Web Hosting Uptime Introduction
The uptime is one of the most important factor to evaluate a web hosting service provider is good or not. Maybe you’re not familiar how to check the web hosting uptime or not sure how to evaluable a web hosting. Here I’d like to bring some information about web hosting uptime.
What’s Web Hosting Uptime?
Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been “up” and running. In web hosting, it is used to refers to how often a site is available or responsive to web requests, and has been one of the key factors to evaluate the reliability of a web hosting solution.
Web Hosting Uptime Types
There’re 2 types of uptime in web hosting industry. One is the Network Uptime and the other one is Hosting Server Uptime. Network uptime is talking about the availability of the network, which include the network within the data center and the connection out to the Internet. Network is usually very stable, so a lot of web hosting service providers would like to give you a guarantee on network uptime. And server uptime refers to the availability of your web hosting server from outside the data center. This will directly determine how possible your site will be accessed without any problem. So, based on above definition, you can see that only a guarantee on network uptime will not good enough to put your web site in safe. But unfortunately, in the shared web hosting industry, almost all the uptime guarantee are referred to network uptime, and the industry standard for it is 99.9%. And for most of the dedicated web hosting providers, they will provide the guarantee number for both network uptime and server uptime, but you will be charged much more for their very reliable service.
Find a Reliable Web Hosting in Shared Web Hostings
Now almost every hosting company announce they can offer 99% or 100% hosting uptime. Is there true? Do you believe with the digits they provide? Yeah, that’s real hard to check, always you need to host your website with them and then you can find whether what they announce is true or not. Usually very hard to maintain a high server uptime in a shared web hosting solution. But there are also some exceptions in the world. In order to find them out, you cannot just look at their uptime guarantee in the selling introduction page. The only way to get a feeling about it before purchasing is to refer to the reviews from their customer or professional web hosting reviewer. Web hosting review and top 10 web hosting should be a good resource for you. Since most of the web hosting service providers will give you 30 days money back guarantee, you can leverage this period to check their uptime by leveraging some 3rd-party uptime monitoring service. This is usually free if you don’t need a very professional report, such as http://www.siteuptime.com/. Once you get the uptime data, and if you are not satisfied with their service, you can ask for a refund. There are also many sites who says they know the uptime of a web hosting company, the data there should be scammed. There is no way to know the overall uptime of a service provider as thousands of server are hosted in one data centers, how can they verify the uptime of each server (they might even not know which web site is hosted in which server). So, the data there should only be the uptime of one or two domains hosted in the vendor’s data center. It can be used to as a reference, but you still need to go to some web hosting review sites to know more.
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TOP 10 Web Hosting – 2009
At the moment it can be very difficult ascertaining a good hosting provider from another as the Internet is now full of biased reviews, rubbish testimonials and paid blog posts. With the advent of unlimited hosting packages, it has made the task even harder to find a reputable provider. More and more companies are offering unlimited hosting packages, but are they really unlimited? And are they reliable?
Unlimited Web Hosting
When a company uses the term ‘Unlimited hosting’ it generally means to convey unlimited data transfer, the ability to add multiple domain names and unlimited disk storage. In short they ‘offer’ the ability to host as many websites as one can think of at a reasonable price (typically less that $15 a month). But before you jump the gun and package such a package, it’s important to know a few things first. With the invention of the internet we had to learn a whole new, but the word ‘unlimited’ sounds fairly straight forward, or so you would think. Internet speak for ‘unlimited’ is not really ‘unlimited’ as we know it to be in the real world. Unlimited hosting can’t actually be unlimited, computers do not have the ability to host unlimited data, and computer speeds can never be unlimited. It real terms it’s actually impossible to offer unlimited hosting, as hosting can never be unlimited. There is and will always be limitations to anything in this world. But web hosting providers are in the business to make money and sometimes require outlandish statements to make sales.Unlimited hosting plans can offer more freedom than most common web hosting packages but they’re really not an all you can eat package. “You can eat as much as you want, well, not really, we have to make money”. “You can have unlimited web sites and disk storage as part of unlimited hosting package, but make sure you do over do it, because we’ll charge you for it”. Unlimited hosting customers are usually limited by provider constraints of disk storage or by the number of MySQL databases or by size of FTP uploads or by scam protection measures. It’s not ‘unlimited’.
