What is hosting?

Hosting is the service through which you can put your site on the internet, where it will be available to any user of the network.

When you buy hosting you receive part of a server's resources and will be able to store on them the data your site needs to work.

A server is a special computer installed in a special facility called a data centre. That facility has several ways of connecting to the internet and several backup power lines, which keep the equipment running round the clock without interruption.

How the hosting service works

To create your own site you first have to think of a domain name for it. Then the domain has to be registered.

 A domain is what you type into the address bar to reach a site. 

After that you have to choose the hosting company where you will place your site. The choice has to be approached responsibly and thoughtfully, studying reviews and offers so as to pick a genuinely good service.

Note: the performance of your site, its traffic and the number of sales depend on the quality of the hosting. If the site is constantly down, you will lose customers and search engines will lower it in the results.

Once you have chosen a hosting company, you have to pick the plan that suits your purposes. For small projects we recommend the Startplan. For 2 dollars a month you get 10 gigabytes of space on an SSD drive for one site and unlimited traffic. If you have several projects, you can choose the Optimal or PROplans, which hold 10 or 20 sites respectively.

To understand what hostingis, imagine you are renting an office for your staff. If you have few people, one room will be enough; if many, you will need a large space. Every month you pay the rent, or you pay for a year at once, which works out cheaper than paying monthly.

If you have no programming skills and no idea how to set hosting up properly and install a site on it, get in touch with our support: experienced staff will help you move from another host or launch a site from scratch

Hosting is managed through an intuitive panel ISPmanagerin which everything you need can be done. Buy the service for a year and you get, free of charge, an SSLcertificate, which lets users establish a secure connection to your site — useful both for online shops and for ordinary sites. Along with the certificate you get:

1. Hosting for e-mail addresses. 
2. Access to the site builder.
3. Round-the-clock support.
4. A daily backup of your data.
5. An automatic vulnerability scanner.
6. A reliable mail antivirus and anti-spam.
7. An auto-responder for forwarding letters.

Types of hosting

There are several kinds of hosting:

1. Classic (shared) hosting, which means the server's resources are distributed evenly among all the users connected to it. 
2. Virtual Private Server or a virtual server. This service gives you part of a server to use. A dedicated server is more powerful than ordinary hosting, and you can manage it completely, installing the software and operating systems you need.
3. A dedicated server. You buy yourself a complete server and are its sole owner. This service suits large projects, organisations, offices and so on.
4. VIP hosting for business. For a modest sum you get 50 to 100 GB of free space on an SSD drive, 1 to 4 gigabytes of memory, 2 to 6 processor cores and room for up to 20 sites — with no need to configure and maintain a virtual or physical server.

When choosing a service you should go by two main parameters: how much free space you need and the load on the site. For a business card site the Startplan will do; for a small online shop it is better to choose Optimal; and for a business it is worth buying dedicated or virtual servers depending on the expected load.

The strengths and weaknesses of the different kinds of hosting

Shared hosting stands out for its low price, which makes it popular with beginners. It is easy to configure through an intuitive control panel, and administering it requires no special knowledge. Among the drawbacks are the impossibility of fine server tuning and the fact that dozens or hundreds of sites sit on the same machine.

VPS , or a virtual private server, opens up more possibilities and prospects for the user. Where ordinary hosting divides the server's resources equally among everyone, a private server gives you specific figures: the number of cores, the memory, the space and so on. Let us go through the strengths of VPS:

1. The ability to fine-tune the server.
2. The ability to scale the server.    
3. Full access.

4. Strict separation of resources from other users.

Among the drawbacks are the higher price compared with classic hosting and the need for certain knowledge to configure a VPS.

Dedicated hosting costs more than the other types, but you get an entire server to yourself, sharing it with nobody. That opens up wide possibilities for configuration and use. You will be able to install the programs you need yourself thanks to ROOT access, and you also get full protection from DDoS, possible break-ins and so on. Among the minuses are the high price and the need for knowledge to configure it.

How can we help?

We offer our customers every kind of hosting we have described. We will certainly manage to find a suitable home for your projects on our equipment too. And if you run into difficulty choosing the right service — write to us and we will certainly help you choose the right hosting for your site.