Web hosting is the partial or complete outsourcing of services to a service provider that is required to create, manage and maintain a Website. After designing and development of a website is complete, the next step in the process is putting the site on the Internet or in other words ‘Web Hosting’.
With technology changing all the time, one has to evaluate the present requirements of services and features and at the same time envision the future requirements before deciding on the kind of hosting services to be utilised and by which service provider.Internet is a crucial component of business operations. It is therefore, imperative to do a proper need analysis along with priority allocation before deciding on a hosting service.
Improper configurations and capacities will not only add to costs of the whole set-up, but may also lead to delayed connectivity and frequent breakdowns that are suicidal for any business operation.
Web hosting service includes many elements: Internet data center(IDC) to house hardware and software (including servers, routers and switches for network connections); load balancing software and hardware to guarantee performance and ensure service-level agreements (SLAs); security through dedicated or software firewalls; backup systems and other equipments.
The data center needs to be secure against physical intrusion and equipped with fire suppression, uninterupted power supply (UPS) and disaster recovery systems. Many service providers offer consulting or professional services and most provide help desk and technical assistance.
All web hosters ultimately provide similiar service. A website has to be placed on a server and then people all over the world can access it with the help of a web browser.
Despite this, there are a few things that one still needs to be concerned about, the providers services that include bandwidth and traffic, secure server capabilities, reliability, response time, customer support, infrastructure and accessibility to payment gateway.
Of all the issues that are most important to hosting customers, two stand out; reliability and scalability. Hoster need to be able to handle the surge of ‘flash crowds’ in major media or web events.
The future also belongs to the players who would be able to provide their clients with reliable connectivity and scalable applications, Support, Complex Web Site Designing Applications, Business E-commerce Shopping Cart Websites.
It is recommended that for a small personal website virtual privarte servers should be the option.As far as small and medium business and commercial sites are concerned, the requirement of professional image along with it’s own unique domain name demands availing of hosting services.But for big buinesses, portals, media and commercial sites, the scale of operations is larger and thus, it is advisable to opt for co-located web hosting company or dedicated servers.
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