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Dedicated Server Hosting

Advantages of Dedicated Server Hosting

Currently most of the clients favor shared hosting, as shared web hosting packages are available at very inexpensive prices. Inexpensive prices are main criteria for deciding among shared hosting & dedicated hosting. A shared hosting server accommodates around 1000-2000 accounts depending upon Disk space. Shared hosting may seem good for least hosting needs, but if you have regular hosting needs, dedicated hosting server seems a good idea.

A dedicated server will let you have a sole server completely for your website. You will have total influence & power over your dedicated server. You should a have very high technological knowledge to control a dedicated server efficiently. Although many web hosting companies offer technical support, but if think you can’t manage a server by yourself, opt for managed server.

This point is specially for people who need to have dedicated web hosting but do not have the necessary skills to control it. This feature lets you to have a complete server managed by a professional hosting company. The cost of a managed dedicated server is quite expensive. Therefore, if you think that you can control your website server by yourself, you should choose unmanaged dedicated server web hosting rather than a managed dedicated server.

You should also consider a dedicated server web hosting when the traffic to your site has increased and your website is taking long time to load. The point is when you have many users working on your website shared server; you should shift shared web hosting with a dedicated server web hosting.

1.1 What are the disadvantages of Dedicated Server Hosting?

The most puzzling factor of the Dedicated Server Hosting is the cost but alas, there are other disadvantages such as:

Must depend on Web Host Provider If Data Transfer Allowance is exceeded, a financial Penalty is assessed.

The Web Hosting Provider charges hefty monthly fees as you're paying not just for the physical hosting, but also for the hardware on which the site resides. While in the short run this is cheaper than the large capital outlay required to get co-location up and running, over time this model is much more expensive. - The server is the property of the service provider, which means all you own is the data you put on the server. Unlike co-location, you can not simply pick up your server and walk away if you're unhappy with the service

What is a Managed Web Server?

The majority of web hosts rely on the capability of dedicated servers, however dedicated servers have their share of problems, one of the worse being that they can have a number of technical and operational glitches. More and more is being expected of web hosts and that is where a managed web server (also known as managed hosting) comes in. Managed web servers provide services that are above and beyond that of dedicated servers. These services include managed load balancing, managed security, managed storage, reporting, monitoring and managed databases. A managed virtual server can be described as being a cross between “a shared and a dedicated hosting solution.” It is the best of both worlds as it is a combination of the excellent attributes of each.

2.1 Managed Server Hosting

A managed server solution is one where you rent a server application for the solitary use of your website. You also buy high speed Internet bandwidth see UnderstandingBandwidth and Data Transfer to connect your customers to your site. In many instances, you would additionally need a form of firewalling see Firewalls to defend your machine from hackers. A managed server might cost around £100 a month, but any hardware failures are repaired within a specified timeframe (eg 2 hours) at no additional cost. An SLA would offer guaranteed accessibility of typically 99.9%. Patches or updates to the operating system are applied as part of the management contract for the server.

Managed server hosting also offers a greater degree of freedom than shared hosting, frequently with more services available like database support etc.

2.2 Shared Web Hosting

There is a pretty good chance that if you have a simple website, it will be hosted on shared web space, along with hundreds of others. Server space is frequently sold per megabyte, with a limit on the monthly transfer of data. A typical business hosting plan might cost £100 a year for 20Mb of web space, with 5Gb of data transfer per month.

This type of service has the advantage of being hosted in a secure datacentre on a high spec web server, on a reliable connection to the Internet with SLA. The downside is that with hundreds of other sites being delivered from the same machine, as you come to rely on the web for your business, the popularity of other sites on the server can cause your site to run slowly.

3.0 Cookies

A cookie is a piece of information which many Web sites transfer to a user's hard disk. Cookies can inform the Web site which pages you visit and your preferences. This enables the Web site to customize the display it sends to you. You can set your browser to refuse cookies or to warn you before accepting them. To alter Internet Explorer browser settings, go to Privacy settings within the Internet options screen. To do this in Netscape, go to Privacy & Security within the browser preferences.

A cookie is a text-only string of information that a website transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer's hard disk so that the website can remember who you are.

A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the "lifetime" of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number. Two types of cookies are used on this website-session cookies(non persistent), which are temporary cookies that remain in the cookie file of your browser until you leave the site, and persistent cookies, which remain in the cookie file of your browser for much longer (though how long will depend on the lifetime of the specific cookie).

Cookies can help a website to arrange content to match your preferred interests more quickly. Most major websites use cookies. Cookies cannot be used by themselves to identify you.

3.1 Types of cookies

Persistent and Non-Persistent Cookies

Persistent cookies are stored on your computer hard disk.  They stay on your hard disk and can be accessed by web servers until they are deleted or have expired.  Persistent cookies are not affected by your browser setting that deletes temporary files when you close your browser.

Non-persistent cookies are saved only while your web browser is running.  They can be used by a web server only until you close your browser.  They are not saved on your disk.  Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 can be configured to accept non-persistent cookies but reject persistent cookies.

4.0 The Data Protection Act (1998)

The principle of the Act is to guard the privileges of the character about whom data is obtained, stored, processed or supplied rather than those of the people or organization who control and use personal data. The Act applies to equally computerized and paper records.

The Act requires that suitable security measures will be taken against unauthorized access to, or change, disclosure or destruction of personal data and against accidental loss or damage of personal data.

