Sunday, April 3, 2011

Virtual Hosts Versus Shared Website Hosting

By Susie Strickland


Due to the many hosting option in the market, you may wonder what you should take up when preparing to launch your first website. For those who are not too technical, this could pose a big challenge. Managed dedicated server hosting, virtual hosting, shared hosting are some of the options that will be open to you. You should only go for a managed dedicated server when you expect that the website you are launching will have huge traffic volumes and is quite big. It will be huge waste of resources to tae up that option. There is a lot of capital and technical investment required if you decide to take up own hosting. Your real choice is between virtual and shared hosting.

Shared hosting has a server and its resources shared by several hosted clients. It is the most cost effective of business hosting options available in the market today. It is best suited for those looking to host a very basic website that does not require much in terms of resources. Getting a host who can give a guarantee on your website storage space, speed, security and back up is very important. Since you are sharing the server resources it is very easy to have your website compromised as a result of issues from other website on the same server. Fair resource distribution and monitoring to minimize risk are some of the operations that a good host service provider will offer.

Virtual hosting is the closest alternative to managed dedicated server hosting. Lower capacity and lower pricing are the main difference when compared to dedicated servers. This is the best business web hosting option that offers more than basic services. Virtual hosting will involve sharing of hardware but the computer is configured in a way that allocates a portion of resources exclusively to your website. Speed and storage space are guaranteed here since allocation is exclusive to your website. Constant capacity is one of the main advantages this option has over shared hosting. Security is another area where you will not have concerns beyond your own website.

Unlike shared hosting where security is a shared concern, in virtual hosting you will only need to take care of your website. If another website on the machine is compromised there is very little chance of your website coming under attack. Root access to your server is another big plus for virtual hosting as this gives you greater control of your website.

When compared to shared hosting, virtual hosting clearly has more benefits. There are situations however where your business web hosting may not require much. In such a situation you can go for shared hosting as long as it is with a reputable provider. With growth you can later move to virtual hosting and when your business demands greater capacity and over you could then move on to a managed dedicated server host.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment