An explanation of web site hosting

As its name indicates, web hosting is a solution, which involves hosting online content. There are various varieties and kinds of hosting, based on the purpose and on the functions. Still, they all are related to hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible through the Internet. A host is actually a hosting server that is linked to the Web and has its own Internet Protocol address, which permits people to access it through the Internet. The hosting server's configuration and its system resources are subject to the form of hosting solution it's going to be used for.

What are the various types of web hosting?

Depending on the purpose, the hosting service may be:

File Hosting - this form of hosting allows the customers to accommodate their files on a specific hosting server. With the customary file storage web hosting service, the files that are deposited may only be accessed by the individual that's availing of the service. This web hosting service traditionally applies to backups of PCs , documents, personal files and even other hosting servers. This solution may also include certain limitations in relation to the web storage space and the root-level access. There may also be traffic limitations, but that is dependent on the particular host.

Warez Web Hosting - the so-called warez hosting service is very similar to the previous hosting service type. In spite of that, in contrast with the file storage hosting solution, the warez hosting solution is utilized for propagating proprietary content without being given the green light by the license possessor. In brief - it pertains to the illegitimate dissemination of files and docs. There are a lot of methods for this to be accomplished, but the two essential methods are - via plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and via P2P connections. The first way involves either a particular web portal, or, most often, just a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thereby download licensed documents for free. The second method entails a P2P connection, making use of the so-called Torrent servers, through which users transfer files between each other. There are very few web page hosting vendors that permit such type of web hosting on their hosting servers, mostly because of all the judicial problems that it involves. Usually such web pages are hosted on personal dedicated web hosting servers that are registered by third-party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Electronic Mail Web Hosting - this solution is utilized with both shared web hosting and dedicated web servers, based on the customer's wish. If you would like to run your own personal SMTP e-mail server, then you will require either a VPS or a dedicated server that offers the level of access needed to execute such a procedure. For routine email hosting ends, though, you can create a standard shared web page hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain. This is not a solution that's very famous, since the web hosting and the e-mail hosting services are being served by 2 different web servers, often belonging to different hosting providers.

Website Hosting - the most widely spread and extensively used hosting service nowadays. It's used for hosting web site files, whose type is determined by the Operating System the server is running - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files request concrete hosting server OSs, otherwise they won't be displayed properly on the World Wide Web. This type of hosting may involve data storage and bandwidth quota limitations, root access and CPU usage limits.

Depending on the mission and on the functions, the customer should select the sort of server that he requires for his work, and, of course, the web hosting distributor that's going to supply it. There are several kinds of web servers, based on the specs and the web space hosting services that they offer. These are:

Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared web server provides a smaller quantity of resources, which, of course, is manifested in the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small and medium scale online portals, which do not need enormous amounts of disk storage space and bandwidth.

Semi-Dedicated Servers - they are based on the very same principle as the shared web hosting servers. However, there are much fewer users accommodated on the same web hosting server. Therefore, each of them will have a greater share of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, server storage, web traffic and CPU. Excellent for hosting huge websites that do not need complete server root access.

VPS hosting - the virtual private web hosting servers are excellent for medium size web sites, which do need root-level access to the web server's configuration files. Generally, there are a few virtual private web server accounts located on the same physical machine. Yet, each of them is insulated from the other ones and runs its own OS.

Dedicated Hosting - a completely dedicated machine configured and accessed by you and solely you. It ensures an enormous amount of system resources. It also includes server root access, which makes it an excellent solution for any sort of website that needs a hosting solution.

The only question that remains is:

Which site hosting vendor should I settle on?

As mentioned, there aren't many providers providing warez web hosting services because of legal complications. Such providers are being shut down almost every month. Therefore, if you want to launch such a service, you should do it on your own computer. The shared hosting solution is the most popular kind of web hosting service. Because of that, every web hosting company provides it. Not all of them, though, offer solutions such as private virtual hosting servers, semi-dedicated hosting servers and dedicated web hosting servers. Most of the smaller webspace hosting firms do not have the resources needed for maintaining those services. That is the reason why it's invariably best to opt for a larger host that can supply its clients with all the services that they request. You can effortlessly identify such web hosts by the types of services that they are making available and by the manner in which they introduce them to the customers. For example, certain hosting companies allow you to start with a small scale website hosting account and subsequently move to a more advanced one, if you deem it mandatory to do so. This is very suitable, since you do not need to relocate web portals between web servers and there is no risk of experiencing network downtime due to all the problems that may crop up. Web hosting companies like Extra Hoster offer all sorts of services and possess the required server resources and personnel to guarantee that their clients will not come across any problems when swapping services, which is what a top hosting supplier is actually all about.