VPS Hosting | Cloud Servers Blog

19 Jan

How To Find a Reliable Web Hosting Company | Part I

So, you’ve decided to bite the bullet and take your business online.

Or perhaps you already have a successful online business and are looking for a reliable hosting provider to partner with as you continue to grow.

But what makes a web hosting provider reliable?

With hundreds of hosting providers out there finding the best one for your website is not an easy task. Don’t worry, we’ve got you!

We’ve rounded up some of our best tips on helping you choose a reliable hosting provider.

What Is a Web Hosting Service and How Does It Work?

For those unfamiliar, a web hosting service is a type of service that stores the files and data of your website or application and serves them, or makes them available, over the Internet. These files can be web pages (text content), images, media content, scripts, and more.

Each website needs a home where it can live.

When you get a web hosting service you basically rent a space on a server for your website. In other words, a web hosting provider is like a digital landlord. Instead of leasing or renting space in a building, it rents space on the Internet.

A web hosting provider, therefore, is a company that leases or rents the technology and resources needed to make your website accessible over the Internet.

What is Web Hosting — *When website visitors type your website URL in their browser, the browser requests the website information from the server that stores it, downloads the files, and displays the web content.*

To make your website accessible over the Internet you need to:

Own a domain name.
Purchase a hosting plan.
Upload your files into your web server.
Point your domain to the server’s IP.

When your website visitors type your website URL in their browser (Google Chrome, Safari, etc.), the browser requests the website information from the server that stores it, downloads the files, and displays the web page.

How Many Types of Web Hosting Services Are There?

There are a few different types of web hosting services. The most common types are shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated server hosting.

Shared Hosting

As the name indicates you are sharing your hosting with many other users, sometimes hundreds of users. So, if your web hosting provider is your landlord, shared hosting is like having a small apartment unit in a large apartment complex. You share the complex with hundreds of other tenants.

The advantage of shared hosting is that the prices are lower. The server is also maintained and managed by the hosting provider. All you have to do is upload your website and start growing your business.

The disadvantage of shared hosting is that you get a small allotment of resources and you have less control over the server. You cannot upload custom applications or access the server from the command line.

In some cases, there is not a lot of insulation between the different users. If one tenant overuses their resource allotment it could have a negative impact on your service. This can be significantly reduced if the hosting providers use an Operating System such as CloudLinux OS, which offers better isolation and increased performance.

Virtual Private Servers (VPS)

A private server, as the name suggests, is a server where all the resources are dedicated to you. If shared hosting is like renting a small apartment unit, with VPS hosting you get your own condo.

The advantage of VPS hosting is that you get more resources, better insulation, and full control over your server (SSH/RDP).

A VPS server also allows you to scale as needed. You can also choose if you want to manage the server yourself or have the hosting provider manage it for you.

The disadvantage of VPS hosting is that it’s more expensive than shared hosting.

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is like having your own private house. It provides the highest level of privacy and you don’t share the building with anyone.

The advantage of dedicated servers is it can include a large number of resources.

The disadvantage of dedicated servers is cost. Dedicated server hosting is typically the most expensive type of hosting. Dedicated servers are also more difficult to manage and maintain.

There are VPS servers that can be just as large or powerful as a dedicated server. However, some companies might still prefer to use a dedicated server due to the higher degree of privacy offered, or due to various compliance requirements.

How To Find a Web Hosting Provider?

Ask a friend

If you have a friend, colleague, or business partner who has a website, ask for web hosting referrals. This is the BEST way to find a reliable hosting provider. You can learn from someone else’s experience.

But make sure the referrals you are getting are meeting your requirements and expectations.

Everyone has different needs.

Just because your friend/business partner is pleased with his/her Windows hosting provider, it doesn’t mean it will work for you, if you are looking for a Linux provider.

Go through your list and get specific information based on your own requirements.

Do Your Own Research

Another good way to find a good web hosting provider is through old fashion research.

Start with the obvious. Do a Google search and be as specific as possible.

Some examples of popular searches include: “managed vps hosting,” ”linux vps hosting,” “shared windows hosting”.

Check Online Reviews

Once you have identified your requirements and done your research, make a list of all the hosting providers that fit your needs.

Do your due diligence and find user reviews for the providers that match your requirements. Make sure you use reviews from reliable sources such as Trustpilot, Google Reviews, or G2.

Check Blogs and Social Channels

To a lesser extent, check which providers have a social media presence and periodic website updates. This will give you a sense of whether or not the hosting company is actively working on improving its services and communicating with its online community.

Is It Easy To Change Web Hosting Providers?

Changing web hosting providers can be a daunting task. If you use a Control Panel such as cPanel/WHM or Plesk and the destination provider uses the same Control Panel it’s a matter of copying your data from the old server to the new server using internal migration tools.

