| When you first started your small web site, you just | | | | yourself from the hosting company. You have access |
| wanted to use it as a way of telling the world about | | | | to all the space on it and complete control over the |
| your company. Or maybe you wanted to share some | | | | applications you run. However, the cost of renting a |
| of your passions with visitors and customers. At that | | | | dedicated server can be fairly steep. Plus you may |
| time, your low cost hosting package provided a | | | | need a technical person to help you set it up and |
| reasonable price. However, you may have noticed for | | | | maintain it. |
| some time now that traffic to your web site has | | | | Virtual Private Servers: |
| increased. People not only want to come and buy | | | | A virtual private server is a good compromise |
| your products but also want to hang around, giving | | | | between shared hosting and a dedicated server. |
| their opinions and comments. You are certainly happy, | | | | Though virtual private servers are essentially part of |
| no doubt, but your web site performance has | | | | the same physical server, specialized software can |
| started getting sluggish. You realize that you probably | | | | divide them into many individual servers, essentially |
| need a different kind of web hosting for your | | | | separate from one another. Thus, you have full |
| business. | | | | access to and control over the space in your server |
| Let's take a quick look at some of the more popular | | | | while not being affected by resource demands of |
| kinds of business web hosting on the market today | | | | other web sites sharing the server. |
| and what the benefits and drawbacks of each one | | | | Collocated Hosting: |
| are: | | | | Collocated hosting solutions allow you to locate your |
| Shared Hosting: | | | | web server on the physical premises of a hosting |
| As the name suggests, shared hosting involves you | | | | service provider. Most service providers are fully |
| having to share the space on the server with other | | | | equipped to maintain servers, with regular backup |
| web sites, which can run into hundreds. This setup | | | | facilities, network backbones, security against theft |
| immediately reflects in lower costs as all the web | | | | and fire and so on. On the other hand, you will have |
| sites share the total cost. However, this is also its | | | | to take care of setting up your server, maintaining it, |
| biggest drawback since the performance of your | | | | and fixing it if it breaks down. Though this option |
| web site can many times be at the mercy of the | | | | does give you a greater degree of control over your |
| other web sites with which you are sharing space. A | | | | web server, it brings in additional complications as |
| web site with very heavy traffic can slow down | | | | well, as you now need highly qualified staff that can |
| your web site considerably. In addition, most shared | | | | take care of running the web server. |
| hosting packages will restrict the kind of traffic you | | | | Any decision regarding a choice of business web |
| can have and also the kind of applications supported. | | | | hosting will require you to weigh the benefits of |
| Dedicated Servers: | | | | control and flexibility versus the cost, both in terms |
| As the term 'dedicated' implies, you will have the | | | | of money and time. The best balance of cost and |
| luxury of renting one entire physical server for | | | | time is in contracting for a virtual private server. |