Archive for bandwidth
Shared Hosting – How Much Can You Afford to Share?
Posted by: | CommentsYour website is the focal point of your online business, as it represents your online identity and reputation on a continual basis. The performance, appearance and presence of your site directly affect the way your visitors perceive the professionalism of your online business. Every site operates on a web server, and this server ultimately dictates the full functionality and performance limitations of every web page on the site. Every time a page is loaded a small burden is placed on the web server, and if the load is too heavy the site performance begins to suffer, in the form of slow page loads, and even site down time. The likelihood of this decreased site performance occurring depends entirely upon the kind of web server being used, as some are more powerful than others. Shared web servers are perhaps the least beneficial, simply because all of the server resources are shared amongst various sites simultaneously.
How Much Is Shared?
Fortunately, sensitive site information (such as financial data) is not shared between unrelated sites in a shared hosting plan. However all of the server resources, such as bandwidth, data transfer, and even storage space are shared with other users that are renting a hosting plan with your web host. Your site’s IP address is also shared with these users as well, which means that their actions may reflect on both the legal credibility and search engine ranking of your site. Since you are sharing all of these attributes with sites that are not under your control, it is possible that unforeseen circumstances could arise, such as being de-indexed from search engines, or even having your site taken offline temporarily.
How Much Can You Save?
The main reason why anyone would purchase a shared hosting plan would be to save money. However, when you factor in the issues that could result from sharing all of your server resources with dozens of other sites, it becomes clear that you may not be saving anything at all. In fact, the percentage of people that will eventually upgrade from a shared hosting plan is rather high. Therefore if you’re inevitably going to upgrade in the future, then there may be little sense in paying for a plan which will soon be obsolete. The truth is you can save a lot of time and money by starting with a plan that is right for you.
When Would Shared Hosting Be Optimal?
If you are operating a personal blog, or a .info domain that is not of high importance to you, then a shared hosting plan could accommodate your needs. Shared hosting is only recommended for individuals, and is not an ideal solution for the online business owner. If you are currently using a shared hosting account for your online business, you may want to consider switching to a VPS or Dedicated hosting account instead. Dedicated and VPS hosting plans offer flexibility, privacy and capabilities that cannot be found in any shared hosting service.
Critical Dedicated Web Hosting Factors for Arcade Sites
Posted by: | CommentsOnline games are increasing in popularity every year, with more people signing up for flash gaming sites and playing games in all genres. The gaming niche is an excellent source of traffic, because there are so many different sources of traffic due to the wide variety of game types. Almost everyone enjoys playing games fr time to time, which means there is a constant demand for fun games online. Fortunately, you do not have to be a game creator or programmer in order to have hundreds of games on your web sites for your visitors to enjoy. You can find many flash games that can be uploaded to your site online, and the process is usually very simple. However, you will need adequate server resources, which is where dedicated hosting comes into play.
Having Adequate Server Resources for a Gaming Site
Dedicated web hosting is perfect for any site that needs to host a lot of multimedia content such as videos, pictures and games. In order to keep your site operating smoothly you need access to comprehensive server resources such as adequate bandwidth and disk space. Disk space is especially important if you are going to be hosting many games on the site at once. Bandwidth is important because it directly affects how many visitors can play the games at once without the game skipping and poor performance occurring. After all, no one wants to play a game that is constantly skipping, especially a flash game, which is noted for being easy loading and simple to play.
Adding Flash Games to A Website with Dedicated Hosting
Adding flash games to your web site is rather easy when you have a dedicated server, especially considering the comprehensive support included with fully managed dedicated hosting. If you have a lot of games to upload at once then you may want to consider using an FTP client to connect to your dedicated server and upload the content to your site. Once the games have been uploaded to the server you can embed them on your web pages by using a flash embed code to link to the internal location of the game on your server. If you have trouble carrying out this procedure you can contact the qualified support staff of your web hosting provider.
Accommodating Traffic Surges with Dedicated Hosting
One of the most attractive aspects of dedicated hosting is the almost endless amount of bandwidth that is allocated to your web sites. Since the server is only being used by your web sites you do not have to worry about other site and webmasters preventing your site form performing optimally. Thus, you can drive a seemingly unlimited amount of traffic to your site on a daily basis. The greatest aspect of flash game websites is the residual traffic they generate. Once an individual plays your games they will likely return to play them again in the near future. With a dedicated server you can ensure that their experience with your site will be just as enjoyable as it was before.