If you migrate to a different Control Panel or don’t use one at all, it’s a much more complicated task. In either case, if you’re not a developer yourself you need to make sure you have your developer on standby to test the migration and assist with any possible issues that arise.

A reliable web hosting company should offer you either a free migration or a discounted quote for assisting with the migration.

When choosing your web hosting provider, you should:

Have a monthly budget.
Estimate your monthly traffic.
Understand the different types of web hosting services (Shared, VPS, Dedicated).
Estimate your server’s resource requirements.
Define the location – where are you and your website visitors are located.
Know what application your website is built with (Java, WordPress, Magento, etc.)
Get a sense of how much support you expect to require. Do you need a fully managed server, unmanaged, or something in between?

Most of these are pretty straight forward, but identifying the resource requirements often poses a challenge.

If you are completely new to web hosting, your web developer should give you an idea about the resource requirements.

If this is an existing website you can get this information from your current web hosting provider.

Coming Up Next

You are now equipped with all the tips needed to find a reliable web hosting provider.

If you’ve enjoyed this article check out the second part of this blog post series: Key Features to Consider When Choosing a Web Hosting Company

Need assistance choosing the best web hosting plan for your needs?

Get in touch!

We would love to learn more about your business and provide a solution that will accelerate your online growth.

26 Mar

When is a dedicated server required for your business?

Since the start of web hosting services, technology has improved on high scale in year 2015. New features were added with the technology advancement in any web hosting service. Selection of web hosting service among these depends on the usage and needs of your website.

VPS hosting has too grown up with better visualization software and scaling ability. Dedicated server has much more potential to host your website(s) hosting with best security than VPS. Although VPS is still the best solution for many business owners as it offers enough power at reasonable rates.

Every webmaster knows what virtual private server is, still let’s explore it one more time. VPS suits to small or medium businesses for any of their hosting requirements at affordable price. It is like “You are having fixed amount of resources (RAM/CPU/HDD) for your server with full control”. VPS have the capability of performing better just like dedicated server but in a shared environment (multiple VPS’ hosted on same server but with isolation). As you are having complete root / administrative access, many software or applications gets installed as per business needs. Compared to shared hosting, VPS Hosting is much faster and it gives better performance.

Why should I prefer DEDICATED SERVERS?

First of all, let’s define what is a dedicated server?

A Dedicated Server is the standalone physical machine to host medium / large business sites or applications or it can be used for backup purposes. A client can use the allocated CPU and RAM resources of a dedicated server for faster performance of their websites.

Your online projects are mission-critical and resource-intensive? You need ultimate performance from your web hosting?

In this case, VPS Hosting won’t help and dedicated server will outperform VPS Hosting with in all areas. Dedicated Servers are most powerful and speedier choices among web hosting services. They provides around-the-clock guaranteed accessibility from any location around the Globe. Dedicated servers ranked up as far as web hosting performance concerns, although prices are high too.

Now let’s talk about benefits in selecting dedicated servers, which may or not available with VPS.

One of the major feature of a dedicated server is that it is completely under the control of the owner. It can be rebooted in required times. Any Software, any tools or any server applications can be installed in your dedicated server. Also dedicated server can be completely customized with your chosen OS as per the business needs. OS Choices available: CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu & Microsoft Windows Server (2008 & 2012) or install your own OS.

VPS Hosting provides do not allow their customers to install and run more software even it is much needed and ready to install. Also VPS providers sometimes do not give 100% control of their virtual modules to their clients. VPS Customers have to compulsory share the resources of their server, while dedicated servers customer enjoys resources at any time. Processors, Memory, hard disk storage capacity, network access & rest belongs to the owner in 100% capacity. With Dedicated Servers, any hardware can be handle and run in server. Customers gets full control of a server. ‘You are complete owner of the house’.

Dedicated hosting is reliable. There is risk of not having required access to the resources at times of need in VPS. Your website may goes down or temporary unreliable due to other customer’s use of the server. Especially at times, when server gets bombarded with huge traffic. Dedicated hosting solves those problems by giving you an entire server all to yourself. In this type of situation, there is no chance of a single issue with dedicated server hosting. No worry about other websites using all your bandwidth when you need it most. Due to this particular reason, there is no downtime or no crashing issues with dedicated server hosting. Your site will be up all time with huge traffic handling capacity inclusive of video streaming / high quality images. Your website will never get denied access to the resources it needs to handle traffic and media.

Dedicated Server hosting performs better. Hosting your traffic flooded website with VPS, will lead to many crashing and unavailability. Also high resolution photos and videos can be incorporated in website without any fear of bandwidth loss. In any of the case, dedicated server will offer best reliability and smooth run-up of website. There is no compromise with the performance. Your website will be accessible to each potential client with best loading time.

Dedicated web hosting is secure. One of the biggest benefit offered by dedicated server is far greater level of security, compared with VPS. All the resources are allocated to the particular server, making it far more secure than a VPS. With managed level service, shield your server with regular updates and security patches.

