Business OnRamp » Hosting http://www.businessonramp.com Start your business! Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:17:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 How to Select the Right Hosting Provider for your Web Company http://www.businessonramp.com/how-to-select-the-right-hosting-provider-for-your-web-company/ http://www.businessonramp.com/how-to-select-the-right-hosting-provider-for-your-web-company/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:10:55 +0000 jashall http://www.businessonramp.com/?p=76 Imagine it’s 3 a.m. in the morning and you receive a call from one of your IT consultants for your web startup. “Hi, I’m sorry to wake you but our server went down,” he might say. While nobody likes to wake up in the middle of the night, having a site go down can mean lost revenue, brand trust and can derail marketing campaigns. The good news is you can circumvent many of the problems by selecting the right hosting ...]]> Imagine it’s 3 a.m. in the morning and you receive a call from one of your IT consultants for your web startup. “Hi, I’m sorry to wake you but our server went down,” he might say. While nobody likes to wake up in the middle of the night, having a site go down can mean lost revenue, brand trust and can derail marketing campaigns. The good news is you can circumvent many of the problems by selecting the right hosting provider for your web company. Investing in a reliable server provider can ensure you site stays up, loads quickly and is accessible around the clock. While there are bound to be challenges with your site, having the right hosting provide can help to get these challenges corrected and fixed. Selecting the right hosting company requires understanding both the technical and service aspects of the vendor. Consider your host as an infrastructure provider that keeps the “lights on” for your project around the clock – this guide helps you to navigate the process of choosing, communicating with and using services through your hosting provider.

Case Study: A Startup Guide to Selecting Hosting

Let’s support you’re building a web sports startup that provides fantasy sports games, breaking sports news and sells tickets to sporting events. You have a complete business model that requires a quality hosting provide to deliver your content quickly, effectively and securely to customers. The first factor you’ll want to consider is just how much capacity and security you need from a host. If you’re starting out with just the content (news) section of the site, your bandwidth (data transfer) requirements will be basic enough for shared hosting, which is where you lease a common server shared across a variety of other sites.  A full site might require a larger investment in a virtual or dedicated server, which gives you more benefits in terms of load time, capacity and identity (you’ll have a dedicated IP address, which is how users and search engines uniquely identify your site.) Hosting providers maintain and lease servers to startups, so finding the right partner can limit your technical challenges while meeting all of your content needs:

  • Support and Reputation

The first factor to consider is how responsive is your web host. Your server is running 24 hours a day, so their support desk should be too. In case your site goes down early in the morning, you want to hear a responsive voice at the other end with a helping hand. Look for a hosting provider who has been in business for years and offers quality support, whether they are a local or national provider.

  • Data Security and Scalability

As you’re just starting out, make sure the hosting provider has the ability to easily migrate, or move, you to an upgraded hosting plan with minimal downtime. A reliable provider can help you add more space, features or options as your business grows. Having the ability to meet your current and future needs with the right provider can ensure your host can grow with you over time.

]]> http://www.businessonramp.com/how-to-select-the-right-hosting-provider-for-your-web-company/feed/ 0 Web Hosting http://www.businessonramp.com/web-hosting/ http://www.businessonramp.com/web-hosting/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:23:48 +0000 jashall http://www.businessonramp.com/?p=56 Web Hosting 101

 In order for you to have a site that is live for users to visit it, you will need to find a web host service provider.  Many types of hosting companies can provide you server space for your site including free hosting, shared hosting, clustered hosting and reseller hosting providers. 

 Free Hosting

Domain registration companies usually provide free web hosting for advertising purposes.  Many of these hosting and registration companies will require you to have there sponsored links on the ...]]> Web Hosting 101

 In order for you to have a site that is live for users to visit it, you will need to find a web host service provider.  Many types of hosting companies can provide you server space for your site including free hosting, shared hosting, clustered hosting and reseller hosting providers. 

 Free Hosting

Domain registration companies usually provide free web hosting for advertising purposes.  Many of these hosting and registration companies will require you to have there sponsored links on the site.  This sometimes can be a problem with your site design.  You will be limited to your site design because they will require banner ads in key focal points of your site.  Free hosting is suggested if you cannot afford the hosting costs of a premium hosting company.  It is best to search the net for free hosting companies that do not require you to have their ads on your site.

 Shard Hosting

Shard hosting is the most costs effective form of hosting that does not have any advertising requirements.  Also known as virtual hosting service, multiple sites share space on a server in this hosting system.  Depending on the type of system, you may share the IP address with the other sites on the server.  On a name name-based virtual hosting, you will have the same IP. However, on an IP-based virtual hosting, you will have your own IP address.  The main benefit to this kind of hosting is the system administration service that will maintain the server.  This is wonderful for people who don’t have the time to learn how to maintain a server.

 Clustered Hosting

Clustered hosting is used mostly for large websites.  If you are a small business looking to start a site, this kind of hosting will be much more complex and costly for your company’s needs.  However, if your site starts to get thousands users that will be using the site at the same time, a clustered hosting system will help maintain the quality of your site.  Cluster hosting stretches the weight of hosting across multiple machines so one system will not affect the other.  If your email goes down in a cluster hosting system, you will not loss the usability of your database.

 Reseller Hosting

Mostly small web design companies use reseller hosting.  They purchase server space in order to resale it to their customers as part of the web design package.  This is very similar to shard hosting because all the sites will be using the same server and most of the time the same IP address.  The design company will handle all the administration services for you. 

 After you decide which kind of web hosting is best for your need, you should do research on the web to find the best service provider for your needs and budget.  If you are a beginner and would like for some one else to handle all the technical aspects of hosting a shard account or a reseller services would be best.  However, if you are more experienced and are developing a site that will have many users using the site at the same time a cluster hosting service will best suit your needs.  Lastly, if you do not have the money to afford a standard hosting service, then go with a free service.

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