Choosing Web Hosting According to Needs
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Choosing web hosting
Choosing Web Hosting The first step in choosing the host is to calculate your own needs and resources. You must be aware that how much you can afford as a monthly fees and what are the main key features that are the basic necessity of your site and that they must be in the hosting plan you purchase. There are different plans and different needs according to the nature of your site. So before choosing any plan you must take a closer look in this guide, and decide that in which category you lie.
Solo operator
If you are a solo operator then you might go for either personal site or some informational site.
Both these type of sites are different in nature and therefore require different hosting needs
1. Personal Site:
If your site is a personal site then no need to pay extra. You may have no need to buy costly plans for your personal web site.
Key Features
·Free or Cheaper in Monthly fee
You can buy any cheaper or free plan for your site, but you have to face some kind of problems like banners, ads, etc. But if you don’t mind these things you can live like a king with your own domain name and multiple email accounts for just $10 to $15 or even less.
·Limited storage
Personal sites typically come with 15MB to 80MB of space for stashing files. That's more than enough if your site contains mostly text and small JPEG images, but if you want to use rich graphics and want to post lots of images then it is too small for you.
·Bandwidth
Personal site does not need very high bandwidth. There is no need to pay extra for high bandwidth for your personal web page. Around 15 GB of bandwidth is sufficient for you.
Other Features
· Easy sign-up, with a free trial period:
· Design templates: Pick from a range of different looks and styles without having to sweat HTML code.
· E-mail accounts included in the base price: Allowing site visitors to contact you.
· File transfer protocol (FTP) server for uploading files: This is faster and easier than uploading files using standard Web protocols.
2. Informational Site
You may also be willing to host a site that contains information about any specific product, disease, religion, logic or any other kind of knowledge you want to share with others on the net. This kind of site lies in the category of informational sites.
Key Features
· Affordable price
Informational sites also do not require very expensive plans. Free plans are also not suitable for them. Plans having $20 monthly fees are good enough for these kinds of sites.
· Disk Space
You may require more disk space than personal site as you are sharing information in words, images, sound files, or videos. Calculate your total size of the site and buy disk space slightly greater than your needs.
· Bandwidth
In these kinds of sites you are offering to download text, images and sound, or video files. That’s why bandwidth should be high enough to handle these downloads even if traffic is too high.
Other features
· You want multiple e-mail accounts.
· Making backup copies of the site is essential. Some hosts include a regular backup as part of the package; others offer it as an extra-cost option.
· Security is important. If you're using a shared or managed host, ask what they're doing to protect your site. If you're managing your own server, the onus is on you.
Business Man
Business man can lie in one of the three following classes. Whether he has
· Small Business
· Midsize Business
· Large Enterprise
All of them require a business site for them but these business sites are slightly different with respect to their needs and resources.
1. Business Site for small Business
If you run a small business services such as GeoCities or Homestead, or any shared host are better option for you. You may design your site by yourself or pay extra to have a host do it for you.
Key Features
· Monthly Fee
Plans for less than $20 per month are suitable.
· Disk Storage
According to the size of your site. But remember that your needs may rise after some time. So be sure that you are choosing a flexible plan that can be change according to the requirements.
· Bandwidth
Bandwidth should be high enough for the number of visitors will increase every day.
Other Features
· You want multiple e-mail accounts so that everyone in your organization can receive messages at your domain
· Having your own domain (www.yourowndomain.com) marks you as a serious business.
· Static IPs are essential for any hosting environment otherwise, people won't be able to find your site again
· Want customers to find you in search engines or keep in touch with clients? Some hosts offer web marketing tools that let you do both.
· Web-based site administration tools make it easier to manage your site remotely from any browser.
· Templates are too limited at this level, and your expertise may not be in Web design.
· If your site goes down, even at 3 a.m., you lose face and may lose money, too; you want 24/7 phone support to be there at anytime, day or night.
Business Site for Midsize business
Hosting resources you need depends more on what you want the site to do than the size of your company.
Key Features
· Monthly fee
It depends on your needs and hosting plan.
