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WEB HOSTING

Web hosting services as the term suggests is an internet hosting service that allows organizations or individuals to provide and expose their websites and make them accessible via the World Wide Web. The main role of a web hosting company is to offer space on a server that they own and provide that to their clients while also providing internet connectivity in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation.

The most basic scope comprises of webpage and/or small scale file hosting wherein the files can be easily uploaded via the FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) offer this service at no cost at all. Therefore, personal web page hosting is rather cheap or sponsored by advertisements and in fact in most cases free of cost. However, large scale web site hosting like business web sites etc. can turn out to be expensive but with more attractive features. If a person opts to host just a single page, this kind of hosting is rather common and usually meant for personal web pages. However, the more complex websites require more features and a comprehensive package to support the functionality in terms of database support as well as application development platforms like PHP, JAVA, ASP.NET etc. These added features further facilitate script writing and installation for applications like forums and content management. For websites requiring e-commerce enabled features, SSL is required. Most web hosting providers also offer an interface control panel. The control panel helps the client to manage the web server, install scripts and facilitates other services like email etc. The most common among them are cPanel, Hosting Controller, Plesk among others. Web.com holds many patents it claims that cover broad methods and attractive features for website building and web control panels.

Most of the hosting companies today, claim to offer 99% to 99.9% uptime. Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. This claim refers to a server being powered on and doesn’t account for network downtime. Many providers tie uptime, and accessibility, into their own Service Level Agreement, or SLA. SLAs may or may not include refunds, or reduced costs if performance goals are not met. Therefore it highly recommended to read the company’s terms and conditions carefully and thoroughly before choosing a web hosting company. Moreover, the AUP (Acceptable use policy) also needs to be checked prior to signing up in order to obviate potential cancellation of services due to unforeseen or violating activities.

Now, depending on the client’s requirement and budget, there are many types of hosting services offered by companies. These include:

Free Web Hosting Service: As the service suggests, this type of hosting is completely free of cost. This service is usually sponsored or supported by advertisements and may offer limited features and limited hence limited functionality. Free web hosts will either provide a subdomain (yourname.example.com) or a directory (www.example.com/~yourname). In few cases, the free host may operate as a domain name registrar. The free hosting providers have a basic package with limited features and may also offer enhanced services for a specific cost. These limitations can include limited size of each hosted file, small and limited bandwidth, does not allow hotlinking (placing of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site) of files, may not allow specific files like MP3, MPEG, ZIP etc., may place a compulsion on placing web hosts’ banner or a popup ad on one or all web pages, and do have any uptime guarantee. The features that may be offered under this package may include a web based control panel, file transfer via FTP, scripting languages like PHP, PERL, ASP etc, MySQL, free email account and other features like a guestbook, traffic counter etc. Hosts that offer instant activation, usually offer very little bandwidth and storage space and require the client to shoe their banner or pop ups. Hosts with Instant Activation are often abused by spammers, which upload pages to these hosts to use for their benefits. The other method of giving out free web hosting is that of approved activation. Hosts with approved activation offer good space and Bandwidth but offer very limited features. Approved applications are processed by administrators hired by the free hosting company who validate the applications depending on the details provided by the users. This is primarily done to prevent spamming. The activation time can vary from a few minutes to at least a week or perhaps more. Clients however need to adhere to certain rules and regulations and follow the policies laid down by the host. Then the approval and activation process starts. Posting in forums is another way to acquire a free hosting account. Forum-based free hosting requires users to either reach a certain amount of posts before getting a free hosting account, or be an active contributor in the forum on a regular basis. Mostly, these forums are meant to advertise and the posts have to focus on excessive advertising. The most common method is to gain “credit” by posting in forums. So if for example, every credit equates to 24 hours a day, the hosting account remains active for 24 hours. Different hosts have different policies.

