Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on hosting
- What is hosting or hosting company?
- What are different types of hosting?
- What is shared hosting?
- What is Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting?
- What is dedicated hosting?
- What is colocation hosting?
- What is cloud hosting?
- What is Echo-Friendly hosting?
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What is hosting or hosting company?
Hosting company is one who houses your blog or website on the web for certain period on rent.
In other words, you are renting the space for certain period (monthly, yearly, 3 years) on a contract for an amount to place your blog or website.
A hosting company hosts your blog on their servers for certain period on a contract for certain amount.
Hosting companies are responsible for the maintenance and management (including storing your files) of your blog or website.
The hosting company charges certain amount according to the time period.
Most hosting companies offer plans
- Monthly or
- Yearly or
- More than a year (24 Months or 36 Months)
What are the different types of hosting?
- Shared hosting
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting
- Dedicated hosting
- Colocation hosting
- Cloud hosting
What is shared hosting?
Shared hosting is where the web hosting server is shared by many users.
In other words multiple users share the same server and resources like CPU, RAM, Disk Space and bandwidth.
It is the basic hosting services provided by the most hosting services.
Usually the term unlimited is used with shared services. That doesn’t mean those resources are infinite.
Yes, unlimited resources are available, however as these resources are shared by many users sometimes the speed or storage space or bandwidth has to be compromised by every other user.
For example, sharing in peak times or sometimes if you are sharing with some other high traffic website than yours.
For a better analogy, let us see an example here. If one water pipeline is shared by 10 households the force of the water that reaches them might be less when every household started to use at the same time.
Likewise, the resources we use are unlimited. However, that is variable depending on other users.
Who uses the shared services mostly?
Mostly shared hosting is popular among beginners, bloggers and small scale business owners.
What is Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting?
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting setting is where resources like CPU, RAM, Disk storage and bandwidth are dedicated to your account on a dedicated server, while sharing the resources with other users on the same server.
So, basically as a customer, you will be sharing the same physical server with virtually dedicated resources not over lapping with other users.
For better analogy, sharing the same water pipeline for the 10 households, but having a dedicated pipeline from the same pipeline for every household not overlapping with other householders.
Who uses the Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting services mostly?
Anyone can use the VPS hosting from beginners to bloggers. However, mostly small to medium businesses websites opt-in for VPS hosting.
Besides, the beginners or bloggers who are outgrown (increased in their traffic flow) in their blog or businesses and want to upscale their server capacity can opt-in from shared hosting to VPS hosting.
Moreover, if you are in need to install custom software that isn’t permitted on shared hosting migrating to the VPS hosting is the only option.
Furthermore, if you need to store massive amount of data or planning on internal integrated corporate connection you might consider VPS.
What is dedicated hosting?
Dedicated web hosting is where servers are completely isolated and physically dedicated to the account holders with highest level of resource allocation, privacy and control.
In other words, basically as a customer you will own the server entirely.
Dedicated hosting = Server dedicated to single customer or a business customer.
Better analogy, you have your own water pipeline dedicated to your house.
Who uses the dedicated hosting services mostly?
While, anyone can use the dedicated web hosting, mostly medium or large businesses with very high traffic websites or websites that need high security and reliability opt-in for dedicated hosting.
With Dedicated server, as a customer you have freedom to customize the server as you like it.
Dedicated server means, it is packed with loads of storage, bandwidth, RAM and CPU performing devices.
Therefore, dedicated web hosting is commonly used for large sites with high volume traffic.
Also, preferred by websites that need high reliability and security that transacts with high sensitive financial details or organizations that deals with personal information.
What is colocation hosting or Carrier hotel hosting?
Colocation hosting or “Carrier hotel” means some individual companies own their own servers and those servers are housed and maintained by data centers for certain amount on a contract.
These data centers facilities provide space, power, cooling and physical security for the server and networking equipment
And, also sometimes connect them to variety of telecommunications and network service providers with a minimum cost and complexity.
Individual companies or customers have a hold on the design and usage of the servers (equipment).
But the daily management of the physical servers is managed by the data center and facilities of the colocation providers.
For better understanding it is like pet sitting. Your pet is looked after by pet service providers by providing space and care for certain amount and period.
But the pet is owned by the owner. Same way your servers are looked after by data centers (server sitting).
There are two kinds of colocation settings available.
- Wholesale colocation or colocation data center
- Retail colocation or colocation rack
Wholesale colocation or colocation data center is when a data center company rents out the entire facility to another company.
Retail colocation or colocation rack is when they rent out the space or a rack within a data center to multiple companies.
What is Cloud hosting?
Traditionally websites would have been hosted on a single server in a single data center.
Sometimes on one server hosting multi websites (accounts) as in shared hosting or one server dedicated for one website or business as in dedicated hosting.
And here, all your site files are stored on a single server.
However, in cloud hosting instead of having all your data on a single server machine, cloud hosting spreads the data in across number of different servers in different places that are all connected together.
All your data is managed through virtual machine or computer that can access all the different servers. Hence, the name cloud.
Cloud hosting can be
- Public
- Private
Public cloud (like the shared hosting) the data of several sites is stored in collection of networked servers.
Unlike the traditional shared hosting you do not share CPU, RAM and Disk space with any other account.
The upside of it is less cost and downside of it is less control and security.
Private clouds reserved for specific company or clientele for one business that does not share its infrastructure accounts, hardware or websites.
The downside of this is more cost and upside of it is more control and security.
What is green hosting or Echo-Friendly hosting?
Green hosting or echo-friendly hosting is using green technologies or powering by environment friendly renewable energy sources (wind, water, solar) to reduce the environmental impact like the carbon output (footprint).
Green hosting embraces powering a data center with renewable energy or planting trees and grass around and over data centers.
At the same time using energy conservation techniques in day to day operations or by use of energy saving appliances.
What is Renewable energy?
Renewable energy is a source of energy that is not depleted by use. For example, solar, wind, water (Hydroelectric), Biomass, and Geothermal power.
This energy is produced from the natural resources that are always available in the environment. It is natural and re-usable.
Unlike the fossil fuels which are limited in supply and deplete eventually. For example, Coal, gas, oil when used for energy generation emits Carbon dioxide into the air, polluting our air, polluting us and the environment.