Webmaster Papers








Virtual Web Hosting - What Is Virtual Web Hosting?


If your web site has outgrown its shared hosting solution, it may be time to move it to virtual hosting, which is often seen as a low cost alternative to getting your own dedicated server. A virtual server gives you most of the advantages of a dedicated server at a fraction of the price. The web hosting service takes advantage of the fact that few small to mid-size web sites need the full resources of a machine and puts several web sites on the same server.

But, you're thinking, that sounds like the shared hosting plan I'm using now. What's the difference, and why do I pay more for a virtual server?

While there are some similarities, there are also marked differences between shared web hosting and virtual server hosting. While a web hosting company puts multiple accounts on the same server in both kinds of hosting, the resources of the machine are portioned out differently.

On a shared hosting server, generally the cheapest kind of web hosting available, all the server resources go into a common pot. If one account gets 'greedy' and scoops out more than its share of CPU time, for example, every account on the server is affected.

When you're on a virtual hosting account, that can't happen. All the resources of the server are portioned out and assigned to each account in the amounts that they're allowed to use. Rather than every web site reaching into a common pool and grabbing what they need, each one is handed a 'bowl' of CPU, server space and traffic. When they use it all up, they can't just grab more.

In addition, each web site is set up with its own operating system and assigned an isolated segment of the disk that's separate from other web sites on the same disk. In some cases, each may even have their own hard drive on the server. If something crashes one web site on the host server, it doesn't affect any other web site.

Having your own operating system also means that you can make changes to it that you may not be allowed to make on a shared server. This allows you to customize the way your web site behaves almost as if you were on a single dedicated machine without worrying about affecting other customers on the same machine. To go back to our bowl of soup analogy, if your next door virtual neighbor decides to add extra salt to his bowl, your web site visitors aren't stuck with over-salted soup.

Prices for a virtual server range from about $35 a month to $99 a month and up. Your own dedicated server will run several hundred dollars a month, depending on the options that you choose for it. Overall, it's an excellent web hosting choice for a small-to-mid-size web site that needs more flexibility than shared server hosting allows without overstretching their budget.

To view our top recommended companies for web hosting, visit: Recommended Web Hosting Companies Online.

Carrie Reeder is the owner of eZerk, an informational website with articles and the latest news about various topics including web hosting.

