web hosting

Server Options for E-commerce Hosting

There is a lot that must be taken into account when evaluating e-commerce web hosting solutions for your small business.  Among several key factors, reliability needs to be considered as well as security to make sure you web transactions and customer data are protected from hackers and criminals looking to commit identify theft.  It is important to know that there are many options available to you in regard to the type of service.  Two of the most common approaches involve running your small business on a shared or dedicated server.  Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, which we will discuss in this article.

Reasons to Opt for Shared Hosting

Shared hosting offers numerous benefits and several of them extend into the e-commerce sector.  For one, it is very affordable as you can easily find a feature-loaded plan for under $10 per month.  In addition to that, you typically receive all the tools and services you need to get your online storefront up and running.  This includes shopping cart programs, web analytic tools and support for SSL certificates to secure your business transactions.  However, while shared hosting can provide you with a relatively secure platform, it can never assure the level of protection and reliability that can be obtained from a dedicated server.

The Dedicated Advantage

Though an advanced and often more complex hosting solution, a dedicated server is not exclusively geared towards larger companies.  In fact, it can deliver the same benefits to small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to establish and grow their presence on the web.  Leasing a dedicated server will cost you more than a shared hosting plan, but it can also guarantee you better overall security and reliability, both of which are vital for anyone who wants to be make sure there business is always available.  For many companies, their website serves as the revenue generator that keeps the business going.  If these are your plans, you need to make it a priority to invest in a solution that ensures your site can be accessed at all times and provides the secure environment your customers need to feel safe.

Capacity and Complexity

When leasing a dedicated server for your small business, you are assured a guaranteed allotment of essential resources such as disk space, RAM and bandwidth.  These features alone can give you a website that performs exceptionally better than it would in the shared hosting environment.  However, you should keep in mind that dedicated hosting is one of the most complex types of web hosting you can sign on for.  Unless you opt for a managed service, you will be responsible ensuring and monitoring security, performing configurations and backups, installing software and general maintenance of the server.

There are quite a few small businesses that can thrive with a shared hosting platform and several others that cannot.  Making a choice is difficult and the final decision will depend on various factors, including your budget, level of expertise and the requirements of your business.  Most importantly, it will boil down to the overall quality of the host providing you with service.

How Will You Host Your E-commerce Site?

If you desire to open a storefront online, take note that there are several methods that can be used to power your e-commerce site, including an in-house solution, colocation, shared hosting, dedicated and managed hosting.  The method you choose will depend on various factors, but mainly your budget, level of technical expertise and the requirements of your business.

In-House Method

Hosting your e-commerce site in-house involves setting up a server room, purchasing the necessary hardware and software components, leasing a reliable high-speed connection and employing an IT team.  Experienced IT personnel are required to handle day to day technical aspects such as performing backups, monitoring security and basically doing whatever it takes to keep the server up and running.  The costs and complexities that come along with an in-house operation are considerable and often too much for startups and small businesses to handle.

Colocation

Colocation refers to an alternative solution that allows businesses to store their server hardware and network equipment in a facility maintained by a hosting company.  The firm provides you with physical storage space, internet bandwidth and electricity to power the hardware.  There are many advantages to this type of arrangement, including a lower cost for bandwidth and the enhanced reliability you get from the data center.  The disadvantages are that you must purchase your own hardware and actually find a provider that offers a colocation service in your area.

Shared Hosting

One of the most common ways to run an e-commerce website is through a service arrangement known as shared hosting.  In this environment, the websites of multiple companies are stored on a single server, which share an internet connection and various other resources between them.  While suitable for the needs of many, this type of service is best for companies that anticipate a small to moderate amount of traffic and have a limited budget.  This is mainly because there are strict limitations in regard to disk space, bandwidth and control.  With that said, a reputable firm should be able to provide you with a stable platform that can support the needs of both startups and small companies.

