A Server? Cloud? What Hosting Do I Need?

Hosting may not be as exciting as how you can earn more online through your website, but like the steps to keep your website safe there are a lot of things you should consider to get what you need. 

I want to empower YOU to make the best decision to get the hosting YOU need.

 What is a server?

A server is like a box which stores your important information you want kept safe and serve it up as demanded.   Traditionally people may have kept their servers in the office, but now many people store applications remotely to be stored on the servers of a hosting company then pay that company to host for them.

Why do I need to pay for hosting?

Every website, application, database, programme, piece of code needs to be stored somewhere to then be accessed to be read or used. It could be on the hard drive of the system unit of your personal computer. However, particularly for web hosting even if you have the technical skills to do this, your efforts could be in vain with ISPs often blocking home servers by disallowing incoming requests and by refusing to provide static IP address so web users can't look up the server, therefore the code based on that server. 


I can just buy hosting online, right?

The sad reality is that unless you work in the industry it is hard to know what you really need, going through different websites with offers of different specs not knowing what you really need, for what you need hosting!

As you look to buy hosting online, before you know it you are lost in a plethora of cheap options. Why would you need to pay more than you need to?! Yet, then there are more expensive options on the other pages of their website.

With all this happened you may have already ordered hosting online, waiting for you to build on or transfer the website onto it but it may never be used. The hosting you purchased for your website may not even be fit for purpose.


What hosting options are there? And what hosting is best for Me? 

• Free web hosting: offered by different companies with limited services, often supported by advertisements with limited resource to build on.
  GOOD FOR: Personal blogs and small websites to get content out there;
  BAD FOR: A professional image - very limited resource beyond a small website.
  
  
• Shared web hosting service: Your website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds of websites. With websites all living in the same 'box' or server they share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU.
  GOOD FOR: Small business brochure websites, to keep a professional presence at low cost or where moments of downtime won't noticeably impact the business.
  BAD FOR: Security and peace of mind. A shared server resource increases risk of downtime; if one site gets hacked it may affect all the sites on that server; with limited resources it may affect performance of website and traffic will be restricted or even website taken off line if high traffic volumes to allow resource for other sites. You can read more here, about the risks of using shared hosting. 
  
  
• Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS). The best way to describe is think about the box (the server), but a good chunk of that box is partitioned off for your own usage, to give you a VPS. This means that that space is your own, cheaper than or leasing a whole server or a full dedicated hosting, less restriction than shared hosting as you have more resource to manager as you will. 
  GOOD FOR: Professional websites, to keep a professional presence at low cost.
  BAD FOR:  Resiliency with  no guarantee of complete uptime; plus, you still have restrictions based on the size of your allocated VPS resource - so can still be affected by hacking or if the physical server has problems.
  
  
• Dedicated Hosting: You use the whole server, exclusively for yourself so there are no restrictions on how you use the server as you have complete control.
  GOOD FOR: Security, large amount of resource with server built to demand. Dedicated hosting is great for:
  --> Hosting and running VoIP service; 
  --> Secure Databases that need high security (as no you share with no one, no one can gain use of the server and put your data at risk); 
  --> Popular websites that require a lot of disk space or run scripts that requires more than average CPU consumption.
  BAD FOR: High costs and limitations of the server, i.e. if server fails everything on that server will stop.
   

• Colocation Hosting: This is your own space, which you can use for your  own the server and have it housed at the providers facilities, usually a datacentre (a building designed to house servers).
  GOOD FOR: Those who have the technical resource and ability; this is great as you will be responsible for the server itself meaning you have full control of the web server. You can install any scripts or applications you need.
  BAD FOR: Those who don't, or have the ability but not the time to manage the servers personally.
  
  
• Beyond The Cloud Hosting: is the evolution of hosting, expanding on the technology of legacy hosting solutions. Essentially Cloud Hosting is the ability to keep your data stored in servers, accessed through the Internet.
  
  This hosting solution is built up by utilising resources across multiple servers so it is more reliable than Shared, VPS or Dedicated Hosting - as you are no longer limited to just one server, with other computers  providing resiliency to compensate when a single piece of hardware goes down. This also allows for powerful, scalable and reliable hosting through lots of clustered  servers, with resource available to scale up to demand. Beyond The Cloud Hosting is the additional later of technical resource, to check code errors, backup applications and monitor and fix problems as needed within that layer of software and programme code hosted.
  GOOD FOR: 
  --> Professional Websites - as resource scales to demand you are free from the headache of determine the specifications and resource needed to run your website;
  --> Everything you already keep on a Dedicated or Virtual Private Server - all data can be replicated and backed up, so you have the resource needed;
  --> Applications whereby the resource needed or popularity and usage is too hard to predict. 
  BAD FOR: Blogs and Small Websites. If downtime isn't a concern and you are not looking to attract high volumes of traffic, you may find the cost prohibitive for your needs.

 

So, in conclusion What Hosting is Best?

Cloud Hosting offers the most benefits of all hosting solutions, with decreasing costs and better availability of faster Internet access it should be the sensible choice for the storage of most businesses, to store the business applications - freeing businesses away from the limitations of legacy solutions.

Additionally with cloud hosting it provides the perfect home for your business - with the flexibility and resource to host all your business applications, online, without restriction with the security and resiliency legacy hosting solutions can't offer. 

Hyperneph goes beyond just Cloud Hosting by working to give customers a truly hassle free hosting, managing the whole process while maintaining and supporting all data retained on its hosting platform. If you want to know more about the options available to you with the exact hosting you need for your situation please connect with me on LinkedIn, or give me a call for free hosting advice.

Geoff Morris

M: +44 7874 341571
T: +44 20 3432 0420

[email protected]

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Geoff Morris is an adviser in new and evolving technology, helping people get more from the Internet to help their Business online, do Business online