Advantages and Disadvantages of Reseller Hosting

Advantages of Reseller Hosting

Whether you plan to start your own hosting company, or you are just looking for a large site that can handle all of your needs, a reseller hosting package may be the answer. There are several advantages that you will have by selecting this option, which we will detail below.

More Room to Grow ’ If you have a large website, a lot of traffic or you need several sites for your business, a reseller package will allow you to pay one monthly fee instead of several, and it can provide a larger amount of features and space for your company. Many companies prefer to run different segments of their sites with different urls and different servers, which can become quite expensive. If you have a reseller plan, you can simply allocate different amounts of space for all of your needed solutions instead of having to purchase additional hosting plans.

More Features ’ Reseller accounts will typically include a greater amount of features than basic hosting plans. Your control panel for administering your website will normally be more powerful and allow you to manage your site very effectively. Many companies offer unlimited SSL certificates with a reseller account, as well as access to features such as Cpanel, a powerful site control panel that is only offered to companies that use a reseller or dedicated hosting plan.

No Maintenance ’ Instead of purchasing your own server for your company, a reselling plan is very similar to having your own dedicated server with one important difference. You won’t be the one having to worry about complicated server issues if something should go wrong. Having a technical support department that is well versed in fixing these problems is a very helpful aspect of having a reseller hosting package.

Less Expense ’ Instead of having to purchase a dedicated server, a reseller hosting plan allows you to take advantage of many similar features without the added cost. Most reseller plans are extremely low priced when compared to dedicated solutions, leaving your business with more financial resources for other areas of your site. As we mentioned earlier, if you need to have several sites running at the same time, it is much cheaper to have a reseller plan than several hosting plans at once. For example, instead of paying $29.95 a month for 5 different sites, you could be paying as little as $39.95 for all 5 sites if you had a reseller plan.

More Control ’ If you like being able to manage all the aspects of your website, a reseller package will typically offer you the ability to micromanage your site. You will basically have access to many features that allow you to control disk space usage, bandwidth limits and other important areas that come with running your own website.

Income ’ If you find that you are not using all of your reseller space, or if you are running a webhosting company, you can make money by reselling space on your site. For businesses looking to increase their revenue, this is a great way to have your site pay for itself and still provide you with the space you need.

Disadvantages of Reseller Hosting

While there are many advantages to having a reseller hosting plan for your website, there are also some disadvantages that you will need to be aware of before making your decision.

Cost ’ If you are planning on running a small site that does not require a lot of features or resources, purchasing a reseller plan may be overkill for your business. While it is nice to know that you have the extra space available to you, if you don’t plan to sell this space or use most of it, you will be spending extra money that could go to other areas of your business.

Responsibility ’ This area is of particular concern for business that don’t necessarily want to run a hosting company, but need to sell space to pay for their server. If you are selling hosting packages, you will need to be able to provide support for your new customers. Reseller plans do not typically include customer support for your clients, only for you. If you don’t have the time or resources to devote to providing necessary support, both technical and customer service, you would not be well served by purchasing a reseller plan and selling the additional space.

In addition to worrying about providing service for other customers, you will have the added responsibility of administering your own site. Being a reseller means that most hosting companies expect you to be able to take care of yourself and they may not offer a level of customer service that you need.

If you don’t have the time to spend answering customer service questions from both your web hosting clients and your regular clients, this can create a problem that will quickly snowball out of control. It’s much too easy to create a bad name for yourself by getting in over your head than it is to play it safe if you have never tried running a web hosting business.

Too Many Features ’ If you are only planning on running a basic website, you most likely will not need all of the extra features that are offered with reseller plans. If you don’t plan to use an application or a feature within the next year on your website, than this is a feature that you should not have to pay extra to have, just in case. Don’t fall into the trap of might needing, when you may not ever use a feature.

Difficulty ’ If you are not well versed in running your own site, chances are, having to deal with more features and control panels may not be a good option for you. It can be difficult to learn how to administer a site at a reseller level and many site owners do not have the time to learn how to do this quickly.

