Choosing the Right Host for Your Site When choosing a host for your website, there are both subjective and objective aspects to consider. Many of the objective aspects are covered in the hundreds of articles that have already been written, but less often will you find the subjective aspects; those that are driven more by feelings and perception or your specialized needs.
There are many characteristics that you should generally expect all web hosts to include:
1. High Availability: All the features in the world are worthless, if your site is not available when your visitors try to access it. This incorporates many different components. Do they use quality servers and hardware? Do they have multiple redundant connections to the Internet? Do they have a lifecycle management program in place to ensure that you are not being hosted on a server built in 1987? (Most data centers plan for servers to have a 3 – 4 year lifecycle.)
|
| Browse Hosting Plans |
 HomePrivate/DedicatedCo-LocatedShared/VirtualUnix/LinuxWindowsBudget (<$10)FreeSearchArticlesContactPrivacy PolicyAdd to Favorites |
| Did You Know? |
The Pros & Cons Of Hosting The Site YourselfDO-IT-YOURSELF You host the Web site yourself, relying purely on in-house resources except for the external connectivity. PROS: * No service costs to pay * You have total control over the application CONS: * Can be difficult and expensive to maintain the required expertise * You may not have an ideal physical environment * Coping with future increase in demand may be painful.
YANILLA CO-LOCATION Hosting company provides the physical space and associated environmental services, including building access security, for your Web server and the connectivity to the Internet. However, the server is yours and you manage everything else to do with it, including the hardware, operating system and application. PROS: * Far cheaper than full-blown dedicated hosting, while avoiding all the environmental and connectivity issues of in-house hosting CONS: * You stilt need the resources to manage the Web server itself including operating system and application.
CO-MANAGED This is a half-way house, in which you still look after the application, but now the hosting company owns and administers the server and the operating system, as well as providing all the basic co-location facilities. This represents a split in responsibility between the IT platform and the application running on it. PROS: * It off-loads all responsibility for hardware and operating system, allowing you to focus on the application * Cheaper than full dedicated hosting CONS: * Considerably more expensive than co-location * You still have to look after the application, which is often the main source of reliability problems.
DEDICATED HOSTING Here the hosting company looks after everything to do with the IT of your Web site, including the application and even processing-electronic payments. PROS: * It off-loads all responsibility for IT, allowing you to focus purely on products and customers CONS: * Very expensive * You will stilt deal with customers and products * You may stilt have to grapple with complex integration issues involving in-house systems.
|