring of their servers. Physical maintenance such as equipment servicing would also be covered by the hosting providers. For an additional fee, hosting providers also normally offer software-related services. Definitely this is a solution for webmasters and companies who require fully managed services while maintaining control over the server.