The web hosting industry is extremely cut throat. You’ll find some web hosting companies are trying to undercut their competitors to gain business.
A vast majority of web hosting customers are completely unaware of how the web industry operates or what’s involved. In this article, I am going to shine some light on the logistics of web hosting.
How web hosting works
When building your blog, you’ll contact your desired hosting provider and order the relevant hosting package. Developing a blog in essence is a piece of virtual real estate. Think about it. When you build a house you need a plot of land, a unique address, and materials to build your house. A web hosting provider can be compared to real estate agents but for a virtual environment.
Once you’ve ordered your web hosting, your blog will be stored on a server located in a highly secure datacenter.
What is a datacentre?
A datacenter is the perfect environment for hosting your blog. A datacenter is a huge computer room that contains hundreds of servers. The servers are contained in cabinets which make up isles. Think of a datacenter as a supermarket with many isles. In the supermarket, you have cool isles where all the chilled items are stored.
There are hundreds of servers within a datacenter, and these servers are running constantly. An entire room of servers operating will generate a lot of heat. It’s important to keep this environment cool. Throughout the datacenter, there are air conditioning units that are operating constantly.
To keep all those servers running constantly, it is important to have redundant systems in place. In the event of a power failure, it’s crucial to have these servers running immediately. Datacenters will have redundant air conditioning systems in place as well.
A datacenter also has a battery supply in place. This battery supply gives the datacenter engineers enough time to power up the backup diesel generators. Many diesel generators can be refueled whilst in operation. The outside world around the datacenter may have a major power failure, and the web servers would still be in operation.
Security and safety are very important. If a fire did break out, the fire suppression systems would eliminate any flames.
Have you ever noticed on web hosting sites there’s a benefit mentioning an “uptime guarantee 99%”? When you purchase web hosting, you should look for a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This states the level of service you’d expect from your hosting provider.
Why are some hosting packages cheap?
Bearing in mind the expense of running a datacenter, it’s important to understand that you get what you pay for.
There are many types of web hosting, but let’s compare dedicated servers and shared hosting. The shared hosting platform is the most common hosting package. Shared hosting is very affordable and a cheap way to host your blog. For many bloggers, shared hosting is ideal. If your blog has low traffic, it’s unlikely you’ll need a dedicated server.
Keep in mind, shared hosting can be slower because you’re sharing the server’s resources.
A dedicated server is a highly powerful physical server that’s unshared by any other users. Dedicated servers are ideal for high traffic blogs and eCommerce websites.
To summarize, when you purchase your web hosting, remember that you only get what you pay for. Look at the options that your hosting company offers. It’s also important to consider after-sales support. If you have a problem, can you get 24/7 telephone support?
Now it’s your turn
Do you have any interesting experiences to share about web hosting? We’d love to hear your comments.