I’ve decided to intrigue my humble audience with a brief look at the web hosting industry. Supposing most of you are already familiar with web hosting and, generally, how it works works, we’ll begin by breaking down the different types of web hosting that are commercially available today.

Free Web Hosting

Free can mean not-so-free, sometimes. This type of web hosting is offered, usually, as an introductory hosting service to sell other paid web hosting services. It can be ad-free or otherwise. There are many limitations and constraints that are normally associated with this type of hosting. For example, you may not be able to host certain types of content with a non-paid hosting account. The host may restrict disk space and monthly data-transfer allotments stringently. The host may or may not allow you to use your own domain name. There can also be restrictions on certain files. For example, the host may prohibit you from using a custom 404 – Page Not Found error page or other types of error documents. This type of hosting is generally discouraged for business use as it does not set a good impression. Using a free hosting service is much like using a free email account for your business. It may lead your customers to view your business as unprofessional or result in other criticism. You should invest in a quality web hosting service as you would invest in your business.

Shared Web Hosting

This type of hosting is fairly common and you’ve probably come across this terminology by now. Shared web hosting is essentially when a user pays to use a small portion of a server for hosting their websites. However, the user can be limited to a specific number of constraints such as disk space, monthly data transfer, number of domains, database access, or even server-side-scripting access. The user is sharing that server with many other users who are also paying a small fee to host their own web sites. The users do not generally interact with one another or even know that they exist on the same server apartment from knowing that it is a shared web hosting server.
With shared web hosting you don’t have to worry about any of the techy stuff behind closed doors. You are usually going to find web hosts that provide some control panel interface for their users to utilize their server resources. This makes managing things on a linux server, for example, much easier for users who do not know linux. You can find popular control panels such as webmin, cPanel, Plesk, H-Sphere and many more online and try a demo for free. Since the majority of all computer users use Windows, and are generally accustomed to this type of GUI, it puts those users with a better understanding of *nix based operating systems at an advantage; since a great number of web hosting companies will run their servers on linux.

Dedicated Hosting

With a dedicated hosting solution you are given a server that is dedicated solely to you. Here you will need to whip out all those tech skills in order to use the server. This is a much more costly solution vs. shared hosting. On shared hosting you are paying a fraction of what it costs the web hosting company to run and manage that server, but with dedicated hosting you are taking on the full cost of the server by yourself. This has its benefits as well as its drawbacks.
In a dedicated hosting environment you are offered a more heightened security level. You have control and freedom over your security protocols, software configurations, and root privileges. This puts you front and center in the cockpit of hosting. With dedicated hosting solutions you have the ability to build your own network, create virtual private networks, enable virtual private servers on your machines, and even create your own firewalls.
There are many reasons why people will choose dedicated hosting over shared hosting and it primarily leads back to freedom. On a shared hosting environment the host must maintain the server adequately for all of its users. This means the host will likely put in place certain policies to prohibit the abusive users from consuming too many server resources, posing security risks that may otherwise harm other users or compromise the server, or overloading the server. These policies are usually defined in a document called the AUP or Acceptable Usage Policy and somtimes is contained or outlined in the TOS or Terms of Service Agreement that the host enforces.

Many other solutions have been introduced to the web hosting industry over the years. Terms like VPS Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Reseller Hosting, SEO Hosting, Semi-dedicated Hosting and Unlimited Hosting are becoming increasingly popular.

A VPS or Virtual Private Server is a software-based server. It acts and feels like a real dedicated machine, much like having your own dedicated server, but it runs on a single machine where several other virtual private servers may be running. So in essence it is much like the shared hosting concept, but with more flexibility and control. This is a much cheaper alternative to having your own dedicated server.

The Cloud is simply stemming from the idea that we now live in a world where everyone wants to share with everyone else. Sharing doesn’t necessarily mean giving up privileges, as some may suspect. Cloud hosting means you are on a network of virtual private servers, where everything is automated to utilize the network as a whole. You can provision a VPS within minutes using automated virtualization software and get your server online through the cloud immediately. Additionally, the cloud offers some substantial benefits in the areas of scalability. For example, most clouds are designed with the ideology that you pay for what you use. Companies like RackSpace and Amazon offer cloud computing that you pay for by the hour. You can quickly setup a few dozen servers to test your applications and take them down when you’re done. Most hardware specs are customizable and easily upgraded or downgraded. The cloud also allows us to share file storage systems and applications. This makes for more efficient web 2.0 utilization since most of us use the same apps online anyway. What’s more is that you can easily rely on the cloud to migrate your servers near-instantaneously. If a server goes down or crashes, the instance can easily be migrated to a different machine or even a different data center within minutes, as opposed to hours with a dedicated server.

I hope this quick glance at the web hosting industry has caught your attention. Stay tuned for more on tech and web hosting talk!