The Basic Similarities of Windows and Linux

Little needs to be said about the competition that prevails between Windows and Linux in the global PC market. Despite the distinctions for which they are preferred by consumers, both of them exhibit many similarities regarding their structure, functions and user interacting modes. Many of these resemblances can be termed as superficial. Before going into the technicalities, a brief introduction about what they are is absolutely necessary.

Microsoft Windows, or more popularly the Windows, is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft to cater to the growing interest of the 80s in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The growth was rapid and does not need much explanation as the founders rank among the richest people on the planet.  Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market for its user-friendliness and comparative simplicity to existing operating environments. A strong competition arose with the development of Linux, a prominent example of free and open source software collaboration. The factor that made Linux a favorite was that the underlying source code may be used, modified, and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone. The threats of virus attacks do not arise in the case of this free software while the case is exactly the opposite with the patented Windows software.

To start off with the basic similarities, both operating systems come in many flavors (versions).  Both of them provide a GUI and a command line interface. Though the GUI concept is the same in both cases, it can vary in details from distribution to distribution. A text mode interface is used equally by the Windows and Linux known as a command interpreter and a shell respectively. Linux is cheap for home PCs but not for server uses. The other way happens for Windows.

From the comparisons, it is pretty obvious that the similarities between Windows and Linux are very basic or just superficial. Both display desirable features which are left to the customers to discern and choose.

Difference between Domain Registration and Web Hosting

The process of getting a website live on the internet is not very simple. First of all one has to decide the content of that website and how it would fit into the design finalized by the designing department. Then the developers and designers have to write the necessary code to implement the logics on the web browser. Once this website is completely developed one has to think in terms of how it would go live. The solution to this problem can also be found over the internet. One just needs to browse through the internet and search for a web hosting company.

These websites offer you attractive packages. They provide options to register your website depending upon whether it is a .com, .biz, .gov, .org or any other category of sites. But to host these websites it is essential that you have a specific internet protocol address. The name of your website will be registered. In other words no other person can design a website with the same name. This step in the implementation of a website is known as domain registration.  It fixes the domain name with which the site will be accessed all over the world.

The next step is to get an IP address. The company which has registered the name of our website may not necessarily provide us the IP address with which our domain name can be mapped. Thus it is our choice to go to some other web hosting company and request them to provide us an IP address. If a company gives a static IP address to our website then it completes the process of web hosting. Thus we can say that domain registration is followed by web hosting. Once our website is hosted it can be accessed from any part of the world.

Top Four Advantages of Windows Hosting Services

Windows hosting has various advantages which people nowadays understands all over the world. It is extremely within your means and functions just like your dedicated server. But in order to take all the advantages of Windows hosting services you must have a faultless, economical and a dependable host so that you can make the most of your investment.

As far as usage is concerned, Windows hosting services are user-friendly and easy to understand. If you are a layman when it comes to the experience of web designing and other related technicalities, than you are better off with Windows Hosting. Linux operating system is really more complex when it comes to system use and is only recommended for those with skills of a webmaster. Let us discuss the four most important benefits of Windows Hosting:

First, most up-to-date technology such as ASP.Net is handy and equipped for use on Windows system. For those who have developed their website using Microsoft. NET framework, the Windows Hosting servers involuntarily turns out to be the most excellent choice.

Second, for relational databases such as MSSQL server, the Windows hosting provides the simplicity of a GUI incorporated administration and control of relational database.

Third most important advantage of Windows Hosting is that MS-Access databases can work only on Windows operating system. If you are using MS-Access databases for your website then Windows Hosting server without any doubt is the only choice available for you.

Fourth, if you're using Exchange Server to manage your email interchange, SharePoint can significantly abridge distribution channel. For Microsoft SharePoint Services based website and web application, Windows Hosting become a must have.

Whether you are just starting out online or you are present since a long time, if you would like to build your online presence smoothly, go for Windows Hosting.

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.