Business Web Hosting Solutions

By Tem Balanco

A web hosting service is a kind of Internet hosting service which lets people and organizations provide their own sites. It's a business web hosting which they own for use by clients as well as giving Internet connectivity, usually in a data center. In business web hosting, the most fundamental kind is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files may be uploaded by way of file transfer protocol or web interface.

The host may also provide an interface for managing the web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services business web hosting. They are commonly used by larger companies to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company. To find a web hosting company, search able directories can be used. One must be extremely careful when searching for a new company because many of the people promoting service providers are actually affiliates and the reviews are biased.

Hosting services are restricted to the web such as free web hosting service - sometimes it's supported by ads and is usually limited when one compares it to paid hosting. Share web hosting service - all domains might share a common pool of server resources such as CPU and RAM.

Managed hosting service- When the user signs up, they will be given their own web server but will not be in full control of it. This will prevent the user to make significant changes or problems with the server. The user will be "renting" the server per say, rather than owning it.

For high-availability hosting that is dedicated or for a scalable web hosting solution look to Clustered Servers. Clustered Servers is your solution thanks to grid hosting. This form of distributed hosting has a server cluster that is made up of multiple nodes like a grid. A single machine can host one or more web sites via a consumer-grade broadband connection.

In order to introduce their services, most hosting companies start by offering free services. They make money on this by selling online advertising on the customer's sites. This makes sense even on high traffic sites because though they are expensive to host, the additional advertising revenue makes up the difference.

It can be a good trade for the web master, if an advertising is of good quality and non-competitive. That's why businesses do not use free hosting for their web site and use this method. The business web hosting is the way to attracts lots of visitors, then sells the hosting company to someone else once it can no longer support itself.

Business web hosting allows individuals and organizations to have their own web site. This website can be used for the client of the business, as well as providing Internet connectivity, (most likely through a data center). The most basic web hosting for business includes a web page and a small scale file. Here, the businesses files can be uploaded with file transfer protocols or a web interface. The interface for managing the web server and installing the scripts you require, no to mention other services to manage like e-mail, may also be provided by the host. A host may specialize in certain types of software or services.

Tips For Finding the Right Web Host

By Steve L Wilson

If you are searching for a company to host your personal or business website, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the web hosting horror stories we heard over the years. I am continually amazed at the stories I hear and the number of people who have had to deal with bad web hosts. Most of the stories we hear are about lousy customer support or poor server performance.

One story that stands out in particular is about a web host that closed up shop with out notifying any of their customers. The next day thousands of customers discovered that all of their sites were off-line. The result was catastrophic to many and cost these customers thousands of dollars in lost sales. For many, it took almost a week before they were able to get all their sites back online. If you are tired of web hosting companies with poor support, large amounts of downtime or even a host that has no respect for you as a client then this article is for you.

When considering any web hosting company, the first thing you should look at is where you want your online business to be in the future. Look at things like, how much traffic do you expect? How many sites do you plan to build? What type of server software will you be using? Do you require a dedicated IP address? Once you have established your needs you can begin looking at web hosting companies. If plan to have more than one site or are planning to move a number of sites from one host to another. You may want to consider a web hosting plan that allows your have multiple add-on domains. Alternatively you may want to consider a dedicated server or VPS server.

Selecting the Hosting that is right for you!

Shared web hosting is the most commonly used web hosting service. Shared web hosting permits more than one site to be hosted on the same server. Shared Web hosting is a type of Web hosting service, wherein numerous websites are placed in one component of server which is linked to internet. Every individual website has its own place, section or partition in the server that separates it from other websitesIf you are planning to host a large ecommerce website, blog or forum, a dedicated server may be the solution for you. Dedicated Hosting has a number of advantages to it. First and foremost with a dedicated server you are the only customer on the server. A dedicated server gives you 24x7 control and guaranteed uptime. Normally they are housed in large data centers, where the service providers can monitor them close-up and have hands-on access to them. When purchasing dedicated hosting the customer has the ability to select the software they want installed on the server. Depending on the overall usage of the server, this will include your choice of operating system, database, and specific applications.

Research Web Hosts

Once you have put together a short list of potential web hosts, you may want to consider visiting a site like Top Web Hosts that allows customers to post reviews of their web hosting companies. Top Web Hosts allows customers to rated their web hosting provider ratings based on performance, value, and support with a simple click of the submit button. You will be able to compare information about your selected web hosting providers based on the opinions of actual customers.

