Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Why is Linux hosting always recommended over Windows based hosting?

Foe hosting solutions Linux is often recommended over windows. It is so because linux mainly provides more security safety reliability and much more that the windows based hosting fails to deliver.

Open source software is used for Linux. It provides multiple options for various hosting needs. It is compatible with PHP which is one of the most popular languages for programming. It is perfect for practicing programmers as they can keep on testing thing on Linux. This is also the biggest advantage of Linux. Linux is also very much affordable and a cheap price. Many expenses are reduced while using Linux as soft wares that are proprietary are not installed.

Linux is typically a very good match for other web hosting servers as it is very stable. Also Linux can be run on multiple computers without worrying about licensing cost and it also offers the flexibility to customize its code and applications for particular sites or various infrastructure needs.

Hosting by windows requires a lot of system requirements and often a very powerful machine to run it. One of its commonly known faults is the server stability that it lacks. It requires frequent rebooting and most of the additional software that are necessary are from Microsoft so lots of additional investment is required which makes it even more expensive.

With Linux, a lot of things can be accomplished even with minimal recourses. Plus, it has the feature of making software tweaks and improvements with the open source development.

Linux is a popular choice to host some of the most popular servers. It is used on par with the windows server based hosting. More and more large companies are adapting Linux based servers particularly where the old UNIX servers were used. The Linux business is now rapidly expanding there.

Penetration of Linux based servers in large multinational companies is now seen. It is rapidly growing among large corporations. It features prominently in the web hosting market and is projected to grow even more. As server virtualization become more and more popular and multiple instances of the server need to be run, as Linux is easily compatible with both these functions, it is picked up as a popular choice.

With the increase in the number of mixed environments that are used for web hosting today there is a lot of choices available. However, the customers tend to stay with one specific platform and Linux is defiantly the most preferred choice.

What is website hosting and Email hosting?

Website hosting is the act of hosting a website on the internet. In order to make the website available on the net, the website needs to be hosted. Hosting includes various operations of such as housing, serving and maintaining files so that the content of the website is visible by the viewers.

A website can be called a public face of a company or an organization on the internet. Therefore, the hosting solutions that are chosen should be fast and secure and also be reliable. A customer can go for an in house hosting service if he has the recourses or he can go for an external internet service provider. Keeping in mind the recourses and the technical expertise available and also the cost the right service provider should be chosen.

Hosting of emails on a website is known as email hosting. There are many free email services providers. Some of the common ones are yahoo, gmail, msn etc.

The various key factors while choosing a provider include the site functionality, its ease of use, the range of feature available to the user, how the site is presented to the viewers, the updates available on the site and how often the content is changed to keep the site fresh, the speed of loading of the page the availability and the minus frequency of the site’s downtime.

The core operating systems that enable the web server to run are known as server operating systems. Microsoft NT , Windows 2000 Unix and Linux are the most common types.

The functionality of the website is largely chosen by the operating system used. Unless an in house expertise is available, the advice of an external internet service provider is required.

The websites would require a fast connection to the internet. This is determined by the amount of bandwidth available. This would portray the amount of data that can be transmitted over the internet. If the connection is not fast enough the users can only access the webpage slowly particularly on the occasion that the many people try to access the site at the same time.

A dedicated server for the website is recommended. This will be a major factor in the performance of the site depending upon the performance of the site. The processor speed required and also the disk space needed must also be considered to operate on the website efficiently. It should also have sufficient security systems to withstand any threats that come up such as hacks frauds etc.

What is a top-level domain or TLD?

The suffix of a domain name is known as a Tdl or a top level domain. It is used to identify the type of content of the particular website that is based on various types of organization such as .com, .edu, .name, .museum etc.

They can also be used as country codes to the type of website such as .in, .uk, .jp etc.

The tld or the top level domain is at the top of the hierarchy and is normally the last part of an internet domain name. These names are not case sensitive.

The top level domains are broadly classified into three types by the Internet assigned numbers authority or the IANA.