The most important thing to remember is to first plan your site thoroughly to see what you will need now and in the future, and then find a plan that will suit these needs without going overboard.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Business Hosting

Advantages of Business Hosting

If you are looking for a new home for your existing business site, or if you are just delving into online business, it is important to have a business hosting plan that fits your needs and can continue to do so in the future. There are many advantages to purchasing a business hosting plan, even if you do not particularly need all of the features associated with one.

First, business hosting plans typically offer a great deal of features that are necessary to doing business online. These features range from free shopping carts, applications for business use, mailing list software, SSL certificates, and unlimited databases. Even if you don’t have an ecommerce site, your site may still benefit from a secure area, or mailing list software.

Site promotion tools are usually included in business hosting plans, which can be very useful in getting your site listed on popular search engines. Instead of having to pay extra for these tools, you can simply find a host that bundles them in with a site package, saving you money.

Companies that cater to businesses typically offer more support options. This is usually because these companies know that in order to keep high profile business clients they need to provide a level of service that is above and beyond a usual hosting company. If you need more technical support options, or a host that offers 24-hour support, you can usually find several that offer business hosting plans that fit this description.

If you need sub-domains for your site, business hosting plans will normally include this feature. A sub-domain is a great way to organize your site’s content and content areas, making your job easier to keep track of all of the aspects of your site. A sub-domain will typically look something like this: http://subdomain.yoursitesurl.com If you plan on having an online store or a catalog, this is a very useful way to separate your content area from your store’s catalog.

Domain aliases are another feature is typically included. This means that you can have several domain names or variations of your domain name that all point to one location. Instead of having to park multiple domains, you can have them all point to the same location, saving you money.

If you want to keep track of your site statistics, business hosting plans usually offer more site analysis tools that can give you a very good idea of your site’s popularity. This is very important for sites that need to track promotional campaigns, click-throughs and other aspects of traffic that need to be analyzed.

There are also some disadvantages that are inherent with business hosting. Let’s take a look at some of these disadvantages to see if they will affect your decision.

Disadvantages of Business Hosting

Although business hosting can offer you greater amounts of features in one area, they can be lacking in other important facets that may be important for your website. Before you make your decision, here are some important disadvantages to keep in the front of your mind.

First, you will need to make sure that your hosting company supports the database format that you are using. While business hosting plans usually do support most databases, it is important to make sure that your database is compatible before making your decision.

Some companies do not offer hosting packages that support Access databases, and others don’t offer support for SQL databases. Instead of having to convert your databases, which can be costly and time consuming, it is easier to find the right business hosting company that supports your database format.

Business hosting plans, while offering a number of features, usually don’t offer unlimited email addresses. Many regular hosting plans offer a large amount or unlimited amount of email addresses that can be associated with your account. If your company needs more than 50 email addresses, this can be a large problem.

In addition to a lesser amount of email addresses, disk space amounts and data transfer amounts are usually lower with business hosting plans. Since business hosting plans focus on different features, this area is usually one that suffers the most.

The cost of business hosting is typically much higher than general or budget hosting. This is due to the features that are offered, such as shopping carts and other tools that would otherwise not be free. Since they are bundled in with your account, you will usually have to pay more for these features than you would for a site that offered just a basic place to host your site.

Cost is an area that can fluctuate greatly, and can be a very large disadvantage. On the same token, there are many general hosting companies that are offering the same kind of features associated with business hosting accounts for much less money. It is important to research all of your options to make sure that you are getting the most amount of features for the least amount of money.

While most business hosting companies offer SSL or secure socket layer, for secure transactions from an online store, they may not be compatible with your merchant account gateway. You will need to check with both your hosting company and your merchant account to make sure that your gateway is supported before you select your hosting company. This is an area that cannot be fixed or worked around, so it is important to take the time to ensure compatibility ahead of time.

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Free FTP Programs

If you’ve got your own server, chances are you’re going to need your own FTP program. Since uploading through Internet Explorer isn’t the safest thing to do, and online file managers aren’t always the best for uploading multiple files, we’ll round up the best free FTP applications for you.

FileZilla ’ FileZilla is an open source FTP client available from SourceForge. It is easy to use and offers powerful features such as chmod’ing. The learning curve is a little steeper than some, but it is well worth the extra time spent in learning how to use the program. Currently, this one is only available for PC’s, but it’s definitely a necessary tool if you do a lot of uploading.