Steve Wilson is a staff writer for Top Web Hosts, A site which provides customer reviews of leading web hosting companies. Compare web hosts or submit a review by visiting http://www.topwebhosts.us

What You Should Know About Choosing a Web Host

By Phillip Fogliani

Choosing a good web host can be the first step to running a successful web site. It is much better to pick the right host in the beginning so that you will not have to look for another web host later. Whether you are considering a change or are looking for hosting for a new site, here are some points to keep in mind.

If you are or will be hosting a commercial site, then you should not be as concerned with the price as someone with a personal site would be. That is not to say that lower priced hosting accounts are not as good as higher priced accounts, but you may receive fewer features than you would with a hosting account that costs more. Be on the lookout for web hosting companies that are new. It may be better to go with a company that has been around awhile and has a proven track record. You should thoroughly research hosting companies and their accounts before making your decision. You do not want bad service or have to change companies soon thereafter.

It may be more beneficial to look for a single company that can provide you with a complete Internet Package, such as web development, web design, web site updates, hosting, and internet access for your employees. When you deal with one company instead of several different companies for your Internet needs, it will likely be a smoother ride if something goes wrong. You are also less likely to have the misunderstandings and confusions that you may have when dealing with different companies for your different needs.

If you need a lot of work done, and you expect to spend a lot on your web site with e-commerce and other advanced solutions, you may want to go with just one company to avoid problems. If your web site does not require much, you can save a lot of money by hosting with a reputable company like HostGator.

I have hosted my 60 websites with Hostgator for over four years. I have tried other companies but I quickly realized that there is no place like Hostgator for excellent service, uptime, and pricing. If you are interested, here is a link to a for one cent hosting for a month at HostGator.

How Do You Choose a Web Hosting Service

By Chang Seward

Before choosing a web hosting service it is advisable to design your web site and try its performance using browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla/ Firefox, Opera etc. Your browser will display the web page so you can determine how it works. By testing the web site offline will ensure that all related bugs are rectified. Now that you have completed your web design all files connected with your design will be available on your computer. The next task is to get these files on to the Internet. To facilitate this you require a company in whose servers you can upload your web pages. You also require a domain name so that you can access your web site using this domain name. These are not difficult; a large number of providers are available with a variety of plans. Before you select a company you should identify what you require from this service. Factors that require consideration is bandwidth, server storage space, e-mail boxes, operating system, speed and performance requirement, scalability and manageability. Some of these issues are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Bandwidth

The term digital bandwidth or bandwidth used in computer networking refers to the capacity for a given system to transfer data over a connection. Unit of measurement for this is a bit rate expressed in bits/sec or kb/sec or Mb/sec. On the other hand, the term "bandwidth" is often used to describe the amount of data transferred to or from the web site or server within a prescribed period of time. This is nothing but web site traffic or data transfer in a specified period. Normally hosting companies often quote a monthly bandwidth limit for a website, for example 500 gigabytes per month. If the total amount of data downloaded from the website in a particular month reaches this limit, the servers may be set to shut off further public access to the site. To give an idea, a MP3 song is about 4 MB whereas a movie could be as high as 900 MB.

It is possible to estimate the bandwidth requirement taking into account the bytes required for each of your web page including photographs, average number of people who are likely to visit your website everyday etc. Persons visiting your web site and clicking on that page will be using that many bytes. You should also provide certain extra traffic that can come to your site. You should constantly monitor the bandwidth consumed; in case the consumption exceeds your purchased bandwidth you should increase your bandwidth with your web hosting service provider. Normally most of the companies allow this increase without much of a problem; however they might not be happy to reduce the bandwidth.

E-Mail Boxes

This depends on the number of persons for whom you would like to give an exclusive email box at your web site using your domain name. For example, suppose your domain is www.widgetsunlimited.com and you have e-mail address joeschmoo@widgetsunlimited.com you can count this as one e-mail box for your site. It is advisable to have a general e-mail box to allow for expansion.