· Disk Space:
Again depends on your needs. For simple informational site, disk space requirement is small as compared to a heavily interactive site.
· Bandwidth
A bandwidth requirement also varies according to the nature of your site. For a site that contain text and very few images require low bandwidth as compared to a site having rich graphics and audio/video downloading facility.
Other Features
· You want multiple e-mail accounts so that everyone in your organization can receive messages at your domain
· Having your site hacked or taken down by a worm can be a nightmare for any business, so ask about the host's firewall, antivirus, intruder detection, and other security services.
· Offsite data storage and backup is also necessary as if a server goes down or the security isn't quite as robust as claimed, you'll be inconvenienced, but you won't go out of business.
· At this level, you'll want an SLA (service loan agreement) that spells out the uptime that the host will guarantee, as well as how the host will compensate you if that agreement isn't met.
· 24/7 phone support
Business site for Large Organization
Large organizations are complex enterprises, so it's no surprise their hosting needs can be complicated as well. Traffic and e-mail volume alone may dictate the need for a dedicated hosting solution. In fact, most big enterprises will engage several servers--some for delivering Web pages, others for handling e-mail and database calls.
Key Features
· Expensive Plan
Large organization sites require expensive plans.
· Disk Space
Very high disk space is required.
· Bandwidth
Bandwidth must also be very high.
Other Features
· You want Massive e-mail accounts.
· State-of-the-art virus protection, a firewall, and intrusion detection.
· Redundant servers, bandwidth, battery backup, and onsite generators because if your host loses its electricity, you're hosed.
· Offsite data storage and backup.
· Service-level agreements with 100 percent uptime guarantees.
· Besides network security, you also want to make sure the company controls the personnel who can access your machines on the inside. This may include biometric scanners on the doors of the server cages, if necessary.
· Top-shelf Level 1, 2, and 3 support available 24/7 so that even your most difficult problems get solved by the same company that you're paying to host your site.
· Businesses with large IT staffs that need more control over their Web sites generally opt for unmanaged or self-managed dedicated servers
· Firms that want to outsource their entire Web operation can go for a managed dedicated host.
· Companies that have their own hardware and staff but need a place to put them can seek out a collocation provider.
Online Merchant
Third category is online merchant. If you want to sell items through internet, your needs go up. Advertisement and selling goods are two different things, therefore for selling goods online you need a different kind of site and package.
Transactional site
For online merchants, there is a special kind of sites (packages) available. One can have a small shop or a very large online store. A low-volume shop could get away with a Yahoo storefront that accepts PayPal payments, but large stores will want a host that offers a full e-commerce package with all the trimmings: a shopping cart; an online catalog tool; security certificates; payment gateways for accepting credit cards; and ways to drive traffic to your shop, such as advertisements, e-mail newsletters, search engine placement, and so on.
Key Features
· Cost
Cost is as low as $100 per month for a single unmanaged server and as high as tens of thousands of dollars for a geographically distributed online merchant.
· Disk Space
Size of your catalog will determine the amount of storage you need. Generally it is better to buy more than you need right now but not too much more. If space becomes tight, you can generally upgrade your hosting plan to a bigger package.
· Bandwidth
Transactional sites are usually high-traffic sites, so be prepared to pay more for bandwidth.
Other Features
· A full suite of e-commerce tools i.e. a shopping cart, a catalog design template, security certificates, payment gateways, interstate tax and shipping calculators.
· For e-commerce sites, downtime can be deadly, so make sure you have redundant systems in different locations. You also want to make sure your host has built-in redundancy--multiple high-speed Net connections and power generators, at least.
· Web advertising and marketing services like Advertisements, search engine placement, and e-mail newsletters.
· Dynamic, database-driven sites, such as online catalogs, change virtually by the moment. You must have backup options that are as close to real time as possible.
· Support for online customer contact: Chat windows that provide live assistance for shopping and customer service issues.
· Your customers need to know that a hacker won't stole their personal information, and you need to know that the worm won't take down your site. A host must provide external services, such as SSL certificates, and a robust internal security net with high-end virus scanning, firewall, and intrusion detection.
· 24 / 7 service and support.