Picking a Host - Part 1
We have covered the history, but before we can get started on building the website(s) we need a place to host our website(s). The hosting industry really focuses on the beginner where you know next to nothing about what you truly need. You will likely see hundreds of hosts advertising unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, and well unlimited anything and everything. The main reason behind this is to focus on unlimited is well most consumers are stupid. If you see a limited and unlimited version both for the same price I suspect you will get the unlimited option.
There is actually a difference between the two and believe it or not, but in some cases you might be better off with that limited account. You can call me crazy, but first read through this page and my reasoning. Hopefully you will know enough to not fall into the classic "stupid" client category.
General Hosting Basics
Hosting companies are typically the same and share most of the same packages, features, and prices. The trick to picking a good hosting companies is to well understand a little about the hosting company and what they offer that is well different. There are a few different things you will want to look with different hosting companies:
- The Hardware (Equipment)
- The Data center (Connectivity, Redundancy, Location)
- Support Offerings (Ticket, E-Mail, Phone, Chat)
- Customer to Custom Forums
- Clearly stated policies (AUP, TOS, RUP, etc)
You may have different needs so some of these options many or may not exist. You aren't likely to see many shared hosts if any with a SLA for example, but this is common for dedicated hosting providers.
The Hardware
In general today's servers are very fast having several processors and lots of ram (memory). This site is running on a older server with only 4 processors and 4GB of ram, but with newer servers you will typically see 8 processors and 8GB of ram or more advertised. As long as you have a decent host this shouldn't be a problem as they will have quality servers to ensure your site loads fast and you don't leave them. A quality hosting company will typically have this information all over their site. If you don't see it you may want to look at another company.
There are other things to keep in mind with servers such as the Data center. You may have the fastest server in the world, but without a good Data center you will still have a slow website.
The Data center
Connectivity and Location
The most important part of hosting is the Data center. You can randomly pick a hosting company and you might get decent results, but if you want your site to load the fastest you need to do a little planning. There are Data center's throughout the world so you really need to ask yourself where are your clients (visitors)? This site has visitors throughout the world so for me I need a good central location for global coverage.
The Internet is powered by several key networks that form the backbone of the Internet. The image above shows one of these networks and each point is a location where you will typically find Data Centers. The hosting providers want to offer you the fastest service they can and to ensure this they want to get on the backbone networks as fast as they can. This website is located in a Texas server which is a central location and most hosting providers are located in the area, but there are other key points such as: Atlanta, Georgia, Las Vegas, New York, and San Diego. These locations function as central hubs that provide connections to other locations and typically have more backbone providers in their area such as trans-Atlantic .
You will find that most Data Centers will have four or more connections to backbone providers such as AT&T, Sprint, Level3, Savvis, Cox, and more. Again this is something that you aren't going to need to worry about with a quality hosting company as again they want your business and the want fast connections.
Redundancy
If you know anything about computers in general it's typically (hopefully) that they crash often. Servers are no different as they are also known to crash or fail so redundancy is very important with hosting. The Data centers typically have massive amounts of redundancy from different connection providers for Internet and power to on-site generators, battery backups, fire suppression systems, and even cooling!
If a server fails it typically affects hundreds of websites so it's important to know what your host is doing to ensure your sites stay online. This is typically found in the Data Center systems, but your will also find that hosts offer daily backups and 24/7/365 support to ensure if your server is down they have someone up and working to fix it.