Tag Archive 'unix'

What You Need With Cheap Hosting

Web hosting companies are abundant online with literally hundreds of providers competing for your services.  For those of you looking to create your very first website, cheap hosting is a viable option.  Cheap web hosting is a great solution for those who want to create a personal site and those looking to host a small or medium-sized business as well.  Regardless of what platform you choose to host on whether it’s Windows or Unix, it is important to find a host that can truly fulfill the requirements of your website.  A good rule of thumb is to choose a provider that can accommodate the webmaster for personal, professional or business hosting needs.

The Truth About Cheap Hosting

While their services are considered cheap, there a number of companies that provide quality web hosting service on some of the best servers available.  This ensures that your content will be hosted on reliable hardware to enable a fast connection and optimized performance.  So when you hear a particular company offering cheap service, it does necessarily mean they are working with cheap equipment.  You will find that affordable providers have access to significant resources, allowing them to offer large quantities of bandwidth and disk space for your transfer and storage needs.  This helps to back their up-time guarantee and assures that your site will continue to function in the event of catastrophic situations.

There is definitely nothing wrong with taking the cheap route towards web hosting.  However, there are certain qualities you should expect from any provider.  First and foremost, you want to purchase service with a company who is honest and backs their claims, one that delivers as promised.

There are a few companies who pride themselves on being cheap but do so by overselling their services.  While some are able to get away with this, others aren’t so fortunate.  These type of companies usually end up crumbling and taking the websites of their customers right along with them.  If features such as unlimited bandwidth and storage sound too be good to be true, ask questions to learn all the details.  You want to make sure there are no unspoken restrictions that will inhibit you from utilizing all the resources you have paid for.

You also want a hosting company who offers assurance.  You need to be assured of receiving the best possible service for your personal, professional or business needs.  Most providers advertise an uptime guarantee of 99.9%, a percentage that has become standard in the industry.  If you’re hosting a website in a shared server environment, the uptime may be questionable.  This is when it helps to do a little more research to find out what measures a particular company is taking to back this claim.  A reliable company will protect sensitive data with redundant backup systems, 24/7 monitoring and physical security.  Downtime is never a good situation as it can have a negative impact on the operation of your business.

Last but not least, you want to make yourself familiar with what is actually considered to be cheap hosting.  For instance, $9.95 may sound pretty reasonable but is rather expensive when compared to the competition.  Especially if a particular provider calls for service to be paid all at once on a yearly basis.  These days, reliable, quality web hosting can be purchased for under $5 per month, packed with all the features needed to get your site off the ground.  This spares you from shelling out extra money to enhance the presence and capability of your website.


Linux Hosting: A Fine Point Overview

In your mission to find a website provider, you will notice that many companies offer what is know as Linux-based hosting. This article will detail the finer points of this option and how it can be used to create and maintain dynamic web sites. We will also shed a bit of light on the Linux operating system in general and why it is the preferred choice by many users.

History

Linux is essentially a variation of the Unix operating system. It was created in 1991 at Finland’s University of Helsinki by a student named Linus Torvalds. Torvalds came to develop Linux while working on a non-commercial replacement version for Minux, a smaller Unix-like system. Linux was originally intended for academic use but evolved into something much more useful.

Since it was developed under the GNU Project’s General Public License, the source code of Linux is freely available. While the goal of the GNU Project was to develop and distribute free Unix compatible software, the Linux operating system itself is not free, only the source code for the kernel and most of it’s software. Linux developers and third-party vendors can charge a fee for it as long as the source code is freely available.

Web Hosting

Just as with any provider, before choosing a Linux host, you should first determine the needs of your website. Many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will offer a Linux-based hosting plan for a very reasonable price. This option presents you with a wide range of software applications that can be used to enhance the presentation and functionality of your site. The most common configuration of this type of hosting is known as a LAMP platform, consisting of a Linux operating system, an Apache web server, a MySQL database and PHP, Perl or Python scripts.

The LAMP configuration offers a number of components that can be used to support and run a website or a server. When put into action, it defines server infrastructures and a paradigm for developing software. LAMP is so widely used because the Linux system itself is so affordable.

The Apache server is what provides access to websites on the internet and is available for both Linux and Unix systems. It is currently the most widely used server today. MySQL is the database management system that adds ease to building a website. It actually functions as a server and is a multithreaded, multi-user system that grants users with access to their databases. MySQL is the most popular database management system and is said to have more than 10 million installations. The programming languages used in LAMP are typically either PHP, Perl or Python. These scripts are used to create object-orientated web pages and can also be used on Windows-based platforms as well.

The Linux system itself is capable of many things such as networking, software development and functioning as an end-user platform. It works with almost any kind of hardware from the basic AMD and Intel products to more obscure names such as Digital Alpha, PowerPC and Silicon Graphics. Due to its low cost and high-level of functionality, Linux has become one of the most popular operating systems and web hosting platforms outside of Windows.


UNIX/Linux hosting

An introduction

Web pages are developed using various kinds of platforms. They might be developed using the windows or even Linux and UNIX platforms. Thus, a web page that is developed using the UNIX or the Linux operating platforms are called as Unix/Linux based hosting. There is not much of a difference in the above two operating systems. It can be called that Linux/Unix is an upgraded version of the Linux/Unix operating systems.

Advantages of Linux/Unix hosting

There are many advantages related with Linux/Unix based hosting. One of such benefit is that Unix/Linux is extremely compatible with the PHP programming language that is gaining popularity these days. The cost involved is also a factor that is attracting a lot of developers these days. The fact that these operating systems are mostly available for free makes it really economical. Thus, customers can get some additional software’s that are required for Linux/Unix platforms. Some of these software’s are Apache, BIND, Sendmail and APF Firewall.

Some other advantages related with Linux/Unix based hosting include the security that is provided by the platform. The security that is offered by this platform is incomparable to that offered by Windows based hosting. Even the various developers have proved that this system offers a lot of control and stability over the operations. Linux based hosting is also very beneficial as it provides the developers with the ability to integrate various other things like Mod Rewrite, MySQL, Chmod permission, Apache Web Sever and even PHP. The important thing that can be noted about Linux/Unix based development is that the codes can be changed very easily because it is an open source operating system. Thus, the various people can easily change the codes according to the requirements and needs.

Reliability, Usability and Functionality

It has been proven by the various developers that the Linux/Unix based platform is the most reliable one and only depends upon regular maintenance. Thus, the stability and the quality related with these platforms won’t be affected with sudden system problems. They even prove to be consistent as it secures the functioning of the web site.

Over the years Linux/Unix has developed very efficiently. In the beginning this system was really tuff to be controlled by the beginners and was thus, used by only professionals. But in the present scenario it has been made really user friendly and can be administered quite comfortably. Today the beginners will find this system to be very comfortable with the availability of the easy to use features and control panels. The professionals will find this platform really easy and handy providing total control and stability.

Linux/Unix platform is absolutely different than that with other platforms. It has the capability of handling a lot of processes that can be run at the same time. This platform also provides the developers to obtain more from the server. This platform supports more application languages than any other platform, even windows. Some of the languages supported compromise of Tcl, Python, Shell, Java, C+ + and even PHP.