Managed Web Hosting For Novice Users
Posted by: | CommentsEstablishing your first website can be a difficult process, as there are many steps involved that novice users are unfamiliar with. Minimize the many things you have to learn initially will help you get started by removing a lot of the stress that is associated with trying any new endeavor. The faster you get started, the sooner you start learning the process of building and maintaining your website. The last thing you want to do is overload yourself with new information in a short amount of time.
Learning the online business world one step at a time is the best way to establish your web presence in a professional manner one step at a time. This means you’ll need to choose services that are specifically designed for novice users. The first service you’ll need t consider is a web hosting service. The easiest web hosting service to manage, is on that does not need any managing at all – managed web hosting.
Managed Web Hosting- Automated Maintenance
Even with all of the control panels, content management systems, and web applications available to help simplify site and server management, it can still be an overwhelming process of a new user that is completely inexperienced. Removing all sharp learning curves in the beginning is the best way to familiarize yourself with the web hosting industry and the art of server and site management. While users will have limited access to server functionality, and therefore less overall features and performance, they will also have less responsibility, and therefore less room for error.
Managed Hosting Security
Since the servers are being managed and administrated by professionals at all times, you can be assured that your website’s data is safe form all intruders and virus. You can also be sure that no down time will occur due to novice user errors and other unnecessary mishaps. The hosting management team will also make sure the servers are updated with the proper anti-virus and security software at all times. With the worry of security and server reliability gone, you’ll be able to enjoy better performance, increased security, and optimal site functionality without focusing on anything but the future of your new online business.
Managed Web Hosting Price
Although the price of managed web hosting is higher than that of shared web hosting, the features and support you’ll be receiving within the package make the added cost worth it to most users, especially those with limited experience in internet technology. The added cost brings you added bandwidth, server space, security, reliability and overall performance, which are all crucial towards your site’s development as a substantial online presence. Managed web hosting includes 24 hour support for all customers, which is another reason for novice website owners to use the service. Your first web hosting experience should be about one thing only – learning.
What is 95th Percentile Monitoring?
Posted by: | Comments95th percentile monitoring is a collocation technical term that relates to bandwidth. This method of monitoring logs 30 days worth of traffic samples every 5 minutes. This log is then sorted in descending order, placing the largest traffic spikes at the top of the list. These top 5% traffic spikes are thrown out.
This remaining top value, within the 95th percentile, is the bandwidth usage for the month. Colocation hosting providers often use this method to bill their corporate customers. Most collocation hosting companies feel this is the most fair and effective method for conducting business with corporate clients.
This method of billing is only really seen in peering arrangements between corporate networks. Since internet service providers need consistent data rates for planning, this method is far from appealing to them. Most sites generate the bulk of their traffic on Mondays. Therefore, Monday practically determines the billable rate for the entire month.
The primary advantage is the user can accumulate up to 36 hours of peak traffic that will be ignored on that month’s bill, regardless of the height of the spikes. Unfortunately this bill method attracts a few criticisms.
For instance:
- Potential to pay for unused bandwidth
- Inbound and outbound traffic calculated separately
Although the primary advantage is attractive, it works both ways. Users can potentially pay for unused bandwidth. For example, if a website only uses 2Mbps for 5% of the time and nothing more, the client would be billed as if they had utilized 2Mbps for the entire month. If this were the case, the cost could be driven down by sending data reducing the bandwidth to the 95th percentile thus knocking the 5% off.
Another criticism is the split calculation of inbound and outbound traffic. Since these are calculated separately, the highest value is used for billing and not the total sum. This is another issue that could cause for a surprising bill. Critics of this method prefer the flat rate billing system, the average amount of data transferred or billing per byte.
Web hosting providers offer many different types of billing. Some colocation providers even offer a 90% billing method to attract those with inconsistent bandwidth usage. There are so many different steps to getting a website up and running and ever-increasing options to keep it maintained. 95th percentile monitoring is a fair and effective billing method, but it’s generally more useful for individual users to find an alternative with a better fit.
Virtual Web Hosting – What is it and Who Needs it?
