Difference between Windows Hosting and Linux Hosting

Linux has emerged as a great option to host applications in the recent years. Its open source characteristics have placed it at a top position in the market. It has been coupled with an excellent interface with which user can perform any activities that he performs on Windows. Open source is the name of the game when it comes to the future of the internet market. PHP is the ultimate choice for website development these days with MYSQL as the back end. This open source technology can be very easily configured and implemented according to the end user’s choice.

Linux hosting provides an open source solution to the Web developers. An application developed in PHP, MYSQL and APACHE server can be very easily hosted in the Linux environment using the LAMP technology. The efficiency may depend upon the services offered by the hosting company. But the major advantage is that there are no overheads related to License management. It is a very cost effective way of hosting applications. On the other hand Windows hosting is the ultimate solution to host applications developed using Microsoft technologies. If I have an application that is built using ASP.net, VB 6 or VB.Net with MS Access or SQL server as the back end then obviously I would prefer to go for Windows hosting. This is because it can not be predicted how such an application would behave if hosted in a Linux environment.

Thus Linux hosting cuts down the maintenance cost of an application by ridding the user off license management. On the other hand Windows hosting has an advantage of compatibility with Microsoft technologies. It is not open source and it needs proper license to keep working which is not the case with Linux hosting.

All About Linux Web hosting

Call it a legacy or what so ever we have been totally dependent on the internet these days. Today internet has touched every aspect of life. One cannot imagine life without online information, reservation, shopping and million other things available on the internet. All the online information is available via websites. There are a million of websites that are hosted on the internet. Web Hosting is a term used for hosting websites on the internet. There are different web servers on which we can host our websites based on the OS running on them like Windows, Linux, UNIX, Solaris or any other OS.

Linux has been the favored operating system for quite a few web hosts and web designers from a noteworthy period of time.  The reason being it’s greater resistance to security intrusions, support for many web designing scripts such as PHP and JavaScript and support for database management systems such as MySQL and several other are welcome by all. In addition its free availability and open-source architecture make it a comparatively economical system to install and maintain. These make Linux operating system a better option for those looking to host and manage web resources on the internet. Also most servers operational today are being designed for the Linux system which further solidifies its position as a leading server operating system

In the region of web hosting Linux web hosting service has developed its own segment of customers in the market by giving them numerous features and flexibility to take advantage of the best and open source technology in the market. The Linux web hosting service offer a large stage for its customer base to employ this service according to their advantage as it gives a large amount of space to its customer at inexpensive cost with utmost reliability and stability.

The Indian Scenario of Web Hosting Services

Web hosting is a business of housing, serving and maintaining files for one or more web sites. It is a service provided by a vendor which offers a physical space to store web page and files. It allows an individual or the organization to make their own website available for others to view on internet. The companies that provide space on a server they own or lease to their client are known as web host. Over the past many years several Web Hosting firms have realized that there is a possibility of cutting cost by outsourcing servers and selected departments services to India and other similar developing economies. They also found that registering domain names was relatively cheaper here and had trouble-free availability. The outsourcing of web resources from the west to India and the growth of several local web-business ventures has triggered a growth of several web hosting companies in India over the last decade. While clients were once reluctant to hand over their valuable data and information to a completely foreign land, India has managed to change the perception and the credit for this certainly goes to the launch of several hosting companies that offered cheap, reliable and secure data storage for national and international clients along with excellent customer and technical support. These organizations although slowly but entered the market and caught up really fast because of their reduced hosting and domain registering costs, better customer and technical support and value added services such as website designing, domain name transfers, etc.

In the present scenario website hosting in India is not only a feasible but also reliable option for professionals and firms world-wide. Indian services are growing at an amazing rate and this could be seen by the fact that some of the companies have been featured amongst the top 100 web hosting options internationally. They provide to both international as well as local clientele and provide a host of services such as dedicated servers, hosting for a variety of operating systems, reselling hosting, domain name search and availability, registration and transfers, grid and cloud computing resources, etc. The Indian companies with steadfast services with a plethora of schemes have turned as a lucrative option worldwide. It seems like not far are days when India wouldn’t just be one of the largest Internet consumers in the world; it would also be home to the largest number of web hosting companies.

All About VPS or Virtual Private Server

The employment of less hardware has lead to a stead fast increase in the demand of Virtual private server hosting. Commonly referred as VPS, the term frequently is used to accentuate that the virtual machine even though running in software on the same physical computer as other customer’s virtual machine, acts as working on a totally different physical computers. It is dedicated to an individual customer and gives the privacy of a separate physical computer and runs as a server computer. Every virtual computer can work on its own fully fledged operating system and can be independently rebooted. It means to use things in an abstract manner but not at physical level. It renders all the features of a separate device to the user at the functional level.