CoreFTP ’ The lite version of this application is free and it is reasonably simple to use. It supports FTP/HTTP/SOCKS proxy and features drag and drop file transferring as well as some other handy features. The limited edition is only available free of charge for personal or educational use, but the full version isn’t that expensive if you need it for your business. This is a nice FTP client and one that serves a lot of different purposes.

SmartFTP ’ SmartFTP offers a very nice user interface that is easy to understand. You can schedule automatic back-ups, use multiple connections, drag and drop files and chmod. Several other features have been included with the latest release and this is one FTP client for PC’s that definitely deserves a place on your desktop.

CoffeeCup Free FTP ’ This client is quite possibly the most popular freeware FTP program, particularly with beginners. The interface is simple and it does offer support for multiple FTP accounts, the ability to resume broken downloads and more. However, it can be classified as nagware and constantly bugs the user about other programs from the manufacturer. Some have claimed it has several spyware features, so this one is hard to recommend unless you are an absolute beginner who needs a very simple interface.

Cyberduck ' is an open source client for FTP and SFTP, WebDAV, and cloud storage (OpenStack Swift, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2 and Microsoft Azure), available for macOS and Windows (as of version 4.0) licensed under the GPL.

RBrowser – RBrowser comes under several licenses, but there is a free version that only has a few limitations. It is now available for MacOSX and offers remote editing, file synchronization and other advanced features that are hard to find in a free client. There are some limitations, such as file copying, but overall this is a nice utility.

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Disadvantages of Unix Hosting

While there are many strong advantages to purchasing a Unix platform hosting package, there are still some disadvantages that you will need to keep in mind before jumping to any conclusions. Let’s take a look at some of the most common problems facing Unix hosting.

Difficulty

If you are not familiar with using Linux/Unix language, you will need to learn a completely new programming language. For customers who are used to their Windows operating system on their computer, this can be a huge downside. Your slashes will be going in different directions, and the commands are completely different from Windows commands. For webmasters pressed for time, having to learn a completely new programming language can be too much.

In addition, you will need to be familiar with file permissions and how that is done on a Unix server. Many scripts require you to set specific file permissions on folders and files included in the script. This is called CHMODING and can be very difficult to grasp at first. If your permissions are incorrect, your script will not run, making it very frustrating for new users.

Telnet, which is typically used to administered processes in Unix can be a completely foreign application to someone who is not used to Unix. While it is not extremely difficult to master the basic concept of Telnet, you will need to learn a variety of commands that are necessary to use it. While many webmasters never need to use Telnet to administer their Unix platform site, if you plan to use advanced applications, it definitely comes in handy.

Front Page Extensions

If you are using Microsoft Front Page to develop your website, you will need to make sure that your Unix host offers Front Page extensions. If you don’t have these extensions, you will not be able to use Front Page to its complete abilities. Most Unix based hosts are now offering these extensions, but there are still several that do not.

No .ASP

If you plan to use Active Server Pages or .ASP for your website, you will not be able to use this language on a Unix server. Since this scripting language is gaining in popularity, this can be a tremendous downside if you select a Unix based host.

No Visual Basic

Like .ASP, Visual Basic is not supported on Unix based hosting, so again, if you plan to use this, or any Windows based applications, a Unix host will not be an alternative for you.

Now that you are well versed in the ups and downs of Unix hosting, let’s put everything together into what you will need to consider before selecting a Unix based hosting package.

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Disadvantages of PHP Hosting

While there are many strong advantages to PHP hosting, there are some disadvantages that you will need to be aware of before making your final decision. These disadvantages will basically stem from what you plan to do with your site now and in the future, and there are some important considerations that you will need to make.

First, since PHP is based in Unix, this means that you will not be able to use Windows developed applications on your site. If you are interested in using Active Server Pages or .ASP, you will not be able to run them on a PHP host. In order for these pages to function correctly, you must be on a Windows server.

In addition to not supporting .ASP, the .Net framework is not supported, nor is Visual Basic. If these development tools are important to you, or if you plan to develop applications on your site that run on a Windows platform, you will not be able to do this on a PHP based server.

