There are many types of web hosting now available. All websites are different and website owners each have their own requirements. This is the case with the actual website, and also with the hosting of their sites.
For a website to be viewable over the internet it needs to be uploaded onto a server. There are two main types of server, dedicated servers and shared servers. With Dedicated Servers a client rents an entire server which is not shared with anyone; it is purely for their individual needs. They are mainly used by clients who require complex hosting solutions and have large sites. It is not cheap but is good value for websites where dedicated servers are necessary to fulfil their needs.
Shared Servers are the opposite of dedicated servers. Here a number of websites are all hosted on one server. They share this server space. This is significantly cheaper than a dedicated server but doesn’t include all the same options; there are many more limitations. However for many websites, especially small ones, this is all that is necessary.
VPS Hosting is an alternative to dedicated servers or shared hosting. A server is partitioned into several separate servers. In some ways this is similar to each client having their own server but the server is smaller than if they hired the entire server. It is therefore somewhere in between a dedicated and shared server, with some of the advantages of a dedicated server but without such high costs.
Managed Hosting is a type of hosting available to customers who have a dedicated server. The hosting is taken control of by the hosting provider. They managed it on behalf of their client, meaning the responsibility is taken away from them. This is more expensive than most other types of hosting though.
Colocation is a very different option to all other types of hosting. The client does not rent the server from the host, but instead purchased a server themselves. They then rent rack space at a Colocation Centre, where they store this server and take advantage of the colocation centre’s networks. This gives clients most of the benefits of hosting their own server but saves costs as they are sharing some of the memory and bandwidth as well as other elements with the colocation centre’s other clients.
As well as paid hosting, there are also some free hosts. These are not recommended for businesses sites though. Free hosts make their money from adverts which are carried on clients’ websites. There are also many limitations.
There are many types of web hosting, something that has grown in recent years. There are dedicated servers and shared servers, as well as VPS hosting. And within these there are various different packages available. Even within packages such as managed hosting and colocation, there are still often variations in what is included and what is not.
Andrew Marshall ©
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