The first type relates to the country or territory of the website and and is know as country code related top level domains or the ccTLD. This pertains to the area and territory of a particular country in the last two letters. For eg. .jp would mean japan.

The second type is called the generic top level domains or gTLD which is used for a particular class of organizations. The most common of this type is .com which is used for all commercial organizations. All the gTLD’s are available for use worldwide but .gov and .mil are restricted to be used only in the United States by their respective authorities. The gTLD’s are further classified into sponsored top level domains sTLDs like .aero, .coop and un sponsored top level domains like .biz, .info.

The Third rare type of TLDs is known to be infrastructure top level domains. .apra is the only confirmed iTLD .However, .root are also known to exist without a reason.

The internet was in the past one of the many wide area networks that was available. The computers were not broadly connected to internet but were connected to each other through various sub networks and they could exchange data and email through the various gateways. When these networks were brought together and placed into the internet, these networks were given pseudo domains how ever these were not top level domains and did not exist in the DNS. Most of these networks have now long since ceased to exist and now can only be viewed as internet relics of the past.

The anonymity network aslo known as tor makes use of the pseudo domain onion. It can be only reached with a tor client which uses a tor protocol or onion routing that is used to reach the hidden services of the network. This is done in order to protect the anonymity of this network.

What is a Name server and why is it linked with domain names which setting up hosting accounts?

A computer server that implements or gives a name to a particular computer protocol is know as a name server. The name server maps a computer understandable identifier to a human usable identifier for that host. A domain name system will translate the domain name to an ip address or an internet protocol address so that the computer will understand that.

The protocol implanted by a computer for internet name servers are known as name servers. In some Microsoft networks, some name server exists and takes up the role of NetBIOS masters browsers and act as the NBNS server. However, in small windows networks, there is an absence of central name servers and broadcasts are used to perform the name resolutions.

A directory service or a naming service can also be provided by a name server.

These name servers are a completely hidden in the internet composition however they are incredibly important and fascinating. They form one of the most largest and active database on the planet. These servers are widely distributed. Without the help of these servers, it would be impossible to run the internet.

When we browse the web or send email, we do so by using the domain name or using the Url of that particular site. The url would contain a domain name and the email address would also contain its own domain name.

The names that are used by humans are easy to remember but these names would do the computers no good as they cannot understand it. All machines use internet protocol addresses of Ip addresses to refer to one another instead of names. The Dns translates all human readable names to ip addresses so that the computer can understand it and process it. A typical day of browsing or emailing may lead access to the domain names of hundreds of servers.

Translating the domain names to ip addresses is not an easy job done. Millions and millions of ip addresses are in use and more than billions of requests of dns’s are made everyday. And millions of people are using the internet daily. New domain names are added every day and millions of people do the work and change the domain names and ip addresses everyday.

The dns system can be considered a database and no other data base on this planet get as many requests or is accessed as many times as this per day. No other database is updated so frequently on a daily basis either. These things make the Dns very unique.

What is a Data center in web hosting?

A service that is used to provide a huge amount of electrical equipment that can be either computers or other communication equipment is known as a data center. It is an association that is solely maintained for the purpose of managing or organizing data that is essentially required to be used for daily operations. For example, the data center of a bank would store all detailed information of its customers. All companies have a data center of their own large scale companies may even multiple data centers. For the large cities, the data centers are provided with their own individual data location to prevent theft of data and to maintain security of the important data contained.

The organizations providing the data center service handle the data contained by them with utmost security as it is the lifeline of the company. Therefore the data center organization maintains high level or integrity and provides optimum functionality of the computer environment that it hosts for. This is usually shown by the general layout of the data center.

The data center can cover the area of a room to an entire building depending upon its size. Most of the data are stored in for of racks with corridors provided between them for easy access. The servers that are available vary from 1u servers to huge silos that occupy various tiles stacked upon the floor. Some of the mainframe computers and storage devices are often as big as the racks and are placed next to them.

The communications are mostly based on the ip protocol service in most data centers. They are equipped with routers and switches which comprise of the critical components that act as transporters of traffic to the outside world from the servers. Using two or more upstream service providers provide redundancy to the available internet connection.