While many people prefer Unix, some people feel that it is very difficult to use. If you are well versed in Windows and comfortable with this platform, switching to a Unix platform may be very difficult. Again, since PHP was developed using Unix, most PHP hosting companies run their servers on a Unix platform. You will need to understand Unix to administer certain areas of your site and this can be time consuming if you are not familiar with this language.

While you will be able to use .htaccess to protect areas of your site, there are several security problems inherent to using PHP. Most of these appear when your register_globals setting is turned on, which may be turned on by default by your hosting company.

If you have sensitive data and are concerned about security holes in PHP, you will need to consult your webhosting company ahead of time to make sure that your site will be as secure as possible. There are security flaws in almost every platform, but the flaws in PHP are extremely well known. If you are not familiar with how to take steps to make sure that your PHP code is secure, you may be better served by selecting a Windows based hosting company.

Since PHP hosting packages are less expensive, some hosting companies tend to “pack” as many websites onto one server as they can. This is a very common problem with shared hosting, and can lead to a degradation of your site’s functions, speed and usefulness. If you are worried about other sites using your resources, make sure that your hosting company limits the amount of websites on each server.

Basically, any concerns that come with PHP hosting center around the inability to use Windows based applications and databases. Other than these issues, the remaining problems are very basic in nature and you should be able to find a PHP hosting company that offers what you are looking for in security and functionality.

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Pros & Cons of Windows Hosting Servers

A lot of webmasters are actually confused on why they should or should not use the Windows OS on their server. The Windows web hosting background operates on the same server your content is kept, caring for necessary events involved for your website to run efficiently.  From a glance, Windows looks the same to the user, but it’s actually quite different.

Sometimes beginners in web hosting ask if the operating system of web hosting is significant, and if they should select a Linux or Windows web hosting. This article will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using Windows for your web hosting. There are numerous advantages to opting for the Windows operating system platform, and also some cons to Windows hosting.  I will discuss some reasons you may want to use this OS and some reasons you may not want to use it.

Windows Hosting Pros

◉ Windows web hosting is consistent and flexible when it comes to website hosting resolutions. Windows permits you to host several websites from a sole tab. Windows web servers generate sub-domains that can run websites that are database-friendly (SQL Server (MS SQL) and expands server-segment utilities on your website.

◉ Windows hosting entails.Net Framework which makes it an excellent choice for websites that are created using.Net, Active Server Pages (ASP) and the Visual Basic Language. Visual Basic,.Net Framework and ASP enables your website to work faster and is obviously less complicated to use, for those developers that are familiar with the platform.

◉ This operating system comes with different settings at are automatically disabled right out of the box.  So, this gives you an added piece of security.  In contrary with the Linux OS server platforms, you have to toy with the settings to disable many settings on your server.

Windows Hosting Cons:

Just like a double edge sword, Windows web hosting comes with its limitations. These limitations include:
◉ Compatibility.  Since Linux is used by more host, you could possibly run into some compatibility issues.  However, fewer developers have run into this problem over the years.  You’re not just limited to ASP, and it can support PHP and Perl.  IIS is much better to run for PHP and Perl as opposed to ISAPI.

◉ The price of Windows servers is higher than any other web hosting server. This is because Windows web hosting is not free-licensed software making other web servers an affordable web hosting solution.  Companies have to pay a licensing fee as opposed to the Linux OS.

◉ The security of Windows web server is average, and it loses its stability the server if malfunction and hence making the windows server to operate slowly and even attacked by malware and viruses. When the windows web server require frequent rebooting when it’s used for a long duration to avoid the server from hanging.

Clearly, it makes no difference if you want to use the Windows or the Linux OS.  It’s up to your server technician on which one they are more comfortable using.  You should keep in mind that migrating from Linux to Windows (or vice versa) does take some extra work.  You’ll need to consider the cost of migration if you want to make the switch for your business.

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Disadvantages of Windows Hosting

In our last column we covered a number of advantages that can come from hosting your website on a Windows platform. Now it is time to take a look at the disadvantages of Windows hosting, and unfortunately, there are many.

Stability

A server running on a Windows platform is not as stable as one that is running Unix. Be prepared to face some downtime issues as well as problems with your server on a regular basis. This is not to say that all Windows servers are inherently buggy, but rather it is not an entirely stable platform. Previous users of a Unix platform server might be disappointed in the stability of a Windows server.

