What are the different forms of hosting?
Depending on the function, the web hosting service may be:
File Hosting - this form of web hosting permits the users to keep their files on a given hosting server. With the standard file storage hosting solution, the files that are kept may only be accessed by the client that's utilizing the service. This hosting service mainly entails backups of PCs , documents, personal files and even other hosting servers. This service may also involve certain limitations in relation to the server space and the root access. There may also be traffic limitations, but that depends on the given provider.
Warez Web Hosting - the so-called warez hosting solution is resembling the previous web hosting service form. In spite of that, unlike the file hosting service, the warez web hosting service is used for transmitting proprietary content without being given the okay to do so by the licence bearer. To put it briefly - it is associated with the prohibited dissemination of files and materials. There are many approaches for this to be performed, but the two chief ways are - via simple Hypertext Transfer Protocol downloading and via peer-to-peer connections. The first method entails either a specific site, or, most often, simply a directory on a server that's been made available for everybody to access it and thus download proprietary materials for free. The second way entails a P2P connection, utilizing the so-called Torrent web servers, through which people exchange files between each other. There are not many webspace hosting companies that permit such type of hosting on their web hosting servers, mostly owing to all the legal problems that it entails. Commonly such web sites are hosted on personal dedicated servers that are registered by third-party firms either in the Middle East or in Asia.
Mail Web Hosting - this service is applicable with both shared web hosting and dedicated hosting, based on the user's intention. If you want to establish your very own private SMTP mail server, then you will require either a virtual web server or a dedicated web server that offers the level of access needed to carry out such an assignment. For typical email hosting purposes, though, you can create a simple shared web site hosting account, to which you can point the mail exchanger records of your domain name. This is not a solution that's very used, because the web page hosting and the email hosting services are being served by two separate servers, often belonging to separate hosts.
Web Page Hosting - the most popular and largely utilized hosting service nowadays. It's used for hosting site files, whose kind is dependent on the Operating System the web server is running - Linux or Windows. Different kinds of files request different hosting server Operating Systems, or else they won't be displayed correctly on the World Wide Web. This sort of hosting may contain data space and web traffic quota limits, root-level access and CPU usage limitations.
Depending on the purpose and on the usage, the customer should select the type of web hosting server that he requires for his work, and, of course, the website hosting provider that's going to provide it. There are several types of web hosting servers, depending on the configuration and the hosting solutions that they provide. These are:
Shared Hosting Servers - a shared web space hosting server supplies a smaller quantity of system resources, which, of course, is manifested in the cost of the service. It can be utilized for hosting small scale and medium scale web portals, which do not need enormous quantities of disk space and bandwidth.
Semi-dedicated Hosting - they work on the same principle as the shared web page hosting servers. Yet, there are much less customers hosted on the same hosting server. Therefore, each of them will have a bigger share of the web hosting server's resources like RAM, web storage space, web traffic and CPU. Excellent for hosting big web portals that do not need complete root access.
Virtual Private Servers - the VPS web servers are excellent for medium sized sites, which do need root-level access to the web hosting server's config files. Commonly, there are a number of VPS web server accounts sharing the same machine. In spite of that, each of them is autonomous from the rest and runs its own OS.
Dedicated Servers - a completely dedicated web hosting server configured and accessed by you and solely you. It ensures a tremendous quantity of system resources. It also includes full root access, which renders it an excellent solution for any sort of web page that needs a web hosting service.
The only question that remains is:
Which webspace hosting company should I choose?
As already mentioned, there are not many hosting companies offering warez hosting services because of judicial predicaments. Such companies are being closed down practically every month. For that reason, if you wish to start such a service, you should do it on your own PC. The shared web site hosting solution is the most popular kind of web hosting service. So, each web space hosting vendor offers it. Not all of them, however, offer services such as virtual private web hosting servers, semi-dedicated servers and dedicated servers. Most of the small scale hosting providers do not have the means needed for offering those services. Therefore it's always best to go with a bigger hosting company that can provide its customers with all the solutions that they want. You can quickly recognize such web hosts by the kinds of services that they are providing and by the way that they present them to the clientele. For instance, some providers allow you to commence with a small sized site hosting plan and afterwards shift to a more advanced one, if you deem it compulsory to do so. This is quite convenient, since you do not have to transfer websites between web servers and there is no danger of experiencing network downtime because of all the complications that may crop up. Providers such as 'Lonex.com' offer all sorts of solutions and possess the needed web server resources and personnel to ensure that their clients will not run into any problems when changing services, which is what a top web hosting provider is actually all about.