Also, Softsys Hosting dedicated hosting includes 24/7 support. Bare metal servers allows you to create a custom firewall and enforce your own access control policy. With a dedicated server, you will be allocated with your own IP range. No Blacklist issues due to spamming activities by other customers.

DDoS protected Dedicated Servers. DDoS attacks makes your website unavailable to end users. Most providers will null route your IP for a period of 2 – 48 hours in case a DDoS attack is detected. All services will be inaccessible / down due to DDoS attack for you and all your visitors. These attacks are giving hard time to website owners but Softsys Hosting have perfect solution: DDoS protection system. These will help to mitigate these attacks and make sure your websites and servers are accessible to all end users. Also redundant DDoS mitigation systems will filter all malicious / bad traffic and continue to forward all clean traffic to your servers. This means that your websites / services will continue to operate without any downtime.

Although DDoS protection is expensive. DDoS attacks suffered customers are looking for the web hosting companies with DDoS protection. It is advisable for website owners to check for DDoS protected web hosting services from any web hosting company.

Other options of standard dedicated servers:

• If in need of more speed, go with SSD server and
• If you want to completely relax, give all server management to Softsys Hosting managed dedicated server hosting service.

Are you interested in powerful dedicated server hosting to better match your business needs and goals if compared to VPS? Softsys Hosting dedicated server hosting plans start at $100.00. Take a look at our website or shoot an email to the sales team on sales @ softsyshosting . com.

20 May

Best Hosting Solutions Infographic – Grab the offer BELOW!

Here we present the Infographics of Softsys Hosting for a quick overview of our Services, Features, Datacenters, Portfolio and more!

Basically, What is Infographics?

I Googled the term “What is Infographics” and it says

a visual representation of information or data, e.g. as a chart or diagram.

“a good infographic is worth a thousand words”

In Short, Infographic is an attractive Image with the interesting, colourful graphics along with relevant content and visually appealing to the audience.

Who are we?

Softsys Hosting is latest World Class Web Solutions provider in the web hosting market today. We have a wide selection of web hosting services from shared, VPS (Windows, Linux and Cloud) to dedicated hosting packages with excellent techsupport team serving 24/7/365. We can also help with you with a customized web hosting plan based on your specific requirements at very reasonable rates for you! Learn more

What are the major features of Softsys Hosting?

24*7 Available: We are available 24/7/365 to help you our best, Your queries are responded to at a lightning speed.
100% owned Infrastructure: Softsys’s infrastructure provides unsurpassed levels of performance to satisfy your website, data and email needs with the latest technologies and equipment at our Datacenters, advanced levels of security and a 24×7 team of on-site dedicated professionals.
Latest Service Offerings: We are adapting ourselves with all the new services and features in the current web hosting market. As it is beneficial, Softsys Hosting provides all the latest technology advancements to our customers quickly.
100% Enterprise Class Setup: We maintain a fully redundant, enterprise class network, end to end. Our network is powered by a pair of redundant Juniper M5 routers and Cisco 6500 series switches. All of the edge and core equipment is interconnected in a full network mesh to provide maximum redundancy and scalability. Internally, our network operates at 2 Gb/sec. We have proper facility to keep our resources working best to avoid any kind of Server crash.
Top Class Customer Service: Our extremely knowledgeable and responsive Support Representatives are available for support 24/7/365 so answers are given promptly and accurately.

What Web Hosting Services Softsys Hosting use to offer?

Virtual Private Server
Windows VPS Hosting
Linux VPS Hosting
Cloud Servers
Dedicated Servers
Windows Shared Hosting
Windows Reseller Hosting

Where are our Datacenters located?

Chicago, USA
Denver, USA
Amsterdam and Singapore

Currently we are offering Windows VPS Services from our Datacenters in Amsterdam and Singapore. Soon we will be launching Dedicated Servers hosting! Stay in Touch

Our Datacenters Features

Power – Generator and UPS backed Power with 100% Power Uptime
Cooling – Redundant N+1 Cooling Setup with 100% Cooling Uptime
Security – Fully Secured with multiple layers of security
Best Connectivity – 10+ Premium Uplinks carriers the best connectivity around the world
Certified & Secure Data Center – SSAE 16 SOC II Type II Certified Data Centers

Click Here For Important Points To Consider While Choosing A Correct Dedicated Server Provider

Softsys Hosting Portfolio

Range of Services with ability to seamlessly
Operating Since 2006
Over 11,000+ Clients from around the world
Catering to personal, small/medium/large Business Organizations along with government organizations

Softsys Hosting Overview Infographics

A Special Thanks to our readers ! Special Offering to Fans of our Infographics – Use above Coupon Code and Receive 10% Off on all of our Services (Limited Time)