Hosting

The term ‘hosting’ describes where the web site and database resides. A typical website comprises of a set of web pages, the graphical user interface (GUI) and a database to store data. There are many types of hosting typically offered for a web solution. These are shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS) hosting and dedicated hosting.

Shared hosting means that there is more than one website residing on the same server. All the websites use the same server resources and generally allow a website to be created on a lower budget. Typically, lower traffic websites that do not require huge amounts of processing are deployed on this type of hosting solution.

Virtual private server hosting also hosts more than one website but where as with the shared hosting websites use the server processor on a first come first served basis with virtual private server websites are guaranteed to always have a share of the server resources. This is set by the web server administrators for maybe 20% of the server resources and no matter what other websites are being used your website will always have some resources and therefore not have slow periods like a shared hosting solution.

Dedicated hosting is set apart by the fact that only your website is hosted on the server. This means that the full resources are dedicated to your websites needs and therefore the website can cope with higher volumes of traffic and processing without slowing down. This is the most expensive form of hosting and is usually only needed for websites that have extremely high volumes of traffic or need intensive processing for something like serving up large amounts of video content or complex functions.