If all of us Internet addicts were IT experts, we would all have our very own website to represent our business, our opinions, or any other aspect of ourselves to put out on the web. But because we are not all as Internet savvy the proverbial geek, most of us are incapable, and some are unwilling to dedicate time and energy to hosting our own website.
So that is where Web Hosting services come into play and as a website owner, you will be confronted with a choice to make about getting your site hosted– dedicated or shared hosting.
Dedicated Web hosting allows the website owner more flexibility and freedom with complete control over their website, utilizing equipment that is essentially “rented” from a dedicated hosting company. Dedicated Web hosting supports all of the website owners needs and many of his wants, allowing access to state-of-the-art technology and the ability to pick and choose which settings and operating system the website owner wishes to use. Dedicated hosting sites are generally more appealing to site owners who expect high traffic and who need massive amounts of data storage and bandwidth.
Examples of such sites are online stores, news networks, eBay, and Youtube. Medium to small businesses generally do not require the need for dedicated hosting, however they can benefit from this option by having access to equipment that they otherwise could not afford to acquire on their own or have access to. The drawback is the website owner will be faced with a much higher cost for this type of hosting operation. Unlike Shared Server services, Dedicated hosting is accessible by only the website owner.
Shared hosting is primarily designed for websites requiring less complication, but still allow the capabilities of sending and receiving e-mail, filling out forms, requesting information and a presentation which does not require multitudes of pages and links. Although Shared Hosting is a more affordable means of hosting your website, the drawbacks are that you provide your own server equipment, which in itself can be costly. Consequently in the event of equipment failure, you the owner are responsible for cost, repair, and upgrade of your own equipment.
Before you can decide whether you go dedicated or shared, assess your needs. Exactly what will your website need to maintain functionality and image which you want to portray? A few factors that should be considered are as follows:
Usage– why you have the website in the first place.
Storage– how much megabyte of space will you need.
Bandwidth — in times of heavy traffic. It is recommended that you have 10 times bandwidth of that of storage.
Web support– a team you can turn to and count on in times of technical trouble.
User-friendliness– remember, not all of us are IT experts!
Guarantee– another word for assurance of support
Price– you get what you pay for.
Wed, Sep 17, 2008, by Nate Atkins
Hosting