Web hosting or internet hosting is a service to make websites accessible to the global community on the internet. Web hosting is one of the most critical factors responsible for the smooth performance of a website and thus the success of a business online.
Each website whether static or database driven would require efficient web hosting for swift performance over the internet. Factors including response times, up time, download speeds etc are crucial for a successful run over the internet. More so, businesses rely hugely on the email solutions for their day to day interaction which are directly influenced by the mail servers and their efficiency.
How is a website hosted?
Organizations classified as "web hosts" allow space on their server along with internet connectivity for hosting of the website on the "world wide web". The provision of space can either be through servers owned by web hosts or through collocation.
What are the different types of web hosting solutions?
Shared web hosting: Shared web hosting is basically on a shared space where various websites will be hosted simultaneously on a single server itself. This would also mean sharing of a common RAM and a CPU (i.e. several websites share the resources of a single machine).
Dedicated web hosting: "Dedicated web hosting" means the website owner gains full rights of the machine where the website is hosted. "Dedicated web hosting" can also include unmanaged hosting plans wherein the security and maintenance of the server is the website owner's responsibility.
Virtual Dedicated Server hosting: This service is also called VPS or virtual private server wherein several resources of the server are divided into virtual servers. Various VPS relationships are established which in turn also signifies that the resources allocated may not correspond to the hardware.
Managed Web hosting: "Managed web hosting" is a service wherein the "web host" retains his control over the server and in turn takes care of the security and maintenance for the same. The client however has the functionality to manage the data transfer through an FTP.
There are various other hosting solutions catering to specific requirements of the users. Simple servers can be created at a private residence as well and organizations can arrange for co-located servers as well based on their needs.