An explanation of website hosting
As its name hints, web hosting is a solution, which entails hosting online content. There are different varieties and kinds of hosting, depending on the goals and on the usage. Nevertheless, they all involve hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible throughout the Web. A host is actually a server that is linked to the Internet and has its own Internet Protocol address, which permits people to get access to it via the Web. The hosting server's architecture and its resources are dependent on the form of web hosting service it will be utilized for.
What are the various forms of web hosting?
Based on the usage, the business hosting service may be:
File Storage Hosting - this type of hosting allows the clients to deposit their files on a specific hosting server. With the ordinary file storage hosting solution, the files that are saved may only be accessed by the customer that's utilizing the service. This web hosting solution typically applies to backups of personal computers , docs, personal files and even other hosting servers. This service may also impose given restrictions in relation to the data storage and the root-level access. There may also be bandwidth quota limits, but that depends on the particular provider.
Warez Hosting - the so-called warez hosting solution is comparable with the previous hosting service form. Even so, unlike the file hosting service, the warez hosting service is utilized for transmitting copyrighted content without being given the green light by the license keeper. To cut a long story short - it is related to the unlawful transmission of files and docs. There are lots of ways for this to be realized, but the 2 principal methods are - through simple HTTP downloading and through peer-to-peer connections. The first way entails either some web portal, or, most typically, just a directory on a server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thereby download licensed docs free of cost. The second way entails a peer-to-peer connection, availing of the so-called Torrent web servers, via which people exchange files between each other. There aren't many web space hosting firms that allow such type of web hosting on their hosting servers, mostly due to all the legal problems that it entails. Typically such websites are hosted on personal dedicated servers that are registered by 3rd party firms either in the Middle East or in Asia.
Mail Hosting - this service is used with both shared webspace hosting and dedicated web hosting servers, depending on the user's desire. If you wish to create your own private SMTP e-mail server, then you will require either a private virtual web hosting server or a dedicated web hosting server that provides the level of access needed to carry out such a task. For customary mail web hosting purposes, however, you can create an ordinary shared web page hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain. This is not a solution that's widely popular, because the web page hosting and the mail hosting services are being served by 2 different servers, usually owned by different hosting providers.
Web Page Hosting - the most widely spread and frequently utilized hosting service now. It's utilized for hosting website files, whose kind depends on the OS the web server is utilizing - Linux or Windows. Different kinds of files demand different server Operating Systems, or else they won't be exhibited accurately on the Internet. This sort of hosting may contain storage space and bandwidth quota limitations, root access and central processing unit usage restrictions.
Depending on the purpose and on the functions, the client should choose the sort of server that he requires for his project, and, of course, the webspace hosting corporation that's going to furnish it. There are different kinds of web hosting servers, depending on the specs and the site hosting solutions that they provide. These are:
Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared web site hosting server supplies a smaller amount of resources, which, of course, is reflected on the cost of the service. It can be used for hosting small size and medium scale sites, which do not demand considerable quotas of disk storage space and traffic.
Semi-Dedicated Hosting - they are based on the very same principle as the shared website hosting servers. Nonetheless, there are much less clients sharing the same web hosting server. For that reason, each of them will receive a larger quota of the server's resources like RAM, disk storage, traffic and CPU. Perfect for hosting immense web sites that do not require root-level access.
VPS hosting - the virtual private web servers are excellent for middle scale web portals, which do need root-level access to the server's configuration files. Commonly, there are a handful of virtual web server hosting accounts located on the same server. However, each of them is independent from the rest and runs its own OS.
Dedicated Servers Hosting - a completely dedicated web server configured and accessed by you and only you. It ensures an immense quantity of resources. It also provides full server root privileges, which renders it a perfect platform for any type of web portal that necessitates a web site hosting solution.
The only question that remains is:
Which hosting corporation should I choose?
As stated above, there aren't many hosting providers offering warez web hosting solutions due to judicial problems. Such providers are being closed down practically every month. Therefore, if you want to set up such a service, you should do it on your own computer. The shared web space hosting solution is the most widely spread type of web hosting service. Because of that, each and every website hosting company provides it. Not all of them, though, provide solutions such as VPS web servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated hosting servers. Most of the small scale site hosting suppliers do not have the means required for offering those services. That's why it's invariably best to settle on a bigger web host that can provide its customers with all the solutions that they are looking for. You can easily identify such web hosting companies by the types of solutions that they are making available and by the manner in which they present them to the customers. For example, some hosting companies allow you to kick off with a low-end web hosting package and afterwards move to a more powerful one, if you deem it obligatory to do so. This is quite convenient, because you do not need to transmit web portals between web hosting servers and there is no possibility of suffering outages due to all the predicaments that may occur. Web hosting providers such as Web Hosting Firm provide all types of solutions and possess the required hosting server resources and staff to assure that their customers will not suffer any hassles when changing services, which is what a top hosting supplier is actually all about.