Virtualization is used in Web Hosting Services also. Many Internet Service providers (ISPs) provide VPS Hosting (Virtual Private Server Hosting) to the users to host their web sites on the internet. VPS Hosting gives the best of Dedicated Web Hosting and Shared Web Hosting. The former provides security and full control on the web root access so that we can install any software applications on the server. This is an expensive approach and not suited for small businesses. On the other hand, the latter comes with concept of sharing the hardware resources which is economical. But it doesn’t provide root access and the performance is a bit low as compared to dedicated hosting. Virtual Private servers are virtualized servers. A single physical server is divided into a number of virtual servers using virtualization technology.

If a VPS is made dynamic in real time, then it becomes a Cloud Server. The major advantage of a cloud server over VPS is dynamic portability and scalability. One can move a virtual machine from one physical server to another without any downtime. This makes cloud servers more resistant to any natural disaster.  There are different virtualization techniques that can be implemented on the server, one being the Hardware Virtualization in which the resources are divided among different virtual machines at the hardware level. In this, the system needs to reboot for changes to commit whereas in Software Virtualization, system reboot is not required for committing changes. VPS Hosting provides applications like FTP, Mail Server Program, Web server Program and many others. ISPs provide different hosting services like Windows Web Hosting and Linux Web Hosting depending on the OS running on the server.

A Quick View on Web Hosting And Its Benefits

Web Hosting is becoming a fast growing business now days. There are millions of websites on the internet that are accessed everyday from all over the world. The websites are available on the internet because these are hosted on the web servers. Hosting a website means to store web pages of the website on the servers so that these are available on the internet 24×7. There are different web hosting techniques using which one can host a website. Windows Hosting is one of the common techniques that is used to host a website.
 
Windows hosting means hosting the website on a web server running on the Windows operating system and supporting windows services and products. Windows Hosting is an expensive hosting as compared to the open source since it is a proprietary product. It is compatible with the services provided by the Microsoft. Managing a website on a windows web server is easy as it is user friendly. It provides various features like FTP with the help of which we can upload our files on the website. If a website is using Access or MS SQL as the databases, then Windows Hosting is very good for such a website as it is very compatible with these databases. It supports ASP .Net as the web programming language. If a website is ASP driven, then it must be hosted on a windows server. It also supports PHP and MySQL but not to that extent as supported by Linux Hosting. It also offers good security features so that the website is safe from any malicious attack on the server.

Windows Hosting is a good hosting option if our website is using ASP. Net application or the access databases as these products are very much compatible with Windows operating System. It depends on the type of application that the user is running on his website and the database that he is using for his website. If the user is using the above mentioned products for his website, then Windows Hosting is a very good option for hosting the website.

VPS Hosting- A New Alternative for Hosting

VPS Hosting is one of the services which are a perfect intermediate between Dedicated Server Hosting and Shared Hosting. It uses a single physical server which is divided into further servers at the operating system level using virtualization. The virtual servers that are created from the physical server are dedicated to different clients. Each virtual server is an independent server having its operating system that can be rebooted independently. The users are unaware of the fact that they are sharing the same hardware resources but the system resources are different for each of the users which increases the performance parameter. More than one client is hosted on the same physical server but it appears to each of the user that the whole server is dedicated to them only. Each user gets the root access on their virtual private server which is a plus point as users can customize their server according to their requirements. With the root access, one can install any software applications and security upgrades patches.

VPS Hosting is an ideal option for the users who do not want to spend too much and also want good performance from the server. As VPS uses dedicated system resources, the user does not need to fight for the resources as it is in Shared Hosting. It is a better option in terms of cost and security features. As there is no sharing of the hardware resources and better level of abstraction is achieved in VPS Hosting, security is better in these servers. It absolutely depends on the requirements of the client to go for which type of hosting service. If the requirements are better security and a cost effective solution, then VPS Hosting is a perfect solution available to cater the needs.

Web Hosting Allows You to Store Your Website on Public Server

Web hosting is a common internet service, which allows you to store your website on public server by letting individuals or organizations to make their own website. Usually Web hosting consists of email services and domain name registration; it provides facilities like internet connectivity, and data centre space etcetera. Web hosting has a wide scope. There are two ways in which you can make your site visible to the world through web hosting. First is by using your own computer which will then act as a web server if it is connected to a network, second is by using internet service provider (ISP).

In case you want to use your pc for the purpose of web hosting you will need number of software and hardware and there are many other things you need to keep in mind, you might need to upgrade your internet connection. It will need you to keep your system on. So, if spending money on extra software and other inconveniences’ are not a problem for you then it’s fine to use your own computer for the purpose.

There are different kinds or level of hosting.
For small scale web hosting some internet service providers provide free hosting. Over here technical support and options are comparatively less. Thus it is not recommended for a large scale business or for any other huge organizational purpose. It is also known as free hosting. In short it doesn’t have a domain name, services provided and options available are less.

Then there  is shared hosting it has a domain name, reduced security, restricted services but still better than free hosting. It is not free but costs less.
Then there is one most expensive type hosting known as dedicated hosting, it provides unlimited software facility, it requires high skill.
Select your web host according to your requirement.