The host with the most
If you want to convert a bunch of HTML files sitting on your hard drive into a publicly-accessible website, you will need to sign up for a web-hosting service.
A hosting firm will connect your websites to the internet and provide disk space for your files, a slew of e-mail accounts and bandwidth.
(Bandwidth is needed to serve pages down to users; the more people visiting your site and the more pages they view, they greater the bandwidth needed.)
Hosting firms can also register domain names for you, with many of them offering this as a bundled service along with hosting.
HOSTING TYPES
There are three basic types of hosting available – shared, virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated.
1. Shared
This is the most common hosting type. It essentially means that your website is hosted on a web server along with several dozen others. Shared hosting costs very little (prices start at €5 a month or even less from some providers) and you get a lot of bang for your buck: plenty of disk space and bandwidth.
Hosting firms typically measure bandwidth in terms of GB per month. A typical starter package might consist of 10GB of disk space, 100GB of bandwidth and five e-mail accounts.
According to Dan King, hosting and managed services manager at Digiweb, even the cheapest hosting packages offer plenty of headroom in terms of capacity, so much so that “the numbers have really become meaningless in my opinion, no one ever hits the caps any more’‘.
The drawback of shared hosting is inflexibility. By its nature, a shared environment does not lend itself to giving end users much control or customisation in terms of running their own applications.” It’s a flexibility thing. If you’re going into shared hosting you’re going to have to accept the limitations that come with it,” said King.
2.VPS
The flexible issue is addressed somewhat by the second type of hosting, VPS. This uses a software tool called virtualisation to divide a server into individual servers, with each customer having full administrator access to its server.
The VPS hosting option has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially with web developers who like the measure of control and customisation it affords.
3. Dedicated
VPS can be seen as a stepping stone to the third type of hosting – dedicated hosting, where the website sits on its own server. The server can belong to the web owner and reside in the hosting facility (a set-up known as ‘co-location’) or it can be owned and managed by the hosting provider. Either way, the website runs on its own dedicated hardware.
Michele Neylon, managing director of Carlow based Blacknight Solutions, defines a dedicated solution as “a physical piece of hardware which is for your exclusive use’‘. He said that dedicated servers would be the preferred hosting solution if data security was particularly important to the web owner.
“If you are in insurance, for example, where you are collecting a lot of sensitive information about people, a shared environment cannot guarantee data integrity; it can’t guarantee that that information is going to be 100 per cent safe.”
In some cases, a dedicated hosting environment will be mandated by industry groups. For example, the global organisation that sets the standard for card payment systems, Payment Card Industry (PCI), requires payment processors to fulfil a number of security obligations, which will include having a dedicated server.
In addition to hosting websites, web hosting firms have also begun to host other important business services, such as email. A number of hosting providers offer Exchange 2007 on a hosted basis, meaning that the client does not need to own or maintain its e-mail infrastructure, but simply buys a subscription to a service.
Cost considerations
How much does hosting cost? The answer is very little or a great deal, depending on what’s required. Most SMEs will want something simple, easy and, above all, cheap – and that means shared hosting. This has become a commodity in recent years with users paying less for more disk space and bandwidth.
For €5 (excluding Vat) a month, or even less, you can secure a perfectly adequate shared hosting service – 10GB of disk space, 100GB of bandwidth, several e-mail accounts and email-based support.
Hosting providers also routinely offer free web building tools that will allow clients to create basic websites. As well as a range of templates to choose from, users can also plug in free applications such as tools for blogging, video uploading and photo viewing.
Hosting providers typically offer a portfolio of shared hosting services, which allows the business to start with the smallest capacity (and cheapest) and move up the scale as their website grows in size and popularity.
It is generally easy to upgrade between the different levels, so the general rule of thumb is to start small and upgrade as necessary.
VPS offers greater flexibility and customisation and, as a result, is a step up from shared hosting in pricing terms – with prices starting at about €10 (excluding Vat) per month.
It is only when a business requires dedicated hosting that the prices really begin to climb. Having the exclusive use of a server, or cluster of them, does not come cheap. At the top end, hosting charges can run to five or even six figures.
Dedicated hosting might seem less relevant to the average SME than shared or VPS, but Mark Fagan, BT’s head of data centre services, said that it would be a mistake to believe that only large corporates required dedicated hosting.
The internet, by its nature, means that even businesses with only a handful of employees can be processing a large number of transactions and require sophisticated hosting services.
At the same time, it is true to say that, nine times out of ten, the needs of the average SME will be comfortably met by shared or VPS hosting. According to King, not only is shared/ VPS inexpensive, but it is also easy to manage.
“Managing your own servers is becoming harder al l the time and requires more and more skills in house,” he said.” What ultimately you’re paying for with shared/VPS hosting is not just a slice of space and connectivity but the skills and experience of the people who manage the machines, patching them and updating them against external threats.”
Local or international?
Another decision that website owners have to make is where to host their website. It used to be the case that e-commerce sites that were doing a lot of their business in the US opted to host in that market too, to ensure that the user experience was up to scratch.
However, according to Fagan, the quality of the networks means that quality of service is no longer an issue – the time lag experienced on US transactions managed from servers in Ireland is now “insignificant’‘, he said.
Blacknight’s Neylon agreed: “It used to be a bigger issue a couple of years ago when connectivity just wasn’t there a lot of the time, but not any more.”
Neylon believes that this has resulted in a lot of web hosting business coming back to Ireland in recent years.
Another factor buoying up the Irish hosting market is the fact that, if your website is hosted in the US and a technical problem arises, it might be difficult to access technical support at certain times of the day.
Digiweb’s King argued that customer support was a key reason why businesses chose local hosting services.
He said that, were it not for local technical support, “there is no reason at all why you would want to host in Ireland” and it was this service which had kept Irish hosting firms in business.
Choosing hosting partners and deciding on domains is virgin territory for many SMEs and many will feel unqualified to make these decisions.
Roseanne Smith, communications manager with the Irish Internet Association, advised them to look to their web developer or design agency for guidance.
“They may have a special discount in place with a hosting company and can pass these savings on to you,” she said.
“They will also be familiar with the hosting that they use and so will make more efficient use of their services.”
However, one of the common mistakes companies make when working with a design/development agency is failing to ensure that the domain is registered with them, not the agency.
“It is advisable that, when registering a domain, a business either registers it itself or stipulates that its contact details are included as the administrative contact,” she said.” This means that ownership will remain with the client company but it will also mean that renewal will be the responsibility of that company.’