Performance

Windows servers run much more slowly than Unix servers. If your site needs to operate quickly and serve content on a rapid basis, you would most likely be better served using Unix. This problem is a result of the programming that runs a Windows server and is not something that is easily worked around.

More System Resources are Required

Branching off from performance issues, is the problem facing many Windows hosting customers of having the server use more resources than one running on Unix. This means more RAM, more disk space and possibly more bandwidth, which can be very costly.

The Need to Reboot More Often

A Windows server needs to be rebooted much more often than a Unix server and this can result in more downtime for your site.

Compatibility Issues

If you plan to use CGI or PERL applications on your site, be prepared to face some Windows compatibility issues. CGI and PERL were developed in Unix, which means that there are some very large workarounds you will need to do on many scripts. While there are CGI and PERL scripts that function correctly on Windows, they are not as common, or easy to find.

No Telnet or SSH

If you are used to being able to administer your site using Telnet or SSH, you will not be able to do this on a Windows server. Telnet is Unix based, and as such, will not run on a Windows server. This is a very large downside for webmasters that are used to performing day to day functions using Telnet.

Cost

Windows is not a free operating platform. This means that Windows hosting packages typically cost more than Unix packages. In addition, there are very few free applications that will run on a Windows server, which means your out-of-pocket expenses after purchasing your server space could be quite large.

Now that we have seen what a Windows server can and cannot do, let’s take a look at some important things to consider before purchasing a Windows Hosting package.

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What is Magento Website Development? How Does It Work?

Magento is an e-commerce platform that is used by the top internet stores. Owned by Ebay, it’s available as a free download under the OSL 3.0 open source license. Those who want a premium solution can sign up for the Enterprise Edition, which is available via an annual subscription. If you want to open up an internet store, there are many reasons why you would want to use Magento website development to help you.

One of the best things about Magento is that it is easy to use, as it allows you to connect your store with PayPal, Google Shopping, etc. Even though it’s used by the top internet stores, startup stores can use it as well.

Here are some of the ways it can help you sell products:

1. It offers flexibility, no matter how large or small a business is. There are numerous templates and themes available. It’s easy for any online store owner to create a customized solution. Since Magento website development is easy and flexible to use, you’ll be able to save time when building your store. This means that you’ll be able to put more focus on marketing your products.

2. It’s easy to create a shopping cart. You’ll have the option of providing customers with a variety of payment options. This platform allows integration with nearly 50 payment gateways. Checkout is an easy, step-by-step process. Your customers won’t feel confused or frustrated when placing an order through your store.

3. Customer experience is improved in many ways. In addition to a simple checkout process, customers can use dynamic search features that allow them to filter products according to a variety of parameters. A library of unique search terms is maintained in the Magento cloud. You’ll have access to product tag filters and product reviews, which you can display on your site. This web development platform also offers the ability to configure search terms with auto-suggestions.

4. On-page SEO solutions are available. It’s easy to come up with long-tail keywords that will help drive traffic to your site. Magento offers tools such as SEO filters, optimized headers, page headers, a customizable site map, meta data, and more. You’ll be able to prepare your site for the search engines. The long-tail keywords will make it easier for you to compete with other internet stores in the search engine rankings.

5. Product feeds will help bring in targeted traffic. This platform makes it simple to submit optimized product feeds to Google Merchant Center. With the M2E Pro version, you can integrate your products with all eBay and Amazon marketplaces.

6. You can expect more mobile visitors. Magento is a mobile friendly platform that allows you to setup an internet store that is compatible with any mobile device.

7. You’ll have access to many helpful extensions, such as Customer Follow-Up, Advanced Subscribe, and One-Step Checkout.

Using Magento website development will provide you with all of the scalability you need, as it supports up to half a million products on a single site. It can handle nearly 100,000 orders per hour. As your internet store grows, you will have a platform that is able to grow with it. This will save both time and money in the future.

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Advantages vs Disadvantages of A Custom Ecommerce Website

In the e-commerce industry, you have two choices for an internet store: custom or hosted. Hosted sites are easy to set up and use. You can simply choose a pre-made template and shopping cart. However, you will have limitations on the design and storefront. A custom ecommerce website offers more flexibility and scalability.

