Hosting: What solution is right for me?
Web Hosting Blog
Hosting isn’t a one size fits all solution. You need to consider the size of your business, what you need your hosting for and your technical requirements.
Picking the right solution for you can be difficult, but we’re here to make it simpler with our handy guide.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is exactly what it sounds like — your website shares a server with other users. Usually, you’ll have no idea who you’re sharing the server with, and hundreds of other customers could be using the same pool of resources.
To ensure that every business receives its fair share, each customer will have a limit on the total amount of server resources they can use, which is defined by your hosting package.
These limits mean that shared hosting isn’t a viable option for sites that often expect surges in traffic, like eCommerce sites, as they can affect the performance of your site. It also means that if another site on your server exceeds its limit, your site could be affected, resulting in lower performance.
One of the significant advantages of shared hosting plans is that the server is often entirely managed by your hosting provider. So, you don’t have to worry about the technical aspects of looking after a server.
Shared hosting is the perfect solution for start-ups who have simple hosting requirements, like companies with brochure sites or blog sites, because it’s simple to set up and one of the cheapest options – which is ideal for a business on a tight business.
We don’t offer shared hosting at CWCS.
VPS Hosting
Virtual Private Servers(VPS) is the step between shared hosting and dedicated or cloud hosting.
With a VPS, you have more control and flexibility, for example, to make your own installations. VPS hosting is available in Linux and Windows, and hosting control panels such as Plesk and cPanel can be installed. This allows you to manage your website, emails, and specific server configurations to meet your needs.
We recommend VPS as the next step for businesses that have outgrown shared hosting and need a dedicated resource at an affordable cost.
Colocation
Trying to figure out the logistics of hosting your own data can be frustrating. Businesses struggle to create an optimal environment to get the best performance of the servers. Colocation is the perfect solution for that.
Colocation (sometimes known as “colo”) is the practice of renting space for your servers and other computing hardware at a third-party provider’s data centre facility. Typically, colocation services include the building in which everything is housed, networking, physical security, redundant power and cooling components, which then support the servers and storage provided by the customer.
With colocation, you still retain control and are responsible for software, storage and backups. However, it’s not as practical for a start-up or company without in-house experts as you will have a higher upfront cost and will be required to manage the servers yourself.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated Servers are ideal for web hosting, business application hosting and databases.
Unlike shared hosting with a dedicated server, the physical server/s is solely dedicated to your business, giving you complete control and customising it to your business requirements, including performance and security.
Dedicated servers are expensive compared to shared and VPS but provide you with higher levels of resources, unlimited bandwidth, more cores and threads, and more RAM. And with a management plan, you don’t need to worry about the technical side.
Cloud hosting
Cloud hosting consists of multiple servers (called nodes) and external SAN storage. With virtualisation software, like VMWare, installed onto the nodes converts the physical hardware into cloud-based platforms.
The most significant advantage of cloud hosting is that it has no single point of failure. If any of the hardware fails, the virtualisation software automatically moves your cloud software to an unaffected node, giving you peace of mind your cloud server will remain online.
Its unique infrastructure allows you to add and remove resources whenever needed, making it scalable and flexible.
The public cloud is a multi-tenant cloud computing environment. You share the CPU, RAM storage and network hardware with multiple tenants.
It works by segmenting physical servers into virtual servers with shared resources. Each company has access to one of the virtual servers.
Think of it as an apartment building; multiple tenants live in the same building and share resources like water and electricity, but each has its own dedicated space (apartment), which the other people in the building cannot access.
Public cloud is perfect for start-ups and SMEs as it gives you all the functionality of cloud hosting without the considerable expense of a private cloud.
As resources are so easily scalable in the public cloud, it’s a solution that grows with your business, helping you to stay on track with predictable, monthly billing.
Private cloud servers provide a secure environment for a company’s shared resources; unlike public cloud servers, they only host one company’s data—everything from the CPU, RAM storage and network hardware dedicated to your business.
If the public cloud is like an apartment building, the private cloud would be like a house. Only the tenant has access to the building and all of the resources inside the home.
Private cloud is perfect for companies that handle sensitive data. Although the public cloud is secure, a dedicated cloud server offers extra peace of mind that your data cannot be accessed by anyone else.
For businesses where performance is a priority, you won’t want to rely on shared resources – the private cloud offers guaranteed availability ensuring your website and applications always perform.
Anything else …..
If you have any questions that we haven’t managed to answer in the blog, or if you want to talk it through in more detail, get in touch with a member of our team. Our experts are always happy to help you choose the right solution.