Some of the datacenters run the basic internet and intranet services like email servers, proxy servers, DNS servers etc.

As mentioned earlier, the data that is available in the centers are treated with utmost security. Many network security elements are employed to keep the data safe. Such as firewalls, VpN gateway, Intrusion detection systems to detect malicious activities etc. are incorporated. Common monitoring systems and other such applications are also available. For added security for emergency situations such as failure of communication inside the data center, offsite monitoring systems are also provided.

What are the advantages of backordering a domain name and making a Backordered Domain Private?

There are many advantages of backordering and making a domain name private. One the obvious benefit is that it raises the chances of securing a domain name that otherwise might not be obtainable. Backordering for a domain name would automatically register the customer a list and then again register the customer to the domain name that he registered for as soon as the domain name becomes obtainable. Every company has its own list of backorders. If a customer registers at one company, there is a very good chance that another company will never know that he or she has already back ordered for the same specific site elsewhere. Hence to back order at many places in the same period of time dramatically increases the chances of the customer to obtain that domain name as soon as it is available.

However, this method can often fail as the customer is put on a registered list and therefore he will be in line with people before him. Hence, the best way to obtain a domain name for a customer is to buy a domain that is going to expire from an existing user before the domain expires.

The most obvious advantage that one can see from the above mentioned is that the customer buys his desired existing domain before it even expires and thereby eliminates all sorts of competition with out being on any sort of list .However, this move may alert the current owner of the domain about the potential market sell value of his domain.

In most domain backordering companies an upfront down payment is collected from the customer. This money is taken as initial deposit. This credit is adjusted as soon as a domain is bought. If the customer is not successful in buying that domain, then the amount is adjusted to buying another domain and the process is repetitive till a domain is successfully purchased by the customer.

If a domain is already backordered and the user is set on a list then the user can monitor the domain on a list .He can even raise his bid or auction for the domain. When the domain becomes available, if his bid is the highest, then the domain is automatically sold to him.

If a domain is not purchasable by these methods, even then, there are other methods of obtaining a desired domain. It can be done with the help of a domain tester. These domain testers test the desired domain for a period of time and then buy or drop the domain and move on to the next selected domain.

How does shared Web hosting Services work?

Shared hosting services also known as virtual hosting involves the housing and serving files of a server on various servers which may or may not be directly controlled by the company that owns the particular site. It allows almost anyone and everyone, from budding businessmen to various specific individuals to control and monitor the sites and gives them and strong connection to their website through the internet with is else wise unaffordable by them. This can be termed as outsourcing the website’s presence on the internet so that it can be easily monitored and controlled.

For a definite monthly fee, the web hosting companies allow their clients to host their websites and provide them with various options. The client’s website shares space on the server with websites of various other clients who also apply to the service. The web hosting company will allocate a certain amount of web space to each of its client’s website and also give a fixed amount of bandwidth which would translate to its data transfer ability. This service is much less expensive than hosting the website on a single dedicated server and enables the user to use more of the same facilities.

The services that are provided to the customers differ with different web hosting companies, the monthly fee given and the packages that are provided by the company. With the inclusion of disk storage space and bandwidth, that is data transfer ability, other

Services such as email forwarding, data backup and various technical support are also provided. The firm should also provide the clients with various statistics related to their website so that the client can know how many people visit their website and can also keep a track of them. The web hosting websites now days, also offer their clients with various softwares that lets them control various different aspects of their websites such as the user interface etc.

The biggest advantage is that the client’s expenses are drastically reduced while using shared hosting services. Also another advantage is that companies that require internet presence or wish it so but lack the advance technical skills or manpower can also easily gain so with out much difficulty while using shared hosting owing to its ease of use. This service is also very reliable. The owners of the share hosting website generally guarantee a definite uptime for their client’s websites and make sure by providing redundant connections.

These shared hosting websites generally serve the need of medium sized business or various individuals who otherwise find it difficult to gather internet presence when they require it. It is also a good choice for websites that have limited recourses in terms of e commerce.