A description of web site hosting
As its name suggests, web hosting is a service, which involves hosting web content. There are various forms and types of web hosting, based on the aims and on the objectives. However, they all are related to hosting files, which, once hosted, are made available throughout the Web. A host is in fact a web server that is connected to the World Wide Web and has its own Internet Protocol address, which enables users to gain access to it via the Web. The web server's architecture and its system resources are subject to the kind of web hosting solution it's going to be used for.
What are the various forms of hosting?
Based on the usage, the hosting solution may be:
File Storage Web Hosting - this form of web hosting allows the clients to deposit their files on a specific web server. With the customary file hosting solution, the files that are saved may only be accessed by the person that's using the service. This web hosting service generally is connected with backups of personal computers , documents, personal files and even other servers. This solution may also have certain limitations with regard to the disk storage and the root privileges. There may also be web traffic limitations, but that depends on the particular hosting provider.
Warez Hosting - the so-called warez web hosting service is comparable with the previous web hosting service form. Nonetheless, unlike the file hosting solution, the warez hosting service is used for disseminating copyrighted materials without the authorization of the license proprietor. To cut a long story short - it is associated with the forbidden distribution of files and materials. There are many methods for this to be fulfilled, but the 2 essential approaches are - through plain HTTP downloading and via P2P connections. The first one entails either a given web portal, or, most commonly, simply a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thereby download copyrighted docs free of cost. The second method involves a peer-to-peer connection, availing of the so-called Torrent servers, through which users swap files between each other. There are a few website hosting vendors that allow such type of hosting on their hosting servers, mostly due to all the legal complications that it entails. Usually such web sites are hosted on personal dedicated web servers that are registered by third-party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.
Electronic Mail Hosting - this solution is applicable with both shared hosting and dedicated web hosting servers, based on the client's wish. If you desire to set up your very own personal SMTP mail server, then you will need either a VPS web server or a dedicated web hosting server that offers the access level needed to carry out such a procedure. For common mail web hosting purposes, however, you can create a regular shared web page hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain name. This is not a solution that's widely famous, since the site hosting and the e-mail hosting services are being served by 2 different web servers, often owned by different hosting providers.
Web Site Hosting - the most famous and broadly used hosting service as of today. It's used for hosting web site files, whose type depends on the Operating System the web hosting server is availing of - Linux or Windows. Different sorts of files demand different hosting server Operating Systems, or else they won't be exhibited correctly on the World Wide Web. This sort of hosting may impose data storage and bandwidth limits, server root access and central processing unit usage restrictions.
Depending on the goals and on the functions, the customer should choose the type of server that he demands for his work, and, of course, the hosting provider that's going to furnish it. There are different sorts of servers, depending on the configuration and the web hosting services that they offer. These are:
Shared Web Hosting Server - a shared site hosting server includes a smaller amount of system resources, which, of course, is reflected on the price of the service. It can be used for hosting small sized and middle scale websites, which do not demand considerable quantities of server storage space and bandwidth.
Semi-Dedicated Servers - they function on the same principle as the shared web hosting servers. Nonetheless, there are much less users hosted on the same web server. Because of that, each of them will have a bigger quota of the server's resources like RAM, server space, web traffic and CPU. Excellent for hosting big web sites that do not need root access.
VPS hosting - the virtual private web hosting servers are excellent for medium sized web pages, which do demand root access to the web server's configuration files. Typically, there are a handful of VPS server web hosting accounts placed on the same physical server. However, each of them is insulated from the rest and runs its own OS.
Dedicated Server Hosting - a completely dedicated server configured and accessed by you and only you. It ensures a great amount of resources. It also provides full server root access, which renders it an ideal solution for any sort of website that demands a webspace hosting solution.
The sole question that's left is:
Which web space hosting distributor should I opt for?
As already mentioned, there aren't many web hosting providers offering warez web hosting solutions because of judicial entanglements. Such web hosts are being shut down virtually every month. That is why, if you would like to start such a service, you should do it on your own personal computer. The shared webspace hosting solution is the most widespread kind of hosting service. Therefore, each webspace hosting corporation offers it. Not all of them, though, provide services such as Virtual Private Servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated hosting servers. Most of the smaller webspace hosting companies do not have the resources needed for offering those services. That is the reason why it's always best to choose a bigger hosting company that can supply its clients with all the services that they seek. You can easily identify such companies by the types of solutions that they are providing and by the manner in which they present them to the customers. For instance, some web hosting providers allow you to begin with a small scale web space hosting package and subsequently move to a more powerful one, if you find it obligatory to do so. This is very suitable, since you do not need to transfer web portals between web hosting servers and there is no risk of experiencing outages because of all the complications that may occur. Web hosting providers like tortillero are offering all sorts of solutions and have the needed web hosting server resources and personnel to assure that their clients will not chance upon any troubles when changing services, which is what a top hosting corporation is actually all about.