Archive for March, 2011

web hosting services checklist for choosing a web hosting provider

Checklist for choosing a web hosting services provider:
Tech Support – The question here to be asked is the Level and Promptness of the technical support provided when in need. In addition what is mode of communication. A good web hosting services provider will have support for email and chat. In some cases it is important to have the chat support so that one can explain the realtime issues. I noticed some providers although they have chat support but it takes too long to get a technician who will talk to you. In the predecision phase this can be checked out by going to their website ans enquiring for some questions on web hosting technicalities. Also it is wise to send an email to them any notice the response time and quality of the answer.

Storage – Many of the web hosting service providers commit to provide unlimited space for a shared hosting account but some has underlyring criterias too which is better to evaluate. check how much disk space you need and how much they provide. Is it sufficient ?

Guaranteed Uptime – The more uptime they guarantee, the better. 99% uptime is the minimum acceptable standard today. Check the blogs to see the reputation of the service provider and if they had major downtime in the past. In general uptime > 96% is considered to be good.

Bandwidth – Bandwidth becomes more and more important if the website provides possibilities of upload and download content like media files, articles etc. Normally this factor is overlooked untill we reach a limit. Therefore depending upon the site you are planning to host, this factor needs more or less importance. Another point worth understanding is the bandwidth of the lines people will be using to upload/download content. Lets say if your site users are mostly DSL users then will have naturally more bandwith in contract to users who uses dial-up connections. The bandwith specified by the web hosting provider is for connecting the data center to the internet and has nothing to do with bandwidth of the lines your users are using. So more the traffic site gets the more the requirement of bandwidth will be.

CGI Bin – The web hosting provider should give access to CGI bin or else you will not be able to install scripts and programs.

Platforms supported – You may have your site in Java / perl or .Net. So to host your site successfully you also need to check with the provider if they have a support for the same. Although many of the sites uses perl today and most of the web hosting companies minimum provide perl support , therefore it becomes important to check if they support Java or .net if your website is on these platforms.A short chat with the sales guy will clarify the same.

SSL – SSL is a minimum requirement if you want to process credit card information directly through your website, you will require Secure Socket Layer included in your web hosting plan. Some providers sell this as an add on to the existing web hosting plan for a additional fee of say around 10 USD a month.

Server Side Includes (SSI) – It is nice to have Server Side Includes if you need to spend less time in updating your site. Here’s how it works.

MySQL – Normally most of the web hosting services providers comes with a MYSQL in any of their plan as it is extensively used today. However not all have this in their plan. Therefore it is worth to check if it is included. Next question here is to check how many databases they support. Lets say you have many third party softwares used as part of your website and many of them has their own MYSQL database. Therefore the limit defines by the provider is important to decide if at all it fits to your needs or not. Another question worth finding is the No of concurrent connections supported by the provider for the plans they offered ? Although this a bit advanced question, but worth noting.

Support for remote mysql admistartion - This is specially important if we want to work with the MySQL database from Remotely. I am aware that some providers does not provide this and in recent past I had to cancel a contract with a provider just because of this reason because I had to upload lot of data from my laptop to the remote database which was not possible without the help of a remote mysql support.

No of concurrent connections - Every host has a limit to this and it becomes very critical when your site grows over time. If the limit exceeds there will be an error generated and site will not be accessable.

Max. No of Questions Limit – This means the no of SQL queries executed over a period of time say 1 Minute. The Web host provider will have a limit. This need to be figured out if possible. With this information you can plan in advance to do cache implementation for your site. If this is known in advance, you can simulate the site for reaching these condition and do cache implementation. The worst part is that if this not taken care properly, the site will fail when traffic increases.

PHP – Many new scripts and programs require PHP support. This feature can be a $10 extra by some web hosting provider but most good hosts offer it as a standard.

Domain Name - Domain name can be bought from the web hosting services provider or from another compnay who only provides domain name. But today many of the web host providers provide a domain name as part of their plan. Therefore to have the domain name bought as part of the web hosting plan will have a saving of $10-$15 and most importantly will need to deal with only one provider going forward for domain name and hosting account. At the same time , none of the web host provider will give you a discount if you have a domain name already available.

INODE Limit – Every provider keeps a limit for the max. no of nodes allowed under that hosting plan. A iNode means an object. Therefore if your site has too many objects to store then it is woth to find out this value.

FTP Access – Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your site is essential. You will require an FTP program to transfer files.

Control Panel – Not all control panels are the same. Some are easier to use than others. Some control panels the learning curve is steep while others are easy. If you select a plan where you cannot preview your control panel before you buy, you can always use the 30 day money back guarantee to get out if you are not happy. If they are not offering a working demo of the control panel, maybe they are not proud of it. In my experience,

Statistics Program – A good stats program is handy if you want to keep an eye on how many visitors you are getting, where they are comming from, refferers, top entry and exit pages and so on. Some companies offer excellent stats programs as standard while others offer basic stats but you have to pay extra for advanced statisics. If you find a good hosting deal but the stats program is a bit basic, why not email the company and ask if they can install AWStats before you sign up. AWStats is an excellent FREE advanced statisics program.

Factors to consider while choosing a Managed Hosting Services for your web site hosting

In this article, I want to share with you two critical factors that a novice webmaster must consider while choosing a managed hosting services provider for managing his web site hosting. This factors are so important that if you do not keep this in mind while chosing the web hosting services provider, you will get into difficulties going forward. In some cases the difficulty is so high that it makes one to quit from that web hosting service provider and move to another. But without evaluating if you move to another provider , you might get into some other issues which could be even more worst. The factors are:

Ability to provide Remote Database Management:
Lets say you work with big databases and for your website you need data import export to be done. If the managed hosting services provider provides the features of remote database administration then only you will be able to do so. many of the managed hosting services providers do not provide this feature and neither lists it in their website. I believe if they do not have some setup, they cannot as well provide the same.

Therefore in your website if you need to upload a list of records remotely and if this is key for your website success, you must have to change the managed hosting service provider and switch to another if the former does not support remote database administration.

inode Limit:
inode is the number of objects in a managed hosting services account booked with a managed hosting services provider. In a shared hosting environment each hosting provider sets a limit to the number of objects one account can have irrespective of the unlimited storage criteria. An inode is any object like a .php file or a .jpg or a .gid file.

Therefore if your website stores large no of objects then it is worth checking the same in the begining itself. Normally the limits will be in 250K +.