Server Storage Space

This is the space your page will take up on the web server. This can be estimated by listing all the items that will go onto the webpage including pictures. Addition of the bytes of all pages will give you the amount of space you need which is a minimum for your website hosting. You should not buy exact requirement of space; you may add, delete and modify your website and all of these will change space required for storage. You should ensure flexibility in storage space by providing extra space in your plan to account for additions, changes and upgrades. You will find that you will be in a mess if you do not provide for expansion. If you're going to host only home pages for your typical Web surfer, you won't need a lot of room to store data. But if you're going to host an e-commerce site that takes in thousands of orders daily, the server hosting the site will need room to store the database of user information and transactions.

Other factors that require consideration are operating system, speed and performance requirement, scalability and manageability. You should consider all these aspects and evaluate web hosting services and decide on a good plan for you.

If you found this article interesting and helpful please visit webhosts101.com for additional information and articles for webmasters to help them design and host their web sites.

Why Windows SharePoint Services?

By Adrian Gates

SharePoint is the latest in collaboration technology, which improves the productivity and efficiency. SharePoint integrates well with MS Exchange and other Microsoft business applications and tools.

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services helps your team share and manage information and documents in a Web site. Most of us know the benefit of hosting a website with a hosting company. Some of us also know the power of hosted Exchange and how it has drastically changed our day-to-day communication and the way we interact with our business associates. SharePoint adds a new dimension to this revolutionary way of communication; collaboration and interaction.

It includes tools for document management, calendaring, and workflow.

Key Features:

Improve Productivity: Use the simple collaborative tools of SharePoint and help your users connect and exchange information/resources they need.

Integration: Most of the Microsoft Office System programs and integrated. This integration makes it easier for your users to use the system quickly.

File Sharing: You can use advanced features of SharePoint Services for storage and retrieval of documents. Use the "Check In/Check Out" facility while making changes to the file that is stored centrally and accessed by all users. Revert to previous version of the document.

Scalability: You can manage/configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 from a web browser or command line utilities. You don't need to install any huge and complicated application on your desktop to connect and configure SharePoint Services 3.0. Manage your servers and sites using rich features of Microsoft .NET framework.

Manage Documents: You can manage the documents more effectively. You can control user level access for documents- you can define which documents can be access by which user. Users can access one version of the file and make changes. You have the ability to view the revisions and restore it to previous versions.

Use template based solutions: Use application templates for customization.

Secure your business information: SharePoint provides advanced business controls. Using these advanced controls you can secure your information. It allows you to set permissions even down to the document or item level.

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent (http://www.apps4rent.com/sharepoint.html); which offers premium hosted Exchange, Microsoft sharepoint services, SharePoint 2007 web hosting and other application hosting services

Why Hosted Exchange?

By Adrian Gates

Hosted Exchange gives you all of the benefits of an Enterprise level messaging solution for your small or large business with lower costs and complexity.

Exchange Hosting Features: Hosted Exchange, Managed Exchange- Hosted Exchange Overview; Exchange 2007 Features and Benefits; Outlook Web Access; Mobile Messaging.

Hosted Exchange gives you the freedom to work. Location, time zone are no longer barriers. An increase in productivity follows.

Key Features:

• Your data is available online and is secure. This removes the risk of losing important e-mail stored on your local drives.

• Create mailboxes just by few clicks: The administrator can create an e-mail box just by few clicks. Assigning distribution groups is very simple.

• Unified messaging.

• Follow tasks and manage team projects.

• Collaboration tools.

• Manage tasks on the go from anywhere.

• Access your private and shared calendars.

• Access e-mails/tasks/calendar anytime: Since you e-mails/tasks/calendar is stored at a centralized location, you can access them from anywhere.

• Wireless Synchronization: You can read and reply to an e-mail schedule appointments and meeting from your wireless device and the changes gets synchronized with the central server. This way you can make changes from your wireless device and continue to track it from your desktop when you are back in the office.

• You can track availability of meeting rooms and participants schedule with Smart Scheduling.

• Backups ensure that you don't loose your e-mails. We have a 14 day back policy. This will ensure that you never loose any of your important e-mails.

• 24/7 support by Experienced Microsoft Certified Professionals: We have experience certified Microsoft Certified Professionals who are on standby to assist you, should you need any assistance.

• Outlook Web Access: This is a web based version of Outlook 2007 that coupled with Exchange; gets you the best of both the worlds - easy navigation and enterprise level communication engine.

