Virtual hosting: what is it, types, differences from a dedicated server. What is a hosting server? What is hosting

Greetings beginner webmasters and site owners! Today we will talk about what hosting is and why you need it. Find out what types are and how they work.

Part 2.
Part 3

Hosting - what is it?

To make it easier for you to understand, let's go back to the material, where I explained, using the example of streets, why it is needed. If we continue this analogy with real life, then the domain name (site address) indicates the place where the site is located, that is, a specific apartment or a separate house.

A website is nothing more than a collection of files. These files consist of information that the user sees when they visit it.

In order to store these files somewhere, people have come up with servers (computers with special software) that work and are online 24 hours a day to ensure the sites are continuously working. The service that provides access to storing your files on these servers is called “Hosting”.

Hosting (English. hosting - to receive guests) is a service that provides space on a server that is constantly on the Internet for hosting and storing website files.

It turns out that hosting, or as it is also called “hosting provider”, helps us to host site data on our servers.

You've probably seen scenes like this in movies.

This is how the “data center” looks like, where these same servers are located. Each hosting has its own or rented Data center, which can be located in any city and country.

Servers come with different characteristics, depending on the capacity and amount of disk space for the files placed on it. Let's take a look at what types there are.

Hosting types

There are 4 types of such services.

Shared hosting

Virtual hosting (English shared hosting) is the most common type. For the reason that it is the cheapest and for simple or young websites it is the best option.

On a physical server in the data center, you are allocated only a certain amount of disk space and computing power, depending on the tariff purchased from the host.

Virtual Private Server

Virtual Dedicated Server (Virtual Private Server "VPS" or Virtual Dedicated Server "VDS") - inside the physical server, special software emulates a full-fledged dedicated server. It has everything you need to full control and settings functionality, but still uses part of the physical server.

Most suitable for professional sites with complex computing processes and heavy load. When your site grows and lacks the features that shared hosting provides, you can easily switch to VPS.

A dedicated server is a physical server with the required configuration specifications. We can assume that a separate computer with full functionality was installed for your site, and not a part of the space was allocated, as in the previous two options.

Such servers are usually used by large IT projects.

Collocation

Collocation (collocation) is a service when you place your equipment to create a server in the data center of a hosting provider. It can be said that you pay for the rent of the premises and the maintenance of the equipment.

As I already mentioned, the cost will depend on the chosen tariff, which takes into account not only the capacity of the rented space or equipment, but also additional services.

It can range from 100 rubles a month to several hundred thousand rubles. If you are a beginner and want to make a simple website for your company, blog, online store or a simple cloud service, then for the first time you will have enough virtual.

You can choose the cheapest rate.

For example, on Beget.com, where I post my young projects, the cost is only 115 rubles per month. Paying less than $100 a year. There are also cheaper options.

You can also see the rates and choose the best one here:

Beget.com (1 month free)

Hosting is a service for placing files of your site or any other content on remote server permanently connected to the internet.

Understanding what is hosting in simple terms. From the lesson on, we remember that the World Wide Web (Internet) is formed by millions of Internet web servers located around the world. The web server is computer program, which runs on a computer connected to the network and uses the HTTP protocol for data transfer.

This web server hosts the files of various sites that we view through our browser. Each of you can organize such a web server at home, but since it is expensive, troublesome and requires certain knowledge, not everyone will be able to do it. For such people, there are special companies that provide their web servers for rent, as well as the necessary technical assistance and advice. The service itself is called virtual hosting or web hosting, and the companies that provide such a service are called hosting providers or hosters.

A hoster is a company that provides hosting services.

A web server is like an apartment for a website. But, as in life, in order to buy such an apartment so that it is your property, you need to pay a large amount of money and pay significant monthly maintenance costs for this apartment.

When we order hosting, we kind of rent an apartment for our site from other people. Much less money is required for rent, but since this is rent, money for this must be paid regularly. Usually once a month. But if you want to get a significant discount, then you need to pay immediately for the year.

Accordingly, a domain is like an address or registration for your site. Hosting, that is, an apartment for the site, is available, but without an address, no one will know where your site lives and no one will be able to visit you.

Hosting services can be divided into:

Virtual Hosting (or just Hosting) (~100 - 300 rubles per month);
Virtual dedicated server (or VPS, aka VDS) (~ 300 - 7,000 rubles per month);
Rent a dedicated server (~ 4,000 - 25,000 rubles per month).

To understand the difference between these services, let's look at the real estate example again.