RELATED ARTICLES


What You Should Know About Your Web Host
Yesterday I received a nice email in my inbox, I read that short and interesting email, it was like 5 to 6 lines max, at the end was a link which I was asked to click on. I did exactly that. I wait for about 1 minute but no page downloaded. I think my Internet connection gets down so I checked it but it was perfect.
How to Choose a Quality Webhost
If you are anything like me, you'd probably like to have a website on the Internet but you just have no idea how to go about it. All this talk of web hosting, bandwidth, disc space, and other jargon can cause one to say, "This is too complicated and technical, I just wanted to have a place to put all of my favorite skateboarding photos, cool information on ramp designs, and the best places to skate!" To get a website on the Web you have to go through a web host. The question is how do you find the web host for you?
Web Hosts: Helping Us Navigate Through This Future Techno-World
Computers, Internet, Web sites?what do they all mean? Hey, you're probably not a technophobe, I mean you own a microwave right? Just push a few buttons and the food cooks itself-easy. Now, they tell you the best way to share information, have a business, and generally communicate in life, are on the Web. I don't know about you but for me the Web conjures up visions of a giant spider whose sole intention is to turn me into a tasty appetizer. Computers scare me. People say they're the tool of the future, but I find them to be quite alien, especially compared to my lawnmower! All the technical jargon associated with these machines, it's like you have to have a university degree in Information Technology just to turn one on.
How to Find Good Web Hosting for Your Site!
When building your first site the main things that you will probably think about is what types of content you will be adding to your site, how you are going to get visitors to your site and how you are going to generate good revenue from your site.
Demand Unlimited Auto-Responders with Your Hosting Accounting
AutoResponders are nifty scripts that run in your web server 24/7 serving immediate email responses to questions, support and sales. Think about this, your customer comes to your website and spends a round 200$ to get your product. And after the payment they don't get back any response for the next 10 hours, would they like it? No, and this is more damaging if they have requested some additional pre-sales information and don't receive any notification in the next 1 hour. In this Internet world, your competitor is just a click away. Your customer goes back to the search results and clicks the next website that gives a similar product. Lost sales, and more money in your competitor's hands! This is twice the loss as the competitor is going to spend a percentage of the money in advertising the product or building a better product. Auto responders help reduce this possibility by carefully scripting the follow up messages based on the incoming queries your pre-sales information can be safely and securely delivered without delays. This translates into better sales.
The Top 10 Essential Ingredients of Every Linux Hosting Plan (Package)
Any website comprises the following ? Domain name, Webspace, Webpages.
Hosting Your Own Web Server: Things to Consider
Are you disgusted or disappointed with your current web host? Have you switched web hosting companies too many times? Have you thought of hosting your own website(s)? Do you have the ambition to control and manage your own web server?
Cheap Internet Hosting, Business Web Hosting - Choosing The Right Web Host Package
With literally hundreds of web hosting providers competing for your business, it may be confusing to find the one that's right for your web site. A few key considerations can help you narrow down your choices to the most affordable and best options to meet your personal, professional or business web page needs.
What is a Web Host Reseller Account?
A web host reseller account is a web hosting account that allows you to create hosting packages to sell to your clients. You can also host multiple sites of your own using the disk space allotted to the one hosting account.
Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt1
Discover how to go about choosing a web hosting provider in ways that 99.5% of the advice on the Internet never mention.
Managed Vs. Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting
"Unmanaged dedicated servers" - this is a pretty uninviting term to many, especially the non-gurus, but in most cases is not as "non-servicing" as it seems. In fact, I think someone one day soon, ( who knows maybe me ) will coin a new phrase to replace the term "unmanaged" - similar to how "used cars" is now "pre-owned" or how "apartment complexes" are now "rental communities". The truth is that unless you just picked a lousy provider or have unreasonable expectations, unmanaged hosting offers more service and support than most think. The Difference While exact definitions vary among providers, generally speaking managed hosting means your provider takes complete or near complete care of your server. This can include anything from basic system maintenance and patches to applications maintenance, security, monitoring, etc. Someone that needs dedicated hosting and wants to rely on their host for pretty much anything and everything regarding their server needs to strike a relationship with a managed service provider. Full blown managed services involve lots of skilled people hours. Not only that, since every managed customer is unique, it's hard for a managed provider to be overly systematic. For this - expect to pay a great deal more than today's budget server provider but if your needs demand it, and you choose a solid provider it should be money well spent. Unmanaged dedicated hosting obviously refers to dedicated servers with less, little or none of the skilled people support you'd expect to find in managed. You signup, you pay, and in a few minutes to a few hours you get a welcome email with IP address, login, FAQ's, etc. - Beyond that you are pretty much on your own. Relax - you are not really as own your own as it seems. First off, most unmanaged providers do in fact offer technical support, and most that we've seen is very good. If you choose unmanaged dedicated service you do need to have someone on your team that knows the technical side a good bit, but they don't necessarily have to be experts. While you may have to wait 12 - 24 hours or you may even have to pay extra for it, nearly all the unmanaged providers I know do have high level techs available to handle serious issues. In addition most providers give some sort of immediate reboot service. Unless you've been tinkering with some critical config files or have a hardware failure, a reboot can help with a range of issues. Lastly, unmanaged providers may not support you or whatever you put on your server after you move in, but they do stand by the hardware and software they sell you. If a hard drive crashes they are going to replace it for you (although you had better be doing your backups) and if your system crashes most will fix it for you. Summary The bottom line is if you've got mission critical needs and don't have the in-house staff to efficiently keep your servers performing the way they should, then you are going to need managed services. Even still it's a more cost effective route that hiring your own staff and most likely you will receive a higher, more consistent level of service. If your needs are more basic, and or you or your staff has the time and know-how to perform 75% - 80% of your server's maintenance then an affordable unmanaged service should do you just fine. Please refer following web sites for useful resources related to web site hosting: http://www.vipwh.com http://www.thehostingguide.com
Benefits of Web Hosting and Choice of a Web Host
Well let me start this way, a lot of people don't know why we need web hosting packages, some people feel web hosting ids just another Internet thing, while others feel web hosting is an opportunity for some people to make out something i.e. money making.
Cheap Web Hosting Package? eCommerce Web Hosting? - Choosing A Web Hosting Provider
One of the important decisions you'll make when you decide to put your business on the web is which web hosting provider to use. The web hosting company that hosts your personal page may not offer the best plan for your business needs. Here are some things to take into account when you're looking for a web hosting provider for your professional web pages.
The Web Hosting Industry 2005
For the "big things" to be build it was certainly needed a solid platform formed from the brochureware Web Sites connected together, that in the past ten years became suitable for e-commerce, communications and special software. That was the first decade of the Web Hosting Industry. The second decade of Web Hosting was full of applications that were finding new online platforms, with the traffic more shifted.
Thinking About Changing to a New Web Hosting Company? 5 Steps to Plan Ahead for the Move
Perhaps your web hosting company has a technical support group that never answers their email, or their control panel is difficult to use. Maybe your website has been having more downtime than uptime. Whatever the reason you are thinking of switching hosts, make sure you have your ducks in a row before making the move.
Budget Web Hosting - Are They All Created Equal?
Choosing a budget web hosting company can be overwhelming. In fact, choosing any web hosting company can be a challenge due, in large part, to the fact that there are so many of them. Do a search for "web hosting" with the quotes around the keywords on Google, and it'll return over 5 million documents! That doesn't mean there are 5 million web hosting providers but there very well could be at least 1 million! That's a lot of web hosts. How can you choose one that meets your need?
Web Site Hosting ? An Easy Guide
Web Hosting ? Made Simple What is web hosting anyway? What do I get when I buy a web hosting solution? To make thing clear from start let's just say how it all works. Web pages basically consist of text and images. Generically, the information contained by these files is called content. The look of the web page is called design. In order to be accessible to online users, all these files must be stored on a web server. You can think of web servers as computers storing the files of tens or hundreds of web sites. These computers are all connected to the Internet through high-speed connection. When you access a web page, your browser connects to the web server that stores that page and downloads it to your computer.
Top 6 Ways to Promote Your Web Hosting Business Part 1
Promoting a new company in the crowded industry of web hosting today is really hard. There are many tactics that work well and are legitimate, and you can use them to promote your company using them.
Web Hosting Data Transfer: How Much Is Too Much?
Bandwidth in its simplest terms refers to the amount of data that flows across a network wire in a given time period. For most web hosting providers, that time period is measured in a month. Web hosting providers are charged a certain amount per month or per year for an allocated amount of bandwidth from backbone providers and wholesale data centers. That cost is then passed on to the consumer in the form of web hosting plans.
Overselling Web Hosting: What Does It Mean To You?
Overselling is a big trend in the web-hosting world at the moment. It's an easy way to get more out of your servers than normally is possible. The basic idea of overselling is that the majority of your clients are only going to use a fraction of the resources allocated to them so there's going to be a lot of wasted bandwidth and space. Overselling involves taking a gamble and selling more than you can handle assuming that the unused resources will cover it.