Hosting can be divided into two large groups – free and paid hosting.
You won’t be able to do anything sensible on free hosting, especially if you are going to open a commercial website. Your functionality will be greatly reduced, someone else’s ads may be displayed on your resource, etc.
We will dwell on paid hosting in more detail.
In general, there are four types of hosting:
- general,
- vps,
- cloudy,
- dedicated.
Shared (Dedicated) hosting. The cheapest and most widely available. You are allocated a place on a shared server (hence the name) which you, like traffic and computing power, share with other users like you. As you might guess, the performance of your site can sometimes be problematic, and the set of additional services is minimal, but it’s not expensive, and the server is already configured and maintained by the provider (the person who provides you with hosting).
VPS, or Virtual Dedicated Server. It costs more than shared hosting, but you are allocated a so-called “separate partition” on the server. That is, you are provided with a certain amount of computing power, memory, and the like. Here you will already need certain skills and knowledge of server management, but then the performance of your site is not affected by traffic flows to other sites.
Dedicated. In fact, this is renting an entire server. Gives you the best flexibility, allowing you to customize it however you want with only one difference from the method described earlier, all of which comes with the best possible support from your hosting provider (not cheap, of course).
Cloud hosting. Cheaper than buying a whole server, with the least loss of reliability as a result. This is where a cluster of servers is allocated to you, which keeps your site up and running as a failure on one server simply causes your traffic to be diverted to another. It is also convenient that you pay only for the amount of resources that you consume.
Shared Hosting
Virtual hosting is a service that provides the location of a certain number of users on one server, each of which occupies a dedicated space and can, together with other users, use all the resources and capacities of the server site.
You buy part of the space on the hosting company’s server, which passes through massive traffic every second, works 7/24, performs tens or even hundreds of thousands of tasks in parallel and is constantly under the supervision of specialists.
Shared hosting stores the content of sites with different domain names. The areas are served by a web server (usually Apache), a shared database server (MS SQL or MySQL), and a mail server.
All sites of the same host usually use a common IP address. When a visitor types in the site’s address or clicks on a link, the server finds your site by the domain name.
If you choose hosting with a dedicated IP, this IP address is no longer in common use but belongs to your site. There are many more opportunities for applying various configurations and creating additional site functionality in this case.
When connecting to shared hosting, you buy space on the server (usually from 1 to 10 GB) and place your site pages, media files, scripts and everything you need to make the site work there. Shared hosting costs you several orders of magnitude cheaper than renting a whole server. At the same time, you can be sure that specially trained people monitor your site’s performance and constant availability.
VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is a virtual server (Virtual Private Server), which is more stable and secure than conventional hosting. If you are the owner of a large site and the package of resources provided by hosting is not enough for full-fledged work, and you do not have the opportunity to rent a dedicated server, you should pay attention to buying VPS hosting. Usually, when significant traffic on the site is reached, problems may arise in the operation of the resource, and the next step for full functionality is the transition to a virtual server. VPS hosting is a great choice; it is cheap, easy to manage, maintain and configure, and ideal for various necessary tasks.
By purchasing virtual VPS servers on Windows or VPS on Linux for your site, you are guaranteed to receive the entire set of resources, including disk space, processor cores and RAM. Answering the question of VPS hosting, I would like to note that when buying this service, your site will no longer have to share server space with other neighbour sites, which can spoil the credibility of your resource. Also, VPS can positively affect both the level of security in general and the ranking of the site in search engines. VPS is the possibility of full administrative access; it helps the owner of a site or other resource optimize the settings for their needs, such as installing an OS, selecting a CMS, and the necessary programs. VPS hosting allows you to place the required number of sites on the server, which provides more convenient control over several of your sites at once.
Dedicated Hosting
The Dedicated server service is a lease of a physical server owned by a hosting provider to meet the tenant’s technical needs (storage, processing and transmission of information). Renting dedicated servers also ensures the smooth operation of equipment, server administration and other services.
The user who has received the Dedicated Server at his disposal gets the right to all its resources. Therefore, there is massive scope for choosing the operating system installed on the server. Also, the owner’s powers of a dedicated server include selecting the type of database and the ability to install any software, including unique and self-written soft. Thus, the user sets up the server configuration based on his own needs and the main tasks he plans to perform using the server.
If you compare a dedicated server with shared hosting, you will notice that the second option involves sharing machine resources with the owners of other accounts. In this case, the user must work on the server configuration provided by the host, adjusting his tasks to the multi-user structure.
A dedicated server is a smart solution for creating and running sites that require a lot of resources. A dedicated Server ensures uninterrupted operation and stability under any load, unlike a server used for dozens and hundreds of user accounts.
A dedicated server is not only an individual server configuration for a specific user but also a solution to complex technical problems. When a database on a regular server consumes excessive resources, web applications may become unavailable to site visitors. In another situation, when maintenance work is being done on the webserver, clients do not get access to the database. The database should be placed on a dedicated server to solve such problems. This ensures that web applications will function smoothly and the database will be available to clients even if the webserver is unavailable. A dedicated server is of no minor importance for protecting databases from intruders, and storing sensitive information on a separate server limits unauthorized attempts to access it.
Cloud Hosting
(Cloud Hosting) is an advanced technology for distributing computing power within the server platform used. Cloud hosting can dynamically allocate resources and is entirely scalable, representing a reliable and high-quality service.
In cases of increased load on one of the servers, cloud hosting can use the computing power of less loaded servers to ensure the stable and reliable operation of sites. To smooth out such irregularities, a virtualization system is used, making it possible to balance loads both by means of software and by distributing virtual capacities across physical servers in a cluster.
By choosing cloud hosting, you pay only for the number of resources used, such as processor time, disk space, and amount of memory consumed.
As practice shows, cloud hosting has many advantages over other types of hosting. Characterized by hourly billing and providing the ability to change the tariff plan flexibly, this service allows you to vary the allocation of capacities depending on the growth of traffic indicators and, with its considerable increase, use a whole cluster of several servers.
Due to the latter circumstance, cloud hosting also wins over using a physical server, the cost of using which is much higher. With unlimited scalability, cloud hosting can increase the potential of a virtual server in a matter of seconds and, after the peak load drops, reduce power consumption.
Currently, Cloud Hosting as a service is one of the most optimal solutions for creating an efficient resource management system that ensures reliable and fast operation of sites with a dynamic level of traffic without the need for high material costs.