Shared Web Hosting Service: In this form of web hosting service, more than one instance of the same web server is hosted on a single physical server. This, by far is the most wallet-friendly option as users share the overall maintenance cost of the server. This method usually includes a system administration as the system is shared mutually between many users. However, users who would want to control certain features may find this method a hindrance as certain users may require extensive software development. Shared hosting typically uses a web-based control panel system, such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, InterWorx, Helm, H-sphere, Ensim, Sphera or one of many other control panel products. The major aspects of the shared hosting service type include management of servers, installation of server software, security updates, technical support and other related aspects. The provider is generally responsible to take care of all these aspects. The majority of servers are based on the Linux operating system, but some providers offer Microsoft Windows-based or FreeBSD-based solutions. For example, the Plesk and Ensim control panels are both available for two operating systems, Linux and Windows. Versions for either OS have very similar interfaces and functionality, with the exception of OS-specific differences. There are a large number of shared hosting providers available that could range from small scale providers to large scale hosting providers catering to the needs of hundreds to thousands of customers. Shared web hosting can also be done privately by sharing the cost of running a server in a colocation centre; this is called cooperative hosting. Now, shared web hosting is primarily done in two ways - Name based and IP based. However, a few control panels do allow a combination of name based and IP based on a single server. In name-based virtual hosting, also called shared IP hosting, the virtual hosts serve multiple hostnames on a single machine with a single IP address. When a web browser requests a resource from a web server using HTTP/1.1 it includes the requested hostname as part of the request. The server uses this information to determine which web site to show the user. The name-based virtual hosts do not work with browsers that do not send the hostname as part of requests. These do not support secure websites either. All name-based virtual hosts using the same IP address must share the same digital certificate. Moreover, in the event that the Domain Name System is malfunctioning, it is harder to use a name-based virtually-hosted website. In IP-based virtual hosting, also called dedicated IP hosting, each virtual host has a different IP address. The web server is configured with multiple physical network interfaces, or virtual network interfaces on the same physical interface. The web server software uses the IP address the client connects to in order to determine which web site to show the user. The main advantage of using a dedicated IP is that the user is able to use its own SSL certificate rather than using a shared certificate.

Reseller Web Hosting: Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting wherein the account owner has the ability to use his/her allotted hard drive space and bandwidth to host websites on behalf of third parties. These services are usually offered as an add-on or additional service and the web hosting reseller may comprise of web design firm, web developer or systems integrator. This type of hosting is an affordable option for web hosting entrepreneurs to launch a company. Most reseller hosting plans allow resellers to create their own service plans and choose their own pricing structure. This kind of hosting does not necessarily require the expertise or technical know how of the web hosting aspects. The data center operator is responsible for maintaining network infrastructure and hardware, and the dedicated server owner configures/secures/updates the server. It is however the responsibility of the reseller to interface with his/her customers. Any kind of hardware, software and connectivity issues are resolved by the service provider from whom the reseller plan was purchased. Through user friendly control panels, the resellers can easily manage their customer accounts via a web interface. The ModernBill software which is most commonly used; helps to manage and automate account creation as well as billing. The most commonly used control panels include WHM/cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, Webmin, EnsimPro, Helm and Hosting Controller among others.

Virtual Dedicated Server: The VPS or Virtual Private Server is a method of slicing up or dividing a physical server computer into multiple servers that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. In this, the users may have root access to their own virtual space. Each virtual server has the capability to run its operating system and the each system can be rebooted. The physical server boots normally. It then runs a program that boots each virtual server within a virtualization environment (similar to an emulator). The virtual servers have no direct access to hardware and are usually booted from a disk image. There are 2 kinds of virtualizations: software based and hardware based. In a software based virtualization environment, the same kernel is shared by the virtual machines, and takes up the main node’s resources. The primary benefits of this kind of virtualization include quota incrementing and decrementing in real time with no need to restart the node. The main examples are Virtuozzo (a product of swsoft.com), HyperVM (a product of lxlabs.com), and openvz which is the core kernel of both virtuozzo and hypervm. In a hardware based virtualization, the virtualization mechanism divides or slices up the real hardware resources and no burst and/or realtime quota modification is possible. This kind of environment is more secure and is useful in enterprise/commercial usages. Examples of this include Microsoft Virtual Server, VMWare, and Xen. A VPS runs its own copy of its operating system, therefore customers have super user-level access to the machine and that gives the customers get the flexibility to install any software that runs on the OS. Not all softwares run well in a virtualized environment, including firewalls, anti-virus clients and virtualizers themselves. Moreover, a few VPS providers may impose certain restrictions. A VPS generally has limited processor time, RAM, and disk space. Virtual private servers have gained popularity in the recent years. There are many varieties of softwares that handle virtualization. These include User-mode LINUX, vmware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Qemu, VDSmanager, Virtualbox, xensource, parallels, OpenVZ, HyperVM, Virtuozzo, FreeVPS and Solaris Containers.