Scope

The 1998 Act applies to:

• Computerised personal data

• Principles of Data Protection

The Act is based on values stating that data must be:

• Reasonably and officially processed

• Processed for restricted purposes

• Enough, important and not too much

• Precise

• Not kept longer than crucial

• Processed in agreement with the data subjects rights

Protected

General rule

• Do not leave people's information on your desk when it is not in use

• Do not leave data displayed on screen, do not leave your computer logged on and unattended

• Do not give your password to anyone under any conditions

• Do not choose a password that's easy to presume

5.0 Understanding Bandwidth and Data Transfer

The quantity of data transfer offered with a budget hosting plan is vital, so considerate some essentials about bandwidth and data transfer can help you decide the web host and plan that's best for you.

While bandwidth and data transfer are rather identical, the two are normally referred to from single perspectives. In a nutshell - both have to do with the quantity of data that is transferred to and from your web site either by you uploading files, your visitors viewing pages and downloading files, and your emails if you are using your host for your email service. If someone comes to your web site and downloads a 1MB file, you've just transferred 1MB of data. If 1,000 people download that file than you have transferred 1,000MB or 1GB.

The Difference Between Bandwidth and Data Transfer

In nearly all cases, budget web hosting plans are looked at in terms of data transfer and not bandwidth. Why? Think of an internet connection as a water hose and the data (site traffic) as water. Bandwidth refers more to the size of that hose in addition to the amount of water flowing through it.

Often you will see hosts offering "unlimited data transfer" compared to say the MySiteSpace Pro plan which offers 6GB (6,000MB) transfer per month. Most likely the one offering you unlimited data transfer (back to the water analogy) is only letting you drink from a very small hose. This means you can drink and drink all you want but chances are you could not get enough water through the small hose to amount to much.

In the web hosting industry, bandwidth is a real and significant cost. There are no unlimited plans out there. A host that offers a really generous data transfer plan is bound to have one if not both of the following, 1. a small and limiting connection to the internet or 2. lots of sites using up lots of the available bandwidth. Either results in a slow loading web site.

How Much Data Transfer Do You Need?

Would you believe that of the thousands of MySiteSpace users less than 1% ever exceed their allowed data transfer in a given month? Unless your site offers things like MP3 or Video downloads or receives thousands of visitors per month chances are data transfer will never even be an issue.

Many hosts, such as MySiteSpace offer added features to our web hosting service such as email, web site statistics, backup and restore functions, pre-installed scripts and more. Today there are over 15,000 web host providers offering everything from affordable budget services to high end managed services. Being a leader in budget hosting means offering a comprehensive and reliable plan at a great price

6.0 Internet Service Provider

There are lots of companies now selling “high speed “ broadband, they are claiming to be the fastest, in terms of broadband at the moment there are only two types of in the UK homes.

The first is fibre optic cable- meaning that it is officially the fastest and best performing broadband, this is the one that I would recommend to my Clients. The Other is known as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line).The thing is,ADSL uses your phone line so it slows down the further you live from the telephone exchange. This means you might not be getting the speed you pay for.

Firewalls

The first step to protecting your network from such an attack is to install a firewall, which will help to protect your computer or network from such unwanted Internet intrusion. The primary function of a firewall is to let 'good' traffic (your stuff) through whilst blocking ‘bad’ traffic (eg from hackers or intruders).

When installed, a firewall exists between your computer(s) and the Internet. The firewall lets you request web pages, download files, chat, etc. whilst ensuring other people on the Internet cannot access services on your computer.

Some firewalls are pieces of software that run on your computer. Other firewalls are built into hardware and protect your whole network from attacks.

In an ideal world anyone who connects to the Internet needs to be running some sort of firewall - any good firewall will go a long way to keeping you safe from attacks of this type

Software firewalls are programs that run on your computer and nestle themselves between your network card software drivers and your operating system. They intercept attacks before your operating system can even acknowledge them.

There are several free firewalls you can download from the Internet. You can achieve a minimum level of security by downloading such software from companies specializing in computer protection

Firewall's can protect networks and personal computers from attacks on packet traffic, ftp and telnet applications and use technologies such as a proxy server which hides the IP address of a network or personal computer.

8.0 What is SSL?

Secure Sockets Layer, SSL, is the standard protection technology for creating an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between our web server and your browser remains concealed and secure.

SSL is an industry benchmark and is used by millions of websites in the security of their online transactions with their customers. In order to be able to generate an SSL link (signified by the gold padlock in the information tool bar and for URL with https:// instead of http://), a web server requires an SSL Certificate.

Conclusion

Having looked at my clients needs, it has been recommended that they go for a managed server at this stage as they are still a growing company and it will cost more money to have their own server and will therefore need to have someone in house to look after the server which would work at a lot more expensive.

As they are a growing company they currently want all their customer orders and details to be recorded as text files, I would recommend that they use a database system instead as this will allow them to manage their customers better and also they will be able to find information more quickly by using queries.

Also this will be easier to backup as they will only need to back up 1 file for 100 customers where as if they had text files they would need to back up 100 text files (1 for each customer). I would also recommend they use SSL for their online system as it is more secure and most people always check websites for the little pad lock in the bottom right hand corner before shopping as they say no pad lock no shop!

Appendix

I was unable to get the code working for the application due to security problems on my personal computer however I have draw a diagram to show the follow and procedures for the application in order for it to operate.

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