VPS Web Hosting for Business Owners
If you are a business owner who has grown your business web site to a point where you are attracting thousands of visitors per day you will soon need to start thinking about using a more powerful web hosting solution than shared or reseller web hosting.
An obvious solution may be to go out and order a dedicated server but this option can be an expensive one. If you can’t afford a dedicated server at this point but require the similar performance, then VPS web hosting may be the best solution for you.
What is VPS web hosting?
VPS (virtual private server) web hosting consists of a server divided into multiple isolated accounts, and each VPS account has its own independent operating system with it’s own web server and mail server resources, so there is no sharing of resources with other customers even though your accounts are on the same server. Just like a dedicated server, you can have access to all configuration files within your account which means a greater ability for you to install and run custom software should you choose to.
Generally speaking your VPS web hosting account should cope with a high level of traffic. The best VPS hosting accounts provide maximum bandwidth allowance of 100’s of gigabytes which is usually more than enough for most purposes, even for for very popular websites.
In addition to coping with more traffic and providing more control over your hosting environment, VPS hosting accounts are generally more secure than shared hosting accounts. For example if a website hacker were to attempt get access to websites on a shared server he could damage any or all of the websites on that server at the same time. But because a VPS server is divided into isolated accounts, even if a hacker were to successfully gain entry through one VPS account there is little chance of access to other accounts.
While some experienced webmasters may wish to manage the technical aspects of managing their VPS accounts, this can be a time-consuming and complicated task for the unprepared. This is one reason many people prefer to have their VPS web hosting accounts fully managed and monitored by the web hosting provider. Usually you’ll pay a few dollars per month extra for this, but this can free up your valuable time and energy to concentrate on content and website promotion.
How much does managed VPS web hosting cost?
VPS web hosting will usually cost considerably less than a dedicated server. A managed dedicated server might cost $150 per month or more, but you can expect to pay just $35-$50 per month for an entry-level, fully managed vps account and this will allow you to run multiple sites from one account just like a reseller account. You will be provided with an operating system, control panel, your own allocation of RAM memory, plus large space and bandwidth resources. A minimum of 256MB guaranteed ram is suggested in order to run your control panels and database driven sites smoothly. For higher traffic sites consider starting with 384MB or 512MB of guaranteed Ram or higher.
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What is a Hosting Control Panel?
Of all the competitive industries today, the web hosting service is one of the most keenly fought and consumers have witnessed web hosting firms engage in a battle to win customers. This has led many to provide a variety of different hosting plans at a pleasant price in order to stand out from their peers. Another way that companies can differentiate themselves is by the performance they offer. There are many different aspects that a web host can offer and these can include offering to build a site for their customer or giving them a domain name free of charge. These issues and the price itself can sway a customers decision but the most important factor is the control panel. This means it is imperative for a web host to offer the correct service for a customers website needs. This service ensures that a web hosting firm is able to observe every aspect of a website and it does so through the software that makes up the control panel. Whether it is to open FTP accounts, provide an email server or offer statistical analysis of what is occurring on the website, the control panel enables it all. There are a number of control panels available and what one is right for you depend on many things, including what platform you operate on. There are control panels that only work on Windows, some which work on Linux and others that work on both.
The Windows Platform and the Control Panels for it.
There are certain web hosting control panels that work only for Windows platform. Hosting Accelerator and Helm are the typical examples of Windows only web hosting control panel. However, Helm is one of the most popular Windows only web hosting control panel due to its several customer friendly features. One of the most outstanding features of Helm is the billing information as most all the normally used control panels do not posses billing information within the control panel. The only exception is the H-sphere. Moreover, Helm is also very convenient to operate as well as has a very good standard interface.
Features and advantages of Helm:
* Managing your server: Helm can interact in many ways with your server and can operate with unlimited servers and domains. It is also possible for users to add or remove servers with the minimum of fuss. There are many servers that Helm has compatibility with and these include, MailEnable, SmarterMail, Merak and Imail. In addition to these servers, Helm also works with MDaemon, Mail Servers and hMailServer in addition to Serv-U FTP, Microsoft FTP, Gene6 FTP Server, MySQL Server, and Microsoft SQL Server etc. Helm is also capable of supporting ColdFusion, ASP, ASP,NET, PHP and Perl.
* Billing: They allow the hosting company to use either Helm’s own internal billing system or utilize any other 3rd party billing solution. It also enables to create the bill in any currency and provides the option of sending and viewing the invoices either in HTML format or in plain text format.
* Customer Management: This web hosting control panel also creates hosting plans for resellers as well as specifies the various resource limits including the amount of data transfer, domains, email accounts and disk-space.
What control panels are suitable for Linux Platform:
The DirectAdmin, Interworx and cPanel are a few examples web hosting control panels that works only for Linux platform. The DirectAdmin offers a low hosting cost and is the most convenient type of control panel. The Interworx offers an easy to use interface along with several other features. It is the cPanel, which is the most popular Linux based control panel and serves for over ten flavours of Linux. Most of the web hosting companies also have a preference for cPanel, due to its low hosting cost. This particular software package provides several other services such as deploy applications, provision customer accounts, transfer accounts from one server to another, servers secure and many other useful services.
Benefits of using Helm:
* Statistics of how the website is performing: With the amount of statistical tools and facilities offered by cPanel it is possible for any website owner to correctly analyze and calculate the traffic that is on their site. Not every hosting provider offers this service as many view it as a drain in their resources and would prefer not to offer the service to customers. If this an important aspect for a website owner, it is in their interest to ensure their choice of web host actually offers the service.
* Email Management: This particular web hosting control panel provides an email management facility that allows the website owner to create as well as delete email accounts. They provide Webmail facility that enables their clients to read mail online. The cPanel further offers other email related facilities such as setting up forwarders in order to forward one email account to another, setting up simple auto-responders in order to send a computerized reply back to the sender in case there is an enquiry email.
* File Manager and FTP: FTP access is required to upload files and cPanel is capable of offering this facility and this is one of the most important features a website should be offering to its clients. Another thing that cPanel allows is for new FTP accounts to be registered so other people can have access the website. The power to restrict and specify access rights regarding certain files or folders will always remain with the website owner and the hosting company. Not everyone is happy with using an FTP package to load their files to a website and they can use the cPanel File Manager instead. This will grant the user to ability to unzip files, place files upon their server and be able to duplicate or erase any files.
Control panels that can be used on both the Linux and Windows platforms:
There are certain web hosting control panels, which work for both Linux and Window based websites. The Ensim, H-Sphere and Plesk are the most common examples of such control panels. The H-Sphere offers several features that range from key functionalities to complete automation. However, it is the Plesk which is the most popular control panel for Linux and Windows platforms. Most of the web hosting companies that serve both Linux and Windows hosting customers opt for Plesk. Its interface looks quite like the Windows XP and is an expensive option as it serves both the platforms.
Features and advantages of Plesk:
* The ability to have shared hosting: A huge benefit of Plesk is that offers facilities like self administration and a design that is identical for multi-platforms which makes it an ideal service to manage an environment of shared hosting. This can be undertaken even by people with no technical skills at all as Plesk aids the setup, creation and managing accounts process.
* Dedicated Hosting: The RPM installation and modular design of the Plesk control panel enables the Dedicated Hosting providers to satisfy the various requirements of tech savvy clients. It offers a number of unique tools such as XML-API and other 3rd party applications.
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