What Is Hosting, How It Works, How To Choose The Best (Walkthrough)

If you are seeking for information about hosting for your future or existing online store on CS-Cart, you take it seriously and want to ensure it’s always online and performs perfectly any time. You are searching for the most reliable solution on the market, but at the same time you are a business person and value your time and count your spendings.

Let’s sort things out and find the hosting solution balanced between the quality and the price. Because we both know that the most expensive is not always the best.

What is hosting in general?
For most of the people living on Earth, hosting sound like something virtual, like something that does not exist physically. That’s almost the truth.

Although you purchase hosting online, monitor it online, manage it online, at the same time you understand that there are technologies, hardware and people behind this virtuality.

Why hosting is so important for online business?
The reliable hosting is very important. Why? The answer is simple – hosting is the foundation of any online business.

Making a mistake here can result in a real drama in a little while. Fixing this mistake will take time and money. So it’s a smart idea to make a research before the launch.

If you already have an online business and searching for new hosting options, you are probably not happy with the one you have. So you understand its importance.

What is high-quality hosting?
So what is it – a good hosting? There are hundreds of points that play the part – technologies, network, software, location and provider personnel. But any hosting starts in the data center, in the server rack.

What is Data center and what you need to know to choose the best one for CS-Cart or Multi-Vendor?

Data center is the brain and the heart of the Internet. It’s the center of the digital universe. There are several points that you should consider choosing a data center to settle your CS-Cart business in.

Data center location
The data center has to be close to your client. It will ensure the fast and stable content delivery. Fast website means convenient navigation, positive customer experience and finally results in a higher conversion. Your customers look through the products, find what they need, go to checkout and purchase faster. Additionally, load speed influences search engine rank – the faster the better.

Data center security
Data center has to be secure. Both digitally and physically. The best data centers have external security perimeter guarded by the armed personnel and multi-level access system.

On the virtual layer, the data should be protected by the firewalls, encryption, access control, and activity monitoring software.

Data center equipment
The next point is the equipment of the data center, the life-supporting systems. By this I mean the complex solutions which ensure that the data center will works at its best no matter what. The measures will include the protection from natural disasters, from fire or overheat, also from power surges or power outage. The data center has to have a backup internet connection, secondary power supply, and stable cooling system.

Without these measures, the stored data will be vulnerable to external dangers that can lead to sudden website downtime or to the data damage or even complete loss.

Data center hardware
Server hardware. The technologies are constantly improving. While you sleep, while you work, while you are watching this video. It never stops improving. The data centers would go broke if they tried to upgrade the hardware immediately after new releases. They do it constantly and gradually. But a good data center will always have an offer to use the top-notch hardware almost the very next day.

Data center support
And last but not the least point is support and service. The most important about support team is their competence and response time. Although you pay money for your server, you’ll never be able to enter the data center. Support will be the only connection between you and your website physical storage. And in case something goes wrong, you want to be sure that someone is there who knows what to do and will react as soon as possible.

Inside data center
Each data center is occupied with numerous server racks. Each rack looks like a locker with wires and blinking lights. They usually stay one by one making up a corridor. It’s usually pretty cool inside to prevent servers from overheating.

Each rack contains several separate servers that can have different hardware, software, different owners and serve different businesses.

For the big clients, the servers can be united in a single server machine within one rack. For major clients, like banks, data centers unite several racks to provide very powerful units which can even be located in a separate room with the individual cooling system and power supply.

Hosting types

There are many hosting types. But the most popular are: dedicated server, virtual private server (VPS), shared and cloud hosting.

What is a Dedicated server?
Previously there was a good example of a dedicated server for major clients.

Dedicated servers have their own resources and, usually, a connection channel. Having a dedicated server is pretty expensive. Sometimes it is very expensive. You will need to pay for the server itself, you will need to pay for the traffic, you will need to hire an administrator or probably a couple of them.

This is the best option for the companies from security-sensitive industries who have to keep and manage their data in a reserved ecosystem. Huge online retailers who have hundreds of checkouts a minute also choose a dedicated server.

What is Virtual Private Server (VPS)?
A physical server can be virtually divided into sections where each website resides within its assigned section. These sections are called virtual private servers – VPS. Each VPS acts independently of one another and has its own dedicated resources.

VPS server is an option for the mid-sized business that needs the flexibility of a dedicated server for a smaller price. VPS users can install their own operating system and software, update it and make any changes to the environment.

This type of hosting will require from you some technical skills to set up configuration and monitor the performance of the server. Or you can hire an administrator to do the work.

VPS is less expensive than a dedicated server but more expensive than a Shared server.

What is Shared hosting?
Shared hosting means you share resources of a server with different users. You don’t have your own resources, only a part of them. For example 10% of CPU or 20% of RAM. And whatever you do, you won’t be able to increase the performance because of these resource limits.

Nevertheless, shared hosting is very simple to use. Everything you need for a small business website is usually included in the plan. The provider takes care of the software and security updates. But this “included” also means that you are not allowed to change anything, like operating system or software. You take it as it is.

Additionally, what you do on the server may affect other users and vice versa. If your co-sharer gets penalized it can influence the reputation of the IP which you also will be using. However, Shared hosting is very cheap.

What is Cloud hosting?
The most popular type of hosting nowadays is Cloud. We are in the era of cloud. Everything is in the cloud. Hosting is not an exception.

“Cloud” means that multiple servers are joined together to provide better and faster performance by completing and insuring each other. This is the most balanced and sustainable hosting type.

Cloud is a flexible, scalable and stable solution. That’s why it is widely used by the businesses of any type and industry. Cloud technology allows all resources like storage, RAM, CPU, transmission and etc. scale quickly up and down with no limit.

This is an affordable solution where price depends on the resources you actually use. And it’s hassle free – the provider updates all software ensures its compatibility and performance.

Cloud hosting is the choice of professionals
If you ask us, we vote for the Cloud solutions. Advanced technologies, secure infrastructure, sustainable network, convenient environment for the developers, it can easily scale and grow with no limits and fits any type of business. It’s future.

If you want know why we choose Cloud and what is the most trusted Cloud Hosting service continue reading on our blog.

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