Posted by: | CommentsVirtual web hosting is a type of web hosting that facilitates the hosting of several domains on a single IP address by sharing resources such as memory and processor cycles on a virtual private server. It has recently become one of the most popular forms of web hosting available, as it is offers a mixture of affordability, flexibility and capability that is unrivaled in virtually any other web hosting solution. Many website owners use virtual private server hosting because it gives them remote access to their own server that can be used for multiple websites, yet they don’t need to make an extreme investment to use these resources.
What is a Virtual Private Server?
A virtual private server is the next best thing to a private server, and it does not require nearly as much capital as a private server. By using a virtual private server you don’t have to worry about any limits being imposed on your hosting account as far as your website resources are concerned. This means your needs will be definitively met with regards to bandwidth and disk space. In addition your site will be able to operate at peak performance virtually without limitation. Therefore you won’t have to concern yourself with constant upgrades or multiple hosting accounts unnecessarily.
Who Needs It?
If you’re a personal website owner with a blog or a personal site that does not contain many files, then you probably would not benefit much from a virtual private server. However, if you are a business owner that is looking to expand in the near future, then you may want to expand your horizons by considering a virtual web hosting service. Virtual Private Servers are especially beneficial to business owners because they provide comprehensive administrative rights to the user which gives them complete control over their business website.
A virtual web hosting plan is also more reliable than your standard shared web hosting plan as the customer support is more personalized and the web server is not being used by other websites. With shared hosting, the web server is being shared by other websites, and if these websites conduct illegal or questionable activities, it is not uncommon for the entire block of IP addresses to be brought down. This could result in down time and even the loss of many potential customers.
Choosing a Virtual Web Hosting Plan
Choosing a web hosting plan of any kind requires a thorough process of elimination. Through deductive reasoning and a bit of research you can find the information need to make an informed decision in a timely manner without hesitation. Perhaps the most important factor in any web hosting plan is the companies reliability and the support they provide their customers. Try giving each prospective company a call several times and see which one answers your queries as quickly and as friendly as possible. Since this will be your first private hosting experience you’ll need to be sure you have access to all of the information you need this first time around.
Web Hosting Plans: Disk Space and Bandwidth – Are They Really Unlimited ?
Posted by: | CommentsWeb hosting plans include many features, and often times the feature lists can be difficult to compare since there are so many aspects to consider. Perhaps the two most important attributes of a web hosting plan are the bandwidth and disk space. The bandwidth capacity determines how much information a website can send to their visitors during their viewing of the site. The disk space determines how many files you can store for your website. The bandwidth is usually limited by a network line that has a measurable transfer rate capacity due to it’s size. Likewise, the hard disk space is also limited by storage space and other technological limitations.
The problem with most web hosting plans is that they claim to offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space, however they simply cannot truly offer this as they are not equipped to do so. Even Internet Service Providers don’t make such claims, as they know it is not possible to give this type of service to every customer. So then why do so many web hosting companies promise unlimited features that they cannot accommodate for?
All You Can Eat?
Think of it this way – when you go to a buffet, you are promised all you can eat. This means you are entitled to an unlimited amount of food, as long as you can swallow it. However, this does not mean that you are going to eat all of the food! In fact, most of the people at the buffet are not going to eat more than two plates! The buffet advertises unlimited food, even though both the restaurant manager and the diners know that this is not truly possible. How does this relate to web hosting? Because it is the same concept- web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth and disk space to attract customers. At the same time, they know these customers cannot possibly use all of their bandwidth.
Competition and Marketing
Due to the competitive nature of the web hosting industry, web hosting companies will do whatever they can to outbid the competition for your business. Web hosts know that most users are not going to uses even half of their allocated bandwidth, so they can offer unlimited bandwidth plans since there are so many server resources left over all the time. The sad part is, if the customer does happen to go over this hidden bandwidth limit, the hosting company may shut down their website without warning. While this kind of unlimited plan may be suitable for some webmasters, a rapidly expanding business should know their bandwidth limits to prevent from receiving warning letters and abrupt termination of service from their web hosting service.
Conclusion
The saying “nothing is free” may be just as relevant as “nothing is unlimited.” When a web hosting company says they offer unlimited features, it may be best to speak with these web hosting company’s support staff to assure yourself that the features are actually unlimited.