Every website needs a place to live.
This includes big companies like Facebook, eBay, Amazon, etc. & even the Farbyte blog site you're visiting right now.
Websites need computer devices, referred to servers in the industry & their associated resources such as:
- Persistent storage (hard disk, SSD drives, etc.)
- Random Access Memory (RAM)
- Central Processing Unit (CPU)
- Internet Bandwidth
People & companies buy or lease the resources from a web hosting provider for one or more websites they want to be available on the internet.
Let's look at each of these in turn.
Persistent Storage
This is usually much slower than RAM with regards to read/write performance but has the advantage of being available between power cycles.
It is used to store your website files (e.g. HTML, CSS, PHP, etc.) for later retrieval when you or your website needs them.
Even between reboots of the webserver.
RAM
A website server uses RAM as a very fast storage area for working with data (reads/writes).
This can include loading HTML pages, programs, scripts, etc.
With web hosting this normally relates to caching of HTML, or processing of script files (e.g. PHP, ASP, Python, etc.) for sending to website users.
RAM is non-persistent when the power is cut to the server.
This means that whatever was in RAM disappears completely.
CPU
This is the device within the server that does all the processing & manipulation of data.
It's like the computer's brain, retrieving data from persistent storage into RAM, then working on that data with a program or programs (e.g. web server).
The speed of the CPU determines how fast it can work on any one piece of data at a single moment in time.
Internet Bandwidth
The connection to the worldwide network, known as the internet, or worldwide web can be measured in both speed & volume.
- Speed: how fast your data travels to & from the webserver.
- Volume: how much of that data you can consume in a given period (usually per month).
What Types Of Web Hosting Are There?
There are four main types of website hosting solutions at the moment.
They include:
- Dedicated
- Shared
- Virtual Private Server VPS
- Reseller
Dedicated Hosting
This is the most expensive kind of web hosting.
An entire server or group of servers are used by one single site of organisation.
It is the least efficient for small to medium businesses & most costly.
Shared Hosting
This is where a server or group of servers are shared between multiple users & organisations.
In addition, the resources of these servers are usually shared without guarantees to dedicated reservations.
However, some shared cloud web hosting providers like us at Farbyte, do provide guarantees on these resources.
Nowadays, there are multiple forms of shared hosting services:
- Legacy shared: services are located on one or more servers, dedicated to specific tasks, without automatic service recovery.
- Cloud shared: services are located amongst multiple servers, with the ability to move automatically to other servers.
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
Where physical server resources such as RAM, CPU & storage are divided between multiple users, usually with guaranteed access to specified amounts of those resources.
They usually include full remote administrative access to the virtual server & you can install whatever software you like.
Reseller Hosting
Clients lease the ability to host multiple user accounts on web providers hosting service with the intention of selling those accounts on for a profit.
As the client is effectively buying the hosting accounts in bulk, the provider gives a discount on the overall quantity, thus a profit can be achieved.
Reseller hosting accounts can usually create their own hosting plans, with their own specifications with regards to how much of each resource each plan receives.
Why Is Web Hosting So Important?
Nowadays, web hosting is important to just about any business.
A website is not a luxury, but something that all customers expect.
There are many web hosting providers & service types available.
The main criteria for choosing one is that they provide excellent:
- website availability
- performance
- support
Page loading times are looked on badly by search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
Having a website that loads for your clients as fast as possible is a must if you want to drive traffic from these search engines.
Fast loading times also lead to less client abandonment due to frustration with waiting for a website to load.
It's a mistake to consider all website hosting services to be created equally.
They are not.
Farbyte provides exceptional hosting with lightning-fast speed & availability thanks to our high availability/performance, enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure.