Dedicated Hosting Service: Under this service, the user gets his or her own web server and has complete control over its operations. However, he/she does not own the server. In this type of hosting service, the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This type of hosting service offers more flexibility than shared hosting as the organizations have full control over the servers as well as the hardware and other aspects of the operating system. Dedicated servers are most often housed in data centers, similar to colocation facilities, providing redundant power sources and HVAC systems. In contrast to colocation, the server hardware is owned by the provider and in some cases they will provide support for your operating system or applications. Aspects like availability, price and employee credibility are they factors that determine which operating systems are offered on dedicated servers. Variations of Linux (open-source operating systems) are often included at no charge to the customer. However, Microsoft requires additional license fees on all their products, which means more monthly rental on a dedicated server running a Windows operating system. Red Hat Enterprise is a commercial version of Linux which is offered to hosting providers on a monthly fee basis. Other operating systems are available from the open source community at no charge. These include CentOS, Fedora Core, Debian, and many other Linux distributions or BSD systems FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD. Other operating systems are available from the open source community at no charge. These include CentOS, Fedora Core, Debian and many other Linux distributions or BSD systems FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD. The operating system support features may include updates in terms of security fixes, patches, and system-wide vulnerability resolutions. patches, and system-wide vulnerability resolutions. Updates to core operating systems include kernel upgrades, service packs, application updates, and security patches that keep server secure and safe. Bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate or the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second) and is often represented in bits (of data) per second (bps). To illustrate, visitors to your server, web site, or applications utilize bandwidth as the traffic moves from your server to the Internet and vice versa. Connectivity refers to the “access providers” that supply bandwidth, or data transfer rate, through various connection points across a network or footprint to one or multiple data centers where dedicated servers are housed. Bandwidth measurements are defined as the following: 95th (measured using average bits and speed of transfer), Unmetered (measured in speed or bits) and Total Transfer (measured in bytes transferred). The 95th method is the line Total Transfer (measured in bytes transferred). Line Speed is measured using bits per second, kilobits per second, megabits per second, and gigabits per second. In the unmetered method, providers cap or control the “top line” speed for a server. Top line speed in Unmetered bandwidth is the total Mbit/s allocated to the server and configured on the switch level. This service is usually offered at an additional cost. Few providers calculate the Total Transfer, the measurement of actual data leaving and coming from the server, measured in bytes. Measurement between providers varies and includes one of the following equations:
In Traffic + Out Traffic = Total Transfer
In Traffic = Total Transfer
Out Traffic = Total Transfer

Dedicated server providers use large amounts of bandwidth, therefore they are able to secure lower volume based pricing to include a multi-provider blend of bandwidth. Many dedicated server providers include a SLA (Service Level Agreement) based on network uptime. Most of the also offer a 99% to 100% uptime guarantee on their network. The biggies in the dedicated server market offer large amounts of bandwidth ranging from 500 gigabytes to 3000 gigabytes using the “overselling” model. Big companies offer dedicated servers with 1Terabyte (TB) of bandwidth or higher. The user needs to pay additional fee for additional bandwidth used or if he or she uses more bandwidth per month than that is allocated. Server management may include a few or all of the following features: Operating System updates, Application updates, Server monitoring, SNMP hardware monitoring, Application Monitoring, Technical Support, Firewall Services, Anti-Virus Updates, Security Audits, Backup and restoration services, disaster recovery, DNS hosting, Load Balancing, Database Administration, Performance Tuning, DDOS protection and Mitigation, Software installation and configuration, Intrusion Detection, User Management and Programming Consultation among others. For some dedicated server providers “fully managed” could imply dedicated servers with 1Terabyte (TB) of bandwidth or higher. Administrative maintenance of the operating system, often including upgrades, security patches, and sometimes even daemon updates are included. Differing levels of management may include adding users, domains, daemon configuration, or even custom programming.