Dedicated and Managed Hosting

Dedicated hosting is a method that calls for you to a lease an entire server from a hosting company.  The provider is responsible for maintaining the hardware and network connectivity while the bulk of server administration falls on your shoulders.  This could be a downside because of all the technical challenges that go into maintaining a server, but there are number of benefits as well.  For example, you have extensive control and flexibility that permits you to run your own operating system, database servers, web applications and services.  For those who lack the experience or time needed to handle these tasks, managed hosting exists, a solution that eases the burden of server administration.  Though notably more expensive, managed hosting will allow you to focus more on promoting your e-commerce site and servicing customers rather than dealing with the all the complexities as these processes are handled by the provider.

The fact that there are so many options for hosting an e-commerce site works to your advantage.  What you need to do is a carefully assess your situation and determine which service is best for your business.  After settling on a reliable solution, the fate of your online business is in your hands.

How to Select the Approprite Load Balancing Technology

Load balancing is a hot topic in the web hosting industry as the technology is being increasingly used in server farms and shared hosting environments.  Its purpose is to fine tune computer systems and networks in a manner that better evenly distributes data and processing across available resources to prevent a single device from being overloaded.  Some of the busier websites utilize two or more servers in a load balancing scheme. Therefore, if one is overwhelmed, traffic is forwarded to another with more capacity.

Common Types of Load Balancing

The process of load balancing is one that can be achieved in a variety of ways.  If this is a technology you are interested in, it is best to know what methods are available to you.   After learning a little more about the types of load balancing, you will should be able to better determine which option works best.

Round Robin DNS Load Balancing

One of the earliest adopted techniques, round robin DNS load balancing uses the round robin feature built into the BIND DNS server to facilitate cycles through the IP addresses corresponding to a farm of servers  This is one of the easiest and most inexpensive methods to implement.  The downside to this type of load balancing is that the DNS server doesn’t have any knowledge of the server’s availability.  Therefore, there is a possibility that data could be continuously forwarded to an unavailable server.  There is also a chance that an IP address will be cached by other nameservers and not sent to the server designated for load balancing.

Hardware Load Balancing

With hardware load balancing, TCP/IP packets are routed by a device to numerous servers in a cluster, a method that leverages circuit level gateway to route traffic.  This method is said to create a powerful topology with a high level of availability.  The one big drawback is a cost that is often considerably higher than other methods.

Software-based Load Balancing

The software-based variation is the most commonly used load balancing method.  These type of load balancers are typically integrated as components in proprietary web servers and application server platforms.  This technique is more configurable and offers the ability to implement intelligent routing based on various input parameters.  In many cases, software-based load balancing requires additional hardware be provided to isolate the load balancers.

Narrowing Your Options

The decision of choosing a load balancing configuration based on hardware or software should be made on one’s particular needs.  For instance, if your website only requires load balancing to serve HTML pages or lightweight dynamic, data-driven pages, the round robin method should be sufficient.  On the other hand, if your traffic and data processes are more demanding, you would probably get the best performance out of the more advanced software or hardware methods.  Whatever method you take, keep in mind that the load balancer should be able to deliver intelligent monitoring to evenly distribute the load.  Depending on your situation, different techniques can better direct the loads to the servers that are more capable of handling them than others in the cluster.

Hosting Considerations for E-commerce

When it comes to e-commerce, one must take several factors in consideration.  Apart from deciding what market you want to tackle and thinking of ways to promote the business, you must also factor your online presence into the mix.  Your business site will require a hosting solution and there are so many too choose from.  There is shared hosting, dedicated hosting, managing hosting and a wide variety of niche variations.  You also have the option of hosting your business in-house or going with a provider that specializes in colocation.  Making a choice can be difficult, but it is much easier when matching up a solution with the specific needs of your business.

In-house vs. Colocation

Hosting your e-commerce business in-house is a do-it-yourself solution that calls for you to purchase the hardware, software applications and lease an internet application.  It also means you need an expert staff to maintain these vital components.  You need to think about server administration, network monitoring, data backups, security and much more.  This is independent method is the most costly way to run your business online.