Unlimited Hosting
But on the brighter side of unlimited web hosting packages, they do offer far more freedom at a generally better price than common packages provided by most internet providers. And some unlimited hosting providers do have an honorable reputation; companies such as Hostgator are providing a good service with raving real testimonials. Their servers remain reliable and stable, and their customer service is excellent. The company seems to be run by a good management team as this seems to be a good indicator of how steady and reliable the hosting provider is. Before you purchase any hosting package it’s recommended you talk to their customer service team as it will generally indicate whether the company is well managed or not. There seems to be parallels between good management practice and customer service. In any case, do your homework and research before you purchase any unlimited web hosting package as more likely than not, your research will help determine who are scammers and who are good providers!
Shared hosting is in fact web hosting but differs because the hosting server provides different pages for multiple and unique websites, each containing a different Internet domain name, all from a single web server. Most web hosting providers support shared hosting. Shared hosting is a little more cost effective and cheaper for companies to create and manage a web presence. This method however is typically not sufficient to handle high volumes of traffic. High volume traffic generally requires a dedicated web server either provided by a web hosting company or via in house means. In general terms shared hosting can be inappropriate for customers requiring extensive software development and or intense data driven web applications. Shared hosting generally has usage limitations allowing multiple web services to run inhibited and most hosting providers have extensive and well protected reliability features. Typically all applications meant to run on a standard web server will run on a shared hosting platform. Shared hosting facilitates the use of a web based control panel or application such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, H-Sphere, InterWorx an Ensim and others. Some larger hosting providers use a custom produced control panel thought to help best serve the needs of its clients. Controversy does sometimes surround the web hosting industry as some companies claim that others have duplicated their own control panel software technology. And lawsuits and litigation over patient infringement are quite common.  With respect to the day to day maintenance and management of the servers, which includes the installation of security updates, technical support, and server software upgrades it is generally the responsibility of the hosting provider. Most web hosting servers are run on open based operating systems such as Linux or Lamp. Some hosting providers do offer the ability to run their servers on Microsoft Windows based operating systems. World wide there are many shared hosting providers and they number in the tens of thousands. The small providers can range from Mom and Dad corner store providers who have 2 or 3 customers to large multinational companies with hundreds of thousands of customers. A large majority of the shared web hosting market is provided by affiliate programs or pay per click advertising. Shared hosting can also be achieved privately through the sharing of a running server located in a collocation center. This method of shared hosting is called cooperative hosting. The process of shared web hosting can be accomplished in one of two ways: IP-based or name based. Some server control panels allow a mix of both methods on the same platform. Name based virtual hosting or Shared IP hosting has virtual hosts which allow the ability to serve multiple hostnames on a single platform with a singular IP address. In IP-based shared hosting platforms, each virtual host has different IP addresses on the same physical platform. The hosting server software knows to show the desired web site by using the connection of the IP address of the client. The reason to use a dedicated IP address is to allow authentication by an SSL certificate as opposed to a shared certificate which has the same level of security.
