Web Hosting

Hosting

Not all website hosts are created equally. Choosing the right hosting arrangement for your website’s requirements will ensure that site pages are delivered to visitors as fast as possible. There will need to be available sufficient storage space and bandwidth but space and bandwidth are not the whole story.

The hosting requirements of any site depends on the type and resources required.

Static Hosting

Becoming more frequent is specialised static hosting package which is a highly optimized hosting environment, often including a CDN (Content Delivery Network) which serves static files only. Usually a build process in included to rapidly bring online adjustments and additions.

There is no server side processing available, however processes can be completed by the use of ‘serverless functions’. And serverless functions are completed on an anonymous server in the cloud not related to the site or the CDN it is mounted on.

User interaction is instigated through Javascript and services.

Traditional Hosting

Traditional hosting involves using some part (share) of a physical server at a specific location. The only differences are the resources made available

Shared Web Hosting Service

The vast majority of sites available on the Internet are delivered by means of ‘shared hosts’ and this is by far the most economical.

Shared hosting is where multiple sites are grouped together on one physical server. This is entirely satisfactory in the majority of cases. There is a tendency for host providers to offer ‘unlimited’ resources, such as bandwidth, file space, email accounts etc. There is nothing ‘unlimited’ or ‘free’ and especially bandwidth, it costs money!

This arrangement only seems to work because, it is highly improbable that all hosted sites, on one physical server will require similar resources at the same time. Depending on the hardware configuration of the server, hundreds (if not thousands) of sites can be hosted on one machine and have acceptable performance.

Because of the nature of shared resources there are security issues which may need to be addressed. This type of hosting in not appropriate for mission critical or high traffic websites. It will suffice however, for the vast majority of static sites and small applications such as blogs.

Shared Hosting Major Features

Virtual Servers

Virtual servers are effectively where a physical servers’ resources are divided into a known percentage and allocated to an account. This ‘slice’ in effect acts like a mini physical server and allows a large margin of configuration, permitting the slice to run a variety of relevant software, ie web server, data base etc.

All the allocated resources of the account are available and again it is possible to host numerous websites or just one. This type of hosting would be suitable for highly trafficked sites that requires a higher level of predictable resources than shared host could provide.

Dedicated Servers

Dedicated servers are where an entire resources of a physical server are available. The cost of maintaining servers is fairly expensive but, there are many managed solutions available where for a regular monthly fee a hosting company will provide the required services. Anticipate having to spend at least 300€ per month.

Summary

We provide Linux hosting services from all categories and can in most instances offer a choice of physical location in the UK or continental Europe.

All options are highly reliable providing 99.9% uptime and power outages protection.

Shared Hosting

1. Multiple site hosted on one physical server
2. No explicit division of server resources
3. The most economic

Virtual Hosts

1. Explicit allocation of resources
2. Personalised configuration and software
3. Multiple site hosting possible
4. Possibility to increase resources
5. Suitable for highly trafficked and /or resource hungry sites

Dedicated Host

1. The ultimate hosting solution
2. Single or multiple site hosting
3. Totally configurable
4. No additional hardware replacement costs