When choosing between these two types of sites, you need to keep your ecommerce goals in mind.

Factors To Consider Include:

◉ Short term and long term goals

◉ Your budget

◉ Traffic expectations

◉ Sales expectations

◉ The amount of time you want to keep the same site before creating a new one

Unless you are completely new to e-commerce, and do not have enough start-up money to invest in a programmer, you should consider a custom solution.

Advantages of a Custom Ecommerce Website

◉ This type of website is owned by you. While there may be many other online stores that use a pre-made template on a hosted website, your custom site could stand out from the competition since it has been designed specifically for you. Plus, it will be easier to change as your business evolves over time.  A hosted template is typically locked down in code that cannot be modified to the same extent.

◉ A custom solution also means that there are no limitations on how you set up your store and shopping cart. Working with designers and marketing specialists, you can set up your site in a way that maximizes your return on investment.

◉ Display the products you want on any page. Give your customers a unique shopping experience. Modify the functionality of the search feature and checkout process so everything is as user-friendly as possible.

◉ A pre-made site may not allow the kind of user experience that you are looking for.

◉ Mobile compatibility is another advantage of a custom ecommerce website. Set your store up so that it opens in any browser on any PC or device with internet access. While some generic templates are made to work on mobile devices, there is not always a guarantee that they will load and run smoothly. If your customers were to complain that your internet store doesn’t load fast enough on their devices, there wouldn’t be anything you could do since you can’t make modifications on a generic pre-made template. This isn’t a concern with a custom template that you own and have full access to.

◉ Finally, you’ll have better branding potential with a custom template, thanks to the unique design and SEO capabilities. Custom e-commerce allows you to decide on which keywords you want to optimize each page for. You can always try new keywords and make changes whenever necessary.

Disadvantages of a Custom Ecommerce Website

A custom solution isn’t for every business. If you’re new to e-commerce and don’t have experience with creating or running a website, a generic template and hosted store might be the better solution for you.

Here are a few reasons why you might not want a custom store just yet:

◉ Since more programming is involved, the initial investment may be over your budget.

◉ Although they have some limitations, there are a wide variety of templates. If your business model is similar to many other business models, a generic site may be enough to meet your needs for now.

Even if you start out with a pre-made template, you can still have a custom ecommerce website created later on, as your company begins to grow. 

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Dedicated Servers : Advantages and Disadvantages

Dedicated Server Hosting is also well-known as managed dedicated server hosting these days, or simply as dedicated server, or as dedicated hosting service. It is a web hosting package where the customer rents a complete web hosting server to host websites belonging to his or her company, or for a professional use.

Unlike the VPS or the shared web hosting packages where a web server is chiefly shared between more clients, the dedicated server is exclusively leased to a single customer, or is rented by a single customer, or is even purchased by a single customer, and none of the server’s resources are shared with any other clients. As an exception to this exclusive usage of the dedicated server “rule”, the dedicated server is further used as a shared hosting server by that customer or as a VPS as in web reseller hosting business. The dedicated servers can be further divided as three major types: the managed dedicated servers, unmanaged dedicated servers, and the third type is the semi-dedicated servers.

Advantages of using the Dedicated Server Hosting are :

The dedicated server is rented by a single client or company. This gives the company the complete control of the dedicated server, and also makes the server very secure, stable, powerful, extremely reliable web hosting server. In dedicated server hosting, the web host provides the web infrastructure, and the maintenance and care of the dedicated server. With thus, the client only pays for the usage of the server, thus saving a lot of money and expenses on infrastructure, hiring experts, and continuous maintenance and monitoring of server, data center, and its equipments. Even the hardware equipments’ maintenance and replacement is taken care by the web hosting service provider.

Disadvantages of Using Dedicated Server Hosting 

The main issues with using dedicated server hosting is the very high cost and the needed knowledge of using it competently. If your dedicated server faces any type of technical or equipment problems, then there can be additional hourly- or per instance-basis fees to be paid to the host. You will need to take all such expenses into consideration and be sure to ask the web host about such additional expenses in advance while opting for a dedicated server hosting package.

Managed Dedicated Servers 

If you opt for the managed dedicated server hosting package, then the web host will either help you maintain the server fully or partially and at various levels as per the hosting company’s terms and conditions. So understand those Terms about the dedicated server’s support terms in advance, as these terms usually differ from web host to web host.

