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A web hosting company provides a service to individuals and companies to post their website on the Internet. There are two main servers of web hosting services that you can use. These are shared servers and dedicated servers, and they are categorized by how much control and responsibility that the user wants to have to make sure that everything runs smoothly and consistently on their website.

Shared Servers

This is a service where, as it implies, there are many users that share a single server. Most of the time, beginners, small businesses, and individuals are the ones who usually choose to use this type of web hosting. A shared sever supplies them with the small amount of bandwidth and web space they will need. Most of the time these users do not expect too much traffic flow to their site, and shared servers are perfect for that.

The host provider of the shared server is the one who will take care of everything to keep your website up and running. They maintain the server, the installation of all the software, security updates, and whatever else is needed in running everything smoothly. They do this with a control panel that governs the overall server.

Linux and Windows platforms are supported by shared servers providing that they have the most compatible updated requirements. Full facilities of Windows web hosting can not be provided by all web hosting services. There are, however, two methods that can carry this out, either name based or IP (Internet Protocol) web hosting. Many names can be used with just one IP with name based hosting, but a different IP is given to each website with IP based hosting.

Dedicated Servers

The major difference between shared and dedicated web hosting is that a dedicated server allows the user to use a single server all to himself. This will enable the user to have more than one website if they so choose and nobody else's website will share this server. This type of server is used by big companies that expect to get a very large flow of traffic on their site. A great example of this would be Wal-Mart, which serves people from all over the world. They need to have a server all to their self in order to keep their site working smooth. They will also need this type of server, because they have to secure information for the people who make purchases on their site.

Also with a dedicated server, you will have complete control and responsibility to run your website smoothly and consistently. Because you have total control, you will need to be able to monitor and fix any problems that occur. This is why big companies will be able to use this type of hosting, because they will be able to hire a professional to take care of all of this, whereas any individual, who is not a professional and can't perform this task, may not have the funds to hire a professional.

Both technologies are suitable for beginners, professional web developers, and everyone in between, but it is essential to choose the technology that is more suited to your style of web building. Each technology has its own distinct advantages for users.

Linux hosting

Linux Hosting Linux is considered to be the popular operating system for web hosting servers.

If you plan to incorporate work that uses PHP, Perl or MySQL, Linux is the solution you should choose. Linux is also ideal for the kind of websites that display information as a brochure, in newsletter format or as data sheets. Linux works well for 'brochure-ware' sites that offer interaction via inquiry forms, online purchasing and other e-commerce functions.

Microsoft hosting

Microsoft HostingMicrosoft should be your choice of platform if you plan on utilizing Active Server Pages or other Microsoft applications to design your web pages. MS hosting also offers an advantage if you wish to incorporate searchable databases into your website. The Microsoft platform delivers reduced development time and better functionality for databases.

Almost all hosting plans have bandwidth requirements measured in months, so you need to estimate the amount of bandwidth that will be required by your site on a monthly basis

If you do not intend to provide file download capability from your site, the formula for calculating bandwidth is fairly straightforward:

Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size x 31 x Fudge Factor

If you intend to allow people to download files from your site, your bandwidth calculation should be:

[(Average Daily Visitors x Average Page Views x Average Page Size) +
(Average Daily File Downloads x Average File Size)] x 31 x Fudge Factor

Let us examine each item in the formula:

Average Daily Visitors - The number of people you expect to visit your site, on average, each day. Depending upon how you market your site, this number could be from 1 to 1,000,000.

Average Page Views - On average, the number of web pages you expect a person to view. If you have 50 web pages in your web site, an average person may only view 5 of those pages each time they visit.

Average Page Size - The average size of your web pages, in Kilobytes (KB). If you have already designed your site, you can calculate this directly.

Average Daily File Downloads - The number of downloads you expect to occur on your site. This is a function of the numbers of visitors and how many times a visitor downloads a file, on average, each day.

Average File Size - Average file size of files that are downloadable from your site. Similar to your web pages, if you already know which files can be downloaded, you can calculate this directly.

Fudge Factor - A number greater than 1. Using 1.5 would be safe, which assumes that your estimate is off by 50%. However, if you were very unsure, you could use 2 or 3 to ensure that your bandwidth requirements are more than met.

Usually, hosting plans offer bandwidth in terms of Gigabytes (GB) per month. This is why our formula takes daily averages and multiplies them by 31.

Summary: If you have a web site that is composed of static web pages and you expect little traffic to your site on a daily basis, go with a low bandwidth plan. If you go over the amount of bandwidth allocated in your plan, your hosting company could charge you over usage fees, so if you think the traffic to your site will be significant, you may want to go through the calculations above to estimate the amount of bandwidth required in a hosting plan.

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