The server management support can be divided into the following types:
Fully Managed - Includes monitoring, software updates, reboots, security patches and operating system upgrades
Managed - Includes medium level of management, monitoring, updates, and a limited amount of support
Self Managed - Includes regular monitoring and some maintenance
Unmanaged - Little to no involvement from service provider. Customers are responsible for all maintenance, upgrades, patches, and security.

However, regardless of the support level offered by the service provider, the provider will offer security maintenance on the network. High level security measures are taken by the dedicated hosting server providers for which various software programs come into play for scanning systems and networks for spammers, hackers, and other harmful problems such as Trojans, worms, viruses etc.
Below is a list of security software and services based on the operating system installed on a dedicated server:
Linux Dedicated Server: Port Sentry, Connect Scans, SYN Scans, FIN Scans, Null Scans, Xmas Scans, Full-Xmas Scan, UDP Scan
Windows Dedicated Servers: Trend Micro

Dedicated service packages are offered on a monthly billing cycle. Microsoft offers software licenses through a program called the Service Provider License Agreement. Moreover, there is a flexibility to customize the servers to suit specific needs and specifications of the clients. The control panels include integration into web servers, database applications, programming languages, application deployment, server administration tasks, and include the ability to automate tasks via a web based front end. The key beneficial features of this service include Serial Console or KVM/IP which is used to gain access to a server if the user is unable to do so, and permits a server to be recovered from boot-time configuration faults, such as file system recovery. Secondly, an automated system can be used to restore the server to its original configuration; it offers remote backup space and ColdFusion (MX) (rapid server scripting environment for creating Rich Internet Applications), SQL server and Oracle.

Colocation Web Hosting Service: This service is similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but in this case the user owns the collocation server and the hosting company provides housing or physical space of the servers as well as maintains the server. This by far is the most costly yet powerful mode of web hosting service. The collocation center in effect therefore is a data center where the customers locate network, server and storage gear and interconnect to a variety of telecommunications and other network service provides with minimized complexity. This method of using shared data center infrastructure is catching the interest of many companies or individuals as customers reduce their traffic costs and gather more space for their internal networks for other uses. Moreover, by outsourcing network traffic to a colocation service provider with greater bandwidth capacity, web site access speeds may improve as well. The service provider may or may not provide support facilities for the user’s machine. Their key services usually include electrical, Internet access and storage facilities for the server unless stated otherwise.

Clustered Hosting: This technology provides customers with a “clustered” handling of security, load balancing, and necessary website resources and reduces the entailed complexities involved in the shared hosting infrastructure. Clustered hosting “virtualizes” the resources beyond the limits of one physical server, and as a result, a website is not limited to one server. The processing power of many servers is thus shared and their applications are distributed in real-time. This service is essentially data-driven. Clustered hosting network layer protections employ intelligent routing, redundant switching fabric and built in firewall and proxy technology. The few obstacles like denial of services and other network related issues are not found in this type of hosting and in the event that individual hardware components are impacted by such attacks, they automatically fall out of traffic handling during the attack.

There are specific types of hosting provided by web hosting providers which include file hosting services, image hosting services, video hosting services, blog hosting services, one-click hosting services, and shopping cart software. There are a wide array of web hosting providers available on the internet today who offer these services with a fee or even free of cost. The user needs to assess and thoroughly evaluate which hosting service would best suit his needs and requirements. The main factors taken into consideration should include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software. A typical configuration for a Linux server is the LAMP platform: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. Windows as a hosting platform is also a great option to choose from. The customer still can choose from PHP, Perl, and Python but may also use ASP .Net or Classic ASP. Most web hosting packages comprise of a Web Content Management System, so the user does not have to fret over the technical factors involved. Search engines, user reviews and message boards are an ideal way to narrow down on your options and select the right hosting provider that could suit your budget and basic infrastructure requirements.

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