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent (http://www.apps4rent.com/why-hostedexchange.html); which offers exchange 2007 outsource, managed hosted exchange, hosted exchange cost, exchange hosting plan and other application hosting services

What is Microsoft Exchange Server 2007? Apps4Rent

By Adrian Gates

Exchange Server 2007 was released in late 2006 to business customers as part of Microsoft's roll-out wave of new products. It includes new clustering options, 64-bit support for greater scalability, voice mail integration, better search and support for Web services, better filtering options, and a new Outlook Web Access interface. Exchange 2007 also dropped support for Exchange 5.50 migrations, routing groups, admin groups, Outlook Mobile Access, X.400, and some API interfaces, amongst other features.

Exchange Server 2007 (v8 or with SP1 v8.1) runs on 64-bit x86-64 versions of Windows Server only. This requirement applies to supported production environments only; a 32-bit trial version is available for download and testing. However, companies currently running Exchange Server on 32-bit hardware will be required to replace or migrate hardware if they wish to upgrade to the new version. Companies that are currently running Exchange Server on 64-bit capable hardware are still required to migrate from their existing Exchange 2000/2003 servers to a new 2007 server since in-place upgrades are not supported in 2007.

The first beta of Exchange Server 2007 (then named "Exchange 12" or E12) was released in December 2005 to a very limited number of beta testers. A wider beta was made available via TechNet Plus and MSDN subscriptions in March 2006 according to the Microsoft Exchange team blog On April 25, 2006, Microsoft announced that the next version of Exchange Server would be called Exchange Server 2007.

Exchange Server 2007 is an integrated part of the Innovative Communications Alliance products.

At Exchange 2007 release, the server roles will be:

- Mailbox (MB): The Mailbox server role is responsible for hosting mailbox and public folder data. This role also provides MAPI access for Outlook clients. Note that there is also a variation of this role called Clustered Mailbox role, for use with high-availability MSCS clustering of mailbox data. When Clustered Mailbox role is selected, other server roles cannot be combined on the same physical server.

- Client Access (CA): The Client Access server role provides the other mailbox server protocol access apart from MAPI. Similar to Exchange 2003 FrontEnd server, it enables user to use an Internet browser (OWA), 3rd party mail client (POP3/IMAP4) and mobile device (ActiveSync) to access their mailbox.

- Unified Message (UM): This role enables end users to access their mailbox, address book, and calendar using telephone and voice. IP-PBX or VoIP gateway needs to be installed and configured to facilitate much of the functionality of this server role.

- Hub Transport (HT): The Hub Transport role handles mails by routing them to next hop: another Hub Transport server, Edge server or mailbox server. Unlike Exchange 2003 Bridgehead that needs Exchange admin defined routing groups, Exchange 2007 Hub Transport role uses AD site info to determine the mail flow.

- Edge Transport (ET): The last hop of outgoing mail and first hop of incoming mail, acting as a "smart host" and usually deployed in a perimeter network, Edge Transport provides mail quarantine and SMTP service to enhance security. One advantage of this role is that is does not require Active Directory access, so it can function with limited access to the corporate network for increased security.

Server Role Tasks and UI

Server configuration for both Cmdlet and GUI is organized around the server role concept. To check what roles are installed on the server, you can use task: Get-ExchangeServer and check properties: IsMailboxServer, IsClientAccessServer, IsHubTransportServer and IsUnifiedMessagingServer. For each role, Exchange 2007 provides dedicate tasks to manage properties specific to each server role:

- Get/Set-MailboxServer

- Get/Set-ClientAccessServer

- Get/Set-TransportServer

- Get/Set-UmServer

Note that Get/Set-TransportServer is used by both Transport server roles (Hub Transport and Edge Transport). Please refer to help for more detailed info regarding these tasks.

In Exchange 2007 management console under Server Configuration, each server role has a dedicated node with the role name. Servers with the selected role installed will be listed in the results pane for each server role node. A single server will appear in multiple results panes if multiple server roles are installed on that server. This design gives user a clear view on what servers are available for each specific server role.

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent (http://www.apps4rent.com/outsourced-exchange-hosting.html); which offers exchange 2007 outsource, managed hosted exchange, hosted exchange cost, exchange hosting plan and other application hosting services.