A definition of web space hosting
As its name denotes, web hosting is a service, which entails hosting web content. There are different varieties and types of web hosting, based on the purpose and on the objectives. Yet, they all involve hosting files, which, once hosted, are made accessible throughout the Internet. A web host is actually a server that is connected to the Internet and has its own IP address, which enables users to get access to it via the Internet. The hosting server's configuration and its limitations are dependent on the form of hosting solution it will be used for.
What are the different types of hosting?
Based on the application, the web hosting solution may be:
File Web Hosting - this type of web hosting enables the customers to deposit their files on a given server. With the conventional file hosting solution, the files that are stored may only be accessed by the client that's using the service. This web hosting solution mainly concerns backups of PCs , documents, personal files and even other web servers. This solution may also include given limitations with regard to the disk space and the root-level access. There may also be web traffic limitations, but that depends on the actual hosting provider.
Warez Web Hosting - the so-called warez web hosting solution is quite similar to the previous web hosting service type. Even so, unlike the file storage web hosting solution, the warez web hosting service is used for disseminating copyrighted materials without the authorization of the copyright possessor. To cut a long story short - it appertains to the prohibited transmission of files and docs. There are a lot of approaches for this to be brought about, but the 2 main ways are - through simple Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and through peer-to-peer connections. The first one involves either a specific web page, or, most commonly, just a directory on a hosting server that's been made available for everyone to access it and thereby download copyrighted files free of cost. The second way entails a P2P connection, making use of the so-called Torrent web servers, through which users transmit files between each other. There aren't many web page hosting firms that permit such type of hosting on their hosting servers, mostly due to all the judicial problems that it presupposes. Generally such sites are hosted on private dedicated servers that are registered by 3rd party enterprises either in the Middle East or in Asia.
Electronic Mail Web Hosting - this solution is relevant with both shared website hosting and dedicated servers, depending on the user's wish. If you want to run your own private SMTP server, then you will need either a VPS or a dedicated hosting server that offers the access level needed to perform such an operation. For traditional electronic mail web hosting purposes, however, you can set up a conventional shared site hosting account, to which you can point the MX records of your domain. This is not a solution that's very famous, since the web site hosting and the email hosting services are being served by two different servers, often owned by different web hosts.
Website Hosting - the most widespread and widely used hosting service nowadays. It's used for hosting site files, whose kind depends on the Operating System the hosting server is using - Linux or Windows. Different kinds of files need concrete web hosting server Operating Systems, or else they won't be displayed accurately on the Internet. This type of web hosting may involve web storage space and traffic quota limits, root access and CPU usage restrictions.
Depending on the purpose and on the usage, the customer should choose the type of server that he requires for his project, and, of course, the webspace hosting vendor that's going to furnish it. There are different types of hosting servers, based on the configuration and the web hosting solutions that they offer. These are:
Shared Website Hosting Server - a shared website hosting server supplies a smaller quantity of resources, which, of course, reflects on the price of the service. It can be utilized for hosting small and medium web pages, which do not demand considerable amounts of disk storage space and traffic.
Semi-Dedicated Servers - they perform on the same principle as the shared site hosting servers. Even so, there are much less customers hosted on the same server. For that reason, each of them will obtain a larger share of the server's resources like RAM, server storage, traffic and CPU. Excellent for hosting huge online portals that do not demand root privileges.
VPS hosting - the private virtual servers are ideal for medium web pages, which do need root access to the server's config files. Usually, there are a bunch of private virtual web server hosting accounts accommodated on the same machine. Nonetheless, each of them is isolated from the rest and has its own Operating System.
Dedicated Hosting - a completely dedicated web server configured and accessed by you and only you. It ensures a great quantity of resources. It also offers root-level access, which renders it a perfect environment for any kind of web page that demands a website hosting solution.
The only question that remains is:
Which website hosting vendor should I choose?
As mentioned, there aren't many web hosting providers offering warez web hosting solutions due to judicial predicaments. Such companies are being shut down practically every month. For that reason, if you want to launch such a service, you should do it on your own PC. The shared web page hosting service is the most popular type of hosting service. Because of that, each and every site hosting corporation provides it. Not all of them, though, offer services such as private virtual servers, semi-dedicated web hosting servers and dedicated web servers. Most of the small sized web space hosting corporations do not have the resources demanded for maintaining those solutions. Hence it's always best to settle on a larger hosting company that can provide its clients with all the solutions that they seek. You can easily identify such web hosts by the sorts of solutions that they are providing and by the way that they introduce them to the clients. For example, certain web hosting providers permit you to commence with a low-end webspace hosting account and then shift to a more powerful one, if you consider it necessary to do so. This is quite convenient, because you do not need to transmit sites between hosting servers and there is no chance of facing outages due to all the problems that may arise. Companies such as Proxima offer all kinds of services and possess the needed web server resources and staff to ensure that their clients will not suffer any predicaments when swapping services, which is what a top hosting provider is actually all about.