Dedicated hosting service or dedicated server, is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an hole server not shared with anyone. This is more stable and flexible then shared webhosting, as customer have full control over the server(s), including choice of hardware and operating system. Server administration and maintenance can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service with extra cost. A dedicated server offer less overhead and a larger return on investment. Dedicated servers are most often housed in data centers and the price is a lot higher then shared hosting. In contrast to collocation, the server hardware is owned by the provider and in some cases they will provide support for your operating system or applications. This type of hosting is suitable for medium to big customers, which are having webs A dedicated server or a dedicated hosting server can be leased directly from a hosting company. A dedicated server is usually leased by a commercial outfit or businesses who wish to retain total control over one server. Server administration or maintenance is generally provided as an add on cost by the web hosting company. Dedicated servers are generally located at independent data centers that are powered by redundant power services. Most commercial enterprises and businesses wish to have dedicated servers because they provide a larger return on investment and also less overhead costs. Unlike collocation, the actual hardware of the server is owned by the hosting company or provider. In many cases they will also help provide support for the applications and or operating system.  The operating system of a dedicated server largely depends on a number of factors such as price and all its associated costs, employee familiarity, and availability of the operating system. Open source operating systems such as Linux are typically loaded onto the server at no cost. Commercial operating systems such as Microsoft Windows Server and the commercial version of Linux namely Red Hat Enterprise can be chosen as an option as the designated operating system for the desired dedicated server. Operating system support on these dedicated servers generally depends on the management level offered with a specific dedicated server plan. Support which may include the latest security updates or patches, fixes and operating system security and vulnerability resolutions. Other updates to the core operating system on the dedicated server can include kernel upgrades, application and service packs, and important security patches which help maintain and secure the server from malware or a hacker attack. This type of support often relieves the heavily reliance of server management for a dedicated server owner. Dedicated server providers will often promote and utilize heavy security measures which are used to protect any data stored on the server network and operating system. Typically server owners will utilize many methods to protect the data from spammers, hackers, trojans, crashers, worms and other various sorts of viruses. Both Linux and Windows as operating systems use different types of software to protect their systems. Web Hosting providers will generally charge a fixed monthly fee for the dedicated server which will more often than not, also include use of a software package. Operating systems or software vendors soon realized that it was quite profitable to bundle their software with a dedicated server. Hosting providers will also often offer the ability for businesses or commercial enterprises to choose which software package they would like as their operating system installed on their dedicated server. This choice of operating system will largely depend on what requirements are needed. Some examples include specific application and database requirements and their relevant performance parameters. It should be noted that dedicated servers and relevant software packages can be tailored and customized to suit the requirements of the business or commercial enterprise. And most companies or businesses do in fact require such customization.
What is web hosting?
Web Hosting is a service provided by hundreds of companies worldwide in order to “host” and provide websites for anyone on the internet to see. Web Hosting often involves a number of very large computers, called servers, in a secure location, called a data centre which is air conditioned, maintains a high amount of security and has a very fast connection to the internet. Servers offer a varied amount of services, technologies and protocols for multiple online applications, such as the website itself, email access, mobile access, multiple databases and more. To have a website online, you must have web hosting. Web hosting provides you with the space you will need to keep the files for your website online, as well as a secure static position where the site resides to.
What is Disk Space?
 Disk space is the amount of physical space you are allocated when choosing a new web host. Disk space is exactly the same as the space you have available on your home computer – it is measured in the same units (GB & MB) and means the same thing. Websites themselves often don’t take up much space, but this depends on what the website offers. When choosing a new web host, you will have to take the amount of disk space they offer into consideration and make sure it is enough for your needs. Bare in mind that the disk space web hosting companies offer often also include the amount of space you are allowed on your email accounts. If you’re planning on having a lot of email accounts set-up for a lot of different people, then this may begin to take up a lot of space depending on the email services that you decide to use.
What is Bandwidth?
Bandwidth and Data Transfer is often confused and sometimes called the same thing with a number of web hosting companies, where in fact they are two different things. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can potentially be transferred from one point to another, whereas Data Transfer is the amount of data actually being transferred at any one time. Because Bandwidth and Data Transfer are often confused, you will sometimes find Bandwidth measured on a data-amount per month basis, such as 10Gb / Month. This means the web hosting company is limiting your account to transferring 10Gb’s of data each month. There are a multitude of things on a website that can take up Bandwidth or Data Transfer, but the first thing that can be reduced is the amount of images. If there is one large image on your websites homepage which is 500KB and you get 300 different people look at your site in one month, then you will use 1.5GB’s of Data Transfer that month – and this does not include the HTML file which serves the image, along with any other images on the site, perhaps a CSS file, and perhaps other pages or images! It is important to work out the size of your site and then amount of people you are hoping to get visit it on a per-month basis before deciding on the package you will go for with your new web hosting company. It is always desired to try and reduce the amount of Bandwidth or Data Transfer a website uses which is sometimes relatively easy to do. It usually involves reducing the amount of images the website uses, or at the very least, optimizing the images to reduce their filesize. Styles embedded directly into the pages on your site can be placed into an external CSS stylesheet to reduce each pages’ filesize even further, and by doing this will also allow easier and quicker updating of styles in the future, as well as quicker page loading times for your visitors.