Advantages of Managed Dedicated Servers

All the critical software updates, for example, the security-related, the control panel related, and the operating system-related issues are resolved by the dedicated server hosting provider. Most of the problems regarding the dedicated server are also taken care by the host. Before opting for a managed dedicated server hosting package, be sure to understand how much support the web host will be providing you.

Disadvantages of Managed Dedicated Servers

The managed dedicated servers cost more than the unmanaged dedicated servers. Also, there can be some limitations imposed on you, for instance, you may not have admin or root level access, if you opt for a managed dedicated server hosting package.

Unmanaged Dedicated Servers

The client is responsible for all the dedicated server’s maintenance and operational issues. The web host may help you, but he would charge additional fees to do so. The web host is responsible for any hardware related problems or for the replacement of hardware and equipment.

Advantages of Unmanaged Dedicated Servers

The client is in total control of the dedicated server under this plan. If the client has well-trained staff or he can manage the dedicated server on his own, then he will be able to save a lot of money by opting for the unmanaged dedicated server hosting package.

Disadvantages of Unmanaged servers

The web host’s help is extremely limited, and he may impose additional fees if any tasks require his or his support team. These fees can be very high if there is extensive support to be given by him. Hence, it is wise to understand every aspect of a dedicated server hosting package, as these issues are never mentioned in-details on the web hosting service provider’s sales pages. But, the dedicated servers are extremely powerful web platforms and are ideal to how professional and commercial websites.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Virtual Server

Server virtualization has been into trend from a couple of last years and it is a reality that knocks companies, bringing numerous benefits to all who seek the resource savings and a more effective IT management. Furthermore, it is a green technology.

To give a broader view of server virtualization, identified a huge list of advantages and a few disadvantages, which can be compensated by using a cloud provider with recognized market action.

Advantages of Virtual Server:

➥ Facilities to be simplified and space saving.
➥ Centralized management.
➥ Full compatibility with applications.
➥ Greater availability and easier recovery in case of disaster.
➥ Facility for running backups.
➥ Support and maintenance simplified.
➥ Controlled access to sensitive data and intellectual property by keeping them safe inside the data center.
➥ Hardware independence.
➥ Best use of space: the fewer physical devices installed, the greater the availability of space in racks.
➥ The provision of new servers is reduced to a few minutes.
➥ Migrating servers to new hardware transparently.
➥ Saving electrical energy used by servers.
➥ Security – using virtual machines (VM), you can define what is the best environment to run each service with different security requirements, several tools and operating system most suitable for each service. Virtual machines can be isolated and independent of each other, including the host machine. Using a virtual machine for each service, the vulnerability of a service does not affect the other.
➥ Reliability and Availability – the failure of a software does not affect the other services.
➥ The use of a VM as the development environment allows testing at different OSs, and for providing an isolated environment that prevents faults in the configuration and / or implementation, or even viruses, damaging the machine hardware.
➥ The cost reduction is possible using small virtual servers on a more powerful single server.
➥ Adapting to different workloads, which can be treated simply. Typically, virtualization software reallocate hardware resources dynamically between a virtual machine and another.
➥ Load balancing: the whole virtual machine is encapsulated. Thus, it becomes easy to change the virtual machine platform and increase its performance.
➥ Support for legacy applications: when a company decides to migrate to a new operating system, you can keep your old operating system running in a virtual machine, which reduces the cost of migration. It is worth remembering that virtualization can be useful for applications that run on legacy hardware, which is subject to failure and have high maintenance costs. With that hardware virtualization, you can run these applications on newer hardware with lower maintenance costs and higher reliability.
➥ Reduction of personnel costs, power and cooling by using less physical equipment.
➥ Better utilization of hardware – the hardware sharing by virtual machines is reduced to idle equipment.
➥ With virtual machines, you can simulate entire networks, including heterogeneous networks.
➥ You can use operating systems that do not have compatibility with the hardware, using the resources of hardware virtualization. This enables testing and even economy with the purchase of hardware.
➥ Reduced downtime.
➥ Ease of migration environments – prevents reinstallation and reconfiguration of systems to be migrated.

