A definition of hosting

As its name indicates, web hosting is a solution, which involves hosting online content. There are different forms and types of hosting, based on the mission and on the usage. In spite of that, they all entail hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible throughout the Internet. A web host is in fact a server that is connected to the World Wide Web and has its very own Internet Protocol address, which allows people to get access to it via the Internet. The hosting server's configuration and its limitations are determined by the kind of web hosting solution it's going to be used for.

What are the different forms of hosting?

Based on the purpose, the business hosting service may be:

File Hosting - this type of web hosting allows the clients to deposit their files on a given hosting server. With the regular file hosting service, the files that are stored may only be accessed by the person that's utilizing the service. This web hosting service generally involves backups of computers , documents, personal files and even other web hosting servers. This solution may also involve certain restrictions with regard to the disk storage and the root access. There may also be traffic quota limits, but that depends on the particular web host.

Warez Hosting - the so-called warez web hosting service is very similar to the previous hosting service form. In spite of that, in contrast with the file storage web hosting solution, the warez web hosting service is used for disseminating copyrighted work without the permission of the licence owner. To put it briefly - it involves the criminal propagation of files and documents. There are lots of ways for this to be achieved, but the two main methods are - through plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and through P2P connections. The first approach entails either a particular web portal, or, most commonly, simply a directory on a server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thus download patented content free of charge. The second way involves a peer-to-peer connection, making use of the so-called Torrent web servers, via which people swap files between each other. There are just a few site hosting corporations that permit such type of hosting on their servers, mostly due to all the legal entanglements that it entails. Usually such web pages are hosted on private dedicated web servers that are registered by third-party corporations either in the Middle East or in Asia.

Electronic Mail Web Hosting - this service is utilized with both shared web site hosting and dedicated hosting servers, depending on the user's wish. If you wish to have your own personal SMTP electronic mail server, then you will require either a virtual private web server or a dedicated web server that provides the level of access needed to carry out such an operation. For typical mail hosting purposes, though, you can set up an ordinary shared web space hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain. This is not a solution that's very used, since the web hosting and the mail hosting services are being served by two different servers, usually owned by different web hosts.

Site Hosting - the most widely spread and extensively utilized hosting service these days. It's used for hosting web site files, whose type is determined by the Operating System the hosting server is using - Linux or Windows. Different types of files request concrete web hosting server Operating Systems, otherwise they won't be exhibited correctly on the World Wide Web. This type of web hosting may include web storage and traffic limits, root-level access and CPU usage restrictions.

Depending on the purpose and on the functions, the client should select the sort of web hosting server that he needs for his project, and, of course, the web hosting provider that's going to provide it. There are various sorts of web hosting servers, based on the configuration and the web space hosting solutions that they offer. These are:

Shared Hosting Server - a shared web hosting server offers a smaller amount of resources, which, of course, reflects on the cost of the service. It can be utilized for hosting small and middle size sites, which do not demand considerable quotas of server space and web traffic.

Semi-Dedicated Hosting - they are based on the very same principle as the shared site hosting servers. Yet, there are much fewer customers accommodated on the same web hosting server. For that reason, each of them will get a greater quota of the hosting server's resources like RAM, data storage space, traffic and CPU. Excellent for hosting big web portals that do not require complete root-level access.

VPS hosting - the virtual web hosting servers are excellent for medium web pages, which do require root access to the hosting server's config files. Typically, there are a number of virtual web hosting server accounts hosted on the same server. Even so, each of them is independent from the other ones and has its own Operating System.

Dedicated Servers Hosting - a completely dedicated machine configured and accessed by you and solely you. It guarantees an immense amount of resources. It also gives full server root privileges, which makes it an ideal environment for any type of site that demands a website hosting service.

The only question that's left is:

Which web hosting distributor should I settle on?

As mentioned, there are very few hosts offering warez web hosting solutions because of judicial complications. Such web hosting companies are being closed down practically every month. That is why, if you wish to offer such a service, you should do it on your own computer. The shared site hosting service is the most widespread kind of web hosting service. Therefore, each and every web hosting supplier offers it. Not all of them, though, offer solutions such as private virtual servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated web hosting servers. Most of the small scale web site hosting companies do not have the means required for maintaining those solutions. Because of that it's always best to choose a bigger web hosting company that can supply its clients with all the solutions that they seek. You can quickly identify such hosting companies by the sorts of services that they are making available and by the way that they present them to the customers. For instance, some hosting providers permit you to kick off with a small scale web hosting plan and then upgrade to a bigger one, if you consider it obligatory to do so. This is very suitable, since you do not have to transfer sites between hosting servers and there is no risk of facing outages due to all the complications that may crop up. Web hosts such as WebHostNinja provide all kinds of services and have the adequate server resources and personnel to assure that their customers will not suffer any complications when swapping services, which is what a top hosting firm is in fact all about.