Shared hosting It's like a small apartment. Single or double. This apartment will be enough for a small number of people. It has everything you need for life. Shared hosting is designed for sites with low traffic. This is ideal for beginners who are creating their first websites. But as your project's traffic increases, you will need to move to a larger apartment, otherwise you won't be able to accommodate everyone. In such cases, when the hosting is not designed for the load on your project, the site starts to freeze and slow down, its pages take a long time to open. as a result, visitors, without waiting, leave your site for your competitors.
Virtual Private Server- it's like a big, spacious country house, where several large families and their friends will fit. This is an advanced option for those who have sites with medium and high traffic. VPS or VDS will cope with high attendance and processing a large number of requests, which will allow your site to quickly open the pages that users need and not freeze at the most inopportune moment.
Dedicated server- it's like a huge hotel with its own territory on the seashore. This hotel has a large number of spacious rooms, all the necessary staff, beautiful and well-groomed territory. This is the choice of professionals who earn serious money on the Internet and want their sites to open quickly, regardless of how many people come in the next minute, be it a hundred thousand people or a million.

At this point, readers may have a question: “What kind of traffic are different types of hosting services designed for”? Is it possible to determine what is needed in a particular case according to the attendance criteria: hosting or a dedicated server?

The fact is that the level of attendance is not the only criterion for choosing the necessary service. A lot depends on your site, what scripts are there, how many queries they generate to your site's database, how many email messages you process, and many other parameters.

Beginners don't need to worry about this. Start with a simple shared hosting, and then, as your project grows and develops, track its work, watch how quickly your site pages open, how often it freezes and is not available, and based on this, you can make further decisions about moving to more productive and costly tariffs.

I'll tell you how it was for me in this matter. Now for my projects I use a dedicated server, that is, the most expensive service among hosting services, but I pay not much for it, about 40 euros per month. Since my sites in total generate about 200,000 rubles for me. net profit, then we can say that 40 euros is ridiculous money.

I started in 2009 with regular shared hosting, for which I paid something around 60-80 rubles per month. During the first few years, my site on this hosting worked perfectly. Attendance was small and virtual hosting for 60-80 rubles. in a month, he did a pretty good job of it.

Toward the end of the second year, when the traffic to my site became noticeably higher (about 1000 unique visitors per day), problems began to be observed. My site was freezing more and more often, pages were opening for a long time, and technical support the hosting company could not give me an intelligible answer about the reasons for what was happening.

Later I realized that this is a standard practice of many hosting providers. When you become their client, at first everything works fine, and then they start to “raise” you in price, forcing you to switch to more expensive ones. tariff plans.

I don't mind if this happens. But I've always disliked how it's done. If I were given some normal statistics that would reflect how the load of my site affects the performance of shared hosting and how these statistics will change with the transition to more expensive tariff plans, then I would agree to it without hesitation.

Every time, technical support hinted to me that my site requires additional resources which the current tariff plan cannot cope with. And that's it. Well, it's kind of irrelevant.

As a result, for several years of working on the Internet, I tried somewhere around 5 different hosting providers, tried various shared hosting tariffs, VPS / VDS and eventually moved to a separate virtual server where only my sites are located.

Based on my experience, I recommend that beginners start with some inexpensive but proven hosting provider and, as the traffic and profitability of your project increase, gradually move to more productive services (first VPS, and then a separate dedicated server).

One of the best combinations of price and quality,
Long time on the market positive feedback,
24/7 technical support. Many beginners work late at night on their sites, so it is very convenient to contact support at any time if you have any questions.
Starter package for 98 rubles. includes the content of as many as 3 sites, which many other hosts do not have. Usually for such a price they give 1, maximum 2 sites. You will also have the opportunity to experiment with different sites within the same tariff plan.
Backup necessary to restore the site in case of any unforeseen situations.
Automatic installation popular CMS systems such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal.
15 day trial period.

In the video below, I will show you how to register with this host. And then, we will deploy a site on the hosting on the popular WordPress CMS system, select a design theme for it, and make the necessary basic settings, as a result of which you will have a beautiful site that can be configured both for a business card page with a portfolio for, and for a full-fledged information site or blog, like mine. And yes, the blog “My Ruble” runs on CMS WordPress.

In the meantime, let's register with a hosting provider:

If for some reason you want to become a client of some other hosting company, then I will give you some additional recommendations on what to look for when choosing a hosting.

1) Form of ownership of the company. Find the section About the company on the hoster's website and see if this company has a legal entity registered: CJSC, OJSC or the most common LLC (Limited Liability Company) or individual entrepreneurship.

Why is it important to check the Form of Ownership? The fact is that it is not difficult to open a hosting