Disadvantages of Virtual Server:

➥ Management – virtual environments need to be instantiated (create instances on virtual machines), monitored, configured and saved. There are products that provide those solutions, but this is the field in which they are the largest investments in the area of  virtualization.
➥ Difficulty in direct access to hardware, for example, specific cards or USB devices.
➥ Performance – currently there are no consolidated methods to measure the performance of virtualized environments. To compensate, we introduce an extra layer of software between the operating system and hardware, VMM or hypervisor, which generates a higher processing cost than would have without virtualization. Another important point to emphasize is that no one knows exactly how many virtual machines can be run per processor, without the loss of quality of service.
➥ Great RAM consumption since each virtual machine will occupy a separate area of the same.
Great use of disk space, since it takes all the files for each operating system installed on each virtual machine.

As you can conclude, virtualization has more advantages than disadvantages, because it ends up solving and facilitating many operations. But it is necessary to evaluate all aspects involved in virtualization to avoid crises. For example, the vulnerability or burning a physical host will all virtual machines vulnerable or unavailable, requiring disaster recovery plans. Should also analyze whether the virtual machines have the performance needed for critical operations.

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Top Advantages And Disadvantages Of Shared Hosting

Shared hosting means that a single physical server and the resources hosted on it are normally shared between several users. Every user on the shared hosting platform is allocated a limited amount of services such as the disk space, traffic, FTP accounts, databases and email accounts, among numerous other services.

Before you decide whether or not to use shared hosting option for your website, it is essential to understand what you stand to gain and what shortcomings to expect. This will enable you to decide if this is the correct hosting option for you to use for your website or blog. Shared hosting has a range of advantages that businesses and individuals can benefit from by embracing it.

1. Cost Effectiveness

The fact that shared web hosting is usually offered at extremely an affordable rate is perhaps its biggest advantage. With as little as $5-$10, you can tremendously benefit from shared hosting services. What is more, one can manage to acquire sufficient space more so because of the stiff competition due to the many web hosting firms in the market. Nowadays, getting up to 40GB storage is not impossible in shared hosting.

2. Customisation

Even though resources in shared hosting are shared among several users, the website is still managed by the webmaster using control panel tools. The control panel is user friendly and a powerful tool that can help you customise your website. The control panels help users to manage a range of features such as uploading files and images, as well as checking site statistics. This means that shared hosting also allows you some amount of customisation.

3. Convenience

We all want convenience when running our daily errands and this includes website management. With shared hosting, your web hosting will be managed by highly professional and well skilled experts and, therefore, grant you adequate convenience. This means that you can concentrate on running your web business.

4. Efficiency

Among the most crucial aspects as far as web hosting is concerned is the disk space and bandwidth given by the servers. It is the bandwidth that helps business owners run their businesses efficiently. As stated earlier, you can get adequate bandwidth with shared hosting, which you can use to add more resources on your site.

These are some of the advantages that surround shared web hosting. Even though it has some disadvantages as you will see below, your choice is all dependent on your business requirements. Let us now consider the disadvantages of shared web hosting:

5. Crashes

This is actually a cold hard truth that must be let out in the open, unfortunately. Even though you can easily get a respectable web hosting provider, dependability of shared hosting has always been questionable. In spite of all the proactive measures put in place, the act of putting thousands of websites on one server exposes the machine to failure.

6. Performance

Performance of your website can also be an issue in shared hosting. Let us utilize a simple example, something that actually happens all the time. Suppose you are experiencing moderate traffic on your website and another user in the server experiences a sudden increase of traffic. That user’s sudden change in traffic can have a direct impact on the performance of your website making it take forever to load pages. This can be extremely frustrating to your visitors who may opt to seek information elsewhere.

7. Security

With cybercrime rising on a daily basis, it is necessary to ensure that your website is secured. Unfortunately, security is another critical aspect in shared hosting. Perhaps this problem has been accelerated by the freedom webmasters receive from hosting companies.

It only takes one of the webmasters in the shared hosting environment to misuse HT Access or any other sensitive element to cause all kinds of chaos on the server. This could give intruders access to your data, especially if you are not proficient in programming languages. What is more, if worst comes to worst, your website could be blacklisted if issues of malpractice are recognised on the server.

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