Colocation is the perfect alternative to hosting your business in-house.  This is the kind of arrangement where you store your server hardware in the provider’s data facility.  They supply you with you an internet connection and the power necessary to run the equipment.  The major benefit to colocation in comparison to an in-house solution is cost savings.  The key is finding a provider you can rely on to keep you online.

Shared vs. Dedicated Hosting

Shared hosting is the most affordable way to get your e-commerce business going, a situation where you share a web server with other users.  With this type of hosting, you are sharing the actual hardware along with the operating system and other critical resources.  Shared hosting is often the first choice of small businesses who don’t have demanding needs.  It also quite limited in terms of control and is prone to more stability and security issues when compared to having your own server.

With dedicated hosting, you sign up for a hosting plan and have the server all to yourself.  You have your own internet connection, operating system and all the other resources that are tied up in shared hosting.  The server can be enhanced with your own software applications, programming technologies and security mechanisms.  Because performing these tasks are more complex than a shared hosting solution, managed hosting exists to aid those with limited server administration skills.

Dedicated and managed hosting services are geared towards businesses that receive a high level of traffic and require maximum stability.  The major difference between these solutions and colocation is cost as you are paying a monthly or annual fee just to lease the server opposed to owning it.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is lot more that goes into e-commerce besides opening up a store and marketing your products.  Finding the right type of service is so critical because it forms the very backbone of your online business.  Ultimately, the solution for you depends on your expertise, manpower, budget and requirements.

Introduction to VDS Hosting?

The great demand for more secure, reliable services has made virtualization technology increasingly popular in the web hosting industry.  While many customers are not ready to handle the costs and responsibility that comes along with a dedicated server, more are discovering that the shared hosting platform isn’t necessarily the best choice for mission-critical operations.  VDS is the latest in virtualization, a technology that offers more control than shared hosting and the power of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost.

What is a VDS?

Short for Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), a VDS is created by virtualization software that partitions a single physical server into multiple isolated servers.  The result is a powerful platform that gives you the enhanced security of a dedicated server at a price that it isn’t too far off from shared hosting.  After being partitioned, a VDS is allocated with its own disk storage and data transfer for added stability.   The server has its own operating system along with isolated web server instances, a mail server and root access for custom software installations. This technology functions in a way that no matter what occurs on another customer’s VDS, it will have absolutely no impact on your environment.   Unlike its virtual counterpart VPS, a VDS is virtually like having the resources of an entire server.

VDS vs Shared Hosting

In a shared hosting arrangement, multiple websites are generally stored in a single directory.

The mere structure makes this a security risk.  With the average setup, shared customers have a dangerous level read and write access, meaning they could possibly access and modify your files. Other issues relate to stability as customers are required to share a variety of critical resources.  This includes the operating system, disk drive, CPU, memory and applications.  Depending on the severity, an error on a single account could force the entire server to run slow or even crash.  With VDS, the servers are completely isolated, giving you a level of privacy that is equivalent to running the server all by yourself.  In a VDS environment, you are completely protected from all the actions of other users hosting on the machine.

On a shared server, performance can still be an issue when no malicious actions or mistakes have been made.  For example, if one customer starts to experience a heavy load of traffic, their excessive bandwidth usage could slow down the entire machine.  This could result in a loss of HTTP requests and ultimately visitors for other customers on the server.  Additionally, the possibility of their being hundreds or thousands of domain owners on a single machine makes shared hosting very susceptible to sluggish performance.  This is especially true when many of them are using memory-hogging applications.

VDS is the perfect alternative to shared hosting as you are assured critical resources and the privacy you need from other customers.  In this environment, you will not have to worry about anyone consuming all the server’s memory and bandwidth or having the ability to view and edit your sensitive files.  The additional stability and security you get with VDS hosting makes it the next best thing to a dedicated server.