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What type of Hosting do you need?
Solo operator
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If all you want from your Web site is
a place to post pictures of your cat or announce
your presence to the world, there are plenty of
low-cost options. Armed with some HTML skills and a
few Web tools, you can turn to a low-cost shared
host such as Aplus.Net. Utter newbies will do better
with an account at a site such as Yahoo GeoCities or
Homestead. Both hosts provide simple step-by-step
design tools and templates, as well as modest
amounts of storage, bandwidth, and e-mail addresses.
For example, Homestead's basic $6-per-month package
gives you a 10-page site with 25MB of storage and
5GB of bandwidth. If you want extras such as a
personalized domain name (for example,
www.yournameinlights.com) or phone support,
however, you'll have to pay extra. ISPs such as
EarthLink also provide simple 1-page sites for
subscribers, so check with your service provider.
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KEY FEATURES
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Easy sign-up, with a free
trial period: You can get your feet wet
without having to pay for a year's service
up front. |
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Design templates: Pick from a
range of different looks and styles without
having to sweat HTML code.
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Ability to add storage and
bandwidth as needs grow: Because you never
know what might happen.
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E-mail accounts included in
the base price: Allowing site visitors to
contact you. |
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File transfer protocol (FTP)
server for uploading files: This is faster
and easier than uploading files using
standard Web protocols. |
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Expanded support and unique
domains for added cost: You can start out
small, then decide later if you want to pay
more to have your own domain (for example,
www.me-online.com) and get real-time
support to keep it up and running.
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Small business
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If you run a small business, you need
to hang your shingle on the Web. But don't let
running the site turn into a full-time job. While
thousands of small businesses use services such as
GeoCities or Homestead, a shared host is generally a
better bet. You'll be able to give your site a more
customized look, though you'll have to design it
yourself or pay extra to have a host do it for you,
and you'll have more room to grow as site traffic
increases or you add employees and e-mail accounts.
Prices are extremely competitive; you can get a
fully functional site for less than $20 per month.
But you'll also be sharing one machine with
potentially hundreds of other sites, so if sites on
your shared server get hacked or blocked for
spamming, your site could be shut down for a time.
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KEY FEATURES
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Unlimited e-mail and
bandwidth: Should your Web site find a rabid
audience, your readers/customers will find
themselves locked out if you exceed your
bandwidth allotment. |
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Personalized domain names:
Having your own domain (www.yourowndomain.com)
marks you as a serious business and one
that's more likely to stick around.
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Multiple static IP addresses:
Static IPs are essential for any hosting
environment (otherwise, people won't be able
to find your site again); odds are you'll
need several static IPs for Web servers,
e-mail servers, databases, and the like.
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E-mail and Web marketing
tools: Want customers to find you in search
engines or keep in touch with clients? Some
hosts offer tools that let you do both.
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Web-based site administration
tools: They make it easier to manage your
site remotely from any browser.
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Site design services:
Templates are too limited at this level, and
your expertise may not be in Web design.
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24/7 phone support: If your
site goes down, even at 3 a.m., you lose
face and may lose money, too; you want
support to be there at anytime, day or
night. |
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Online store
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It's one thing to advertise your
wares on the Net and quite another to sell them. If
you want to conduct transactions and collect money,
your needs go up. Here, the kind of hosting package
you pick depends highly on whether you're selling 20
items or 2,000 and whether you expect 10 customers
or 10,000. A low-volume shop could get away with a
Yahoo storefront that accepts PayPal payments, but
serious stores will want a host that offers a full
e-commerce package with all the trimmings: a
shopping cart; security certificates; an online
catalog tool; payment gateways for accepting credit
cards; and ways to drive traffic to your shop, such
as advertisements, search engine placement, e-mail
newsletters, and so on. You'll also want a host that
can integrate these tools with your back-office
accounting and inventory-management apps. And you'll
want rock-solid security and uptime guarantees; if
your store is hacked or goes down, you lose money.
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KEY FEATURES
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A full suite of e-commerce
tools: A shopping cart, a catalog design
template, security certificates, payment
gateways, interstate tax and shipping
calculators. |
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Web advertising and marketing
services: Advertisements, search engine
placement, and e-mail newsletters. |
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Support for online customer
contact: Chat windows that provide live
assistance for shopping and customer service
issues. |
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Server redundancy and regular
backup: You'll want your product lists to be
regularly updated (hourly, if you have a
busy or complex shop), and you'll need
multiple copies in different locations. That
way if there's, say, a major power failure
in the Northeast, other shoppers can get to
your servers in the Southwest.
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24/7 phone support. |
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Medium-size business
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With a midsize business, a robust Web
site is de rigueur. But the kind of hosting
resources you need depends more on what you want the
site to do than the size of your company. A large
informational, or brochureware, site that
doesn't change often has lower bandwidth and storage
needs than a smaller site that conducts
transactions, creates dynamic Web pages, or delivers
streaming-media files. For online brochures, a
moderately priced, shared-hosting account may be
more than adequate. Heavily interactive sites, such
as those that serve up audio and video files or
those that need to run their own apps, might opt for
a virtual private server, a shared host that
splits one machine between a handful of customers,
or a dedicated server that's theirs alone. Again,
the staples here are security and reliability--the
host must provide uptime guarantees, built-in
redundancy, and superior tech support.
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KEY FEATURES
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Ability to scale bandwidth
and storage to match your business. |
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Robust security: Having your
site hacked or taken down by a worm can be a
nightmare for any business, so ask about the
host's firewall, antivirus, intruder
detection, and other security services.
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Offsite data storage and
backup: This way, if a server goes down or
the security isn't quite as robust as
claimed, you'll be inconvenienced, but you
won't go out of business.
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Service-level agreements with
uptime guarantees: At this level, you'll
want an SLA (service loan agreement) that
spells out the uptime that the host will
guarantee, as well as how the host will
compensate you if that agreement isn't met.
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24/7 phone support. |
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Big enterprise
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Large organizations are complex
enterprises, so it's no surprise their hosting needs
can be complicated as well. Traffic and e-mail
volume alone may dictate the need for a dedicated
hosting solution. In fact, most big enterprises will
engage several servers--some for delivering Web
pages, others for handling e-mail and database
calls. The question for many is what kind of
dedicated service. Businesses with large IT staffs
that need more control over their Web sites
generally opt for unmanaged or
self-managed dedicated servers, where the
hosting company provides the hardware but it's up to
the customer to load apps and keep the site running.
Firms that want to outsource their entire Web
operation can go for a managed dedicated host; these
are pricier, but they may also offer site
development and design services. Companies that have
their own hardware and staff but need a place to put
them can seek out a colocation provider, which will
rent them rack space in a secure, bandwidth-rich
facility.
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KEY FEATURES
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Massive bandwidth, storage,
and e-mail. |
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State-of-the-art virus
protection, a firewall, and intrusion
detection. |
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Redundant servers, bandwidth,
battery backup, and onsite generators
because if your host loses its electricity,
you're hosed. |
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Offsite data storage and
backup. |
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Service-level agreements with
100 percent uptime guarantees. |
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Secure facilities: Besides
network security, you also want to make sure
the company controls the personnel who can
access your machines on the inside. This may
include biometric scanners on the doors of
the server cages, if necessary.
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Top-shelf Level 1, 2, and 3
support available 24/7 so that even your
most difficult problems get solved by the
same company that you're paying to host your
site. |
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