What is a Hosting Server?
A web server is a number of large computers, known as servers, housed in an air-conditioned server house known as a data centre where they are connected to a highly efficient, fault-tolerance high-speed internet connection. Web servers are able to handle hundreds of thousands of requests a second and can return back this information quickly, providing the visitor of a website with the information they were looking for in no time at all. It is big business to keep servers online – this is called uptime and it is the measurement of how long as server is online and functional for during the period of a month, or year. A lot of hosting companies boast their servers have 99.9% uptime, which means 99.9% of the time (per month) their servers are online and functional, meaning all websites hosted on their servers will be working. There are many different types of web server available, such as dedicated servers, load balancing servers, database servers and many more. If you’re just starting out on the web and need the basic type of web server, look out for fully managed shared hosting, which means the hosting company maintains the server you’re on, along with the other people that share it. Its often the cheapest solution if you’re a beginner.
What is a Domain Name?
A domain name is a like a sign post within the internet, it simply points to a server and asks the server to return the information the user or visitor is looking for. A domain is, quite simple, www.google.com or www.example.com All domain names are unique throughout the internet, although there are several parts to them. The www. part to the domain name is, effectively, a sub-domain of the domain itself. It is often not required, and sometimes website owners prefer not to include the www. part of their web address. Domain name can end in a multitude of letters too, to indentify what the site is about, or what country it is from. You are probably familiar with 4 or 5 “endings”, often known as TLD’s, but there are hundreds. A few, for example, the obvious ones – .com, .co.uk, .net, .info, but there are many others such as .tel, .gov, .edu, .to, .me, .ms and many others.
What is cPanel?
cPanel is a web-based program or application that is used to control the settings of your website and can be accessed via It is widely used throughout most web hosts and is almost always installed for you as part of your new account signup. cPanel has an easy to use icon-based interface where you are able to add, edit and remove email accounts (depending on the limitations of your hosting package), setup email forwarders and auto-replies, modify files directly, manage your databases, setup CRONs and much more. The features on cPanel are usually limited by the package you have opted for and the limitations of the web host you chose. You will usually find that web hosts will limit the amount of email addresses you are able to have setup, for example, and this number if reflected in the cPanel of your site.
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Thomas Merril and Lawrence Roberts invented the first computer in 1965. And in 1969 they helped invent the first computer network linking computers located at the University of California, the University of Utah and the Stanford Research Institute. These were the first ‘web hosts’ and in the following years they would go on to add a following 19 more hosts and 13 different nodes to their small network. Later that decade the creation of TELENET occurred which formed the basis for the first commercial Internet service provider or an ISP. Over the next 15 years saw a massive increase in the development of the soon to be network that of the Internet. In 1991 the National Science Foundation thought it best to lift the commercial restrictions on the Internet which allowed budding entrepreneurs to believe there could be future profits to be made particularly in the fields of web hosting and commerce. Web Hosting history had begun well and truly. The Internet transformed into an entity of itself, were university professors and developers started to believe that the Internet could provide an unparalleled amount of value to those that sought both knowledge and commerce. It became no longer a network for computer tech heads, but businesses and individuals who started to see the viability for commercial endeavors. Web pages and websites began to pop up, with web hosting providers beginning to advertise and promote their viability to those that sought innovation by providing their services or information on the World Wide Web. Web Hosting was still quite expensive at this point as most people were beginning only just to accept the technology and commercial viability. In recent times, web hosting has become quite cheap and inexpensive which has allowed the masses to jump on board and help create the 50 or so million websites that now exist. The web hostinghistory is a long one, but it has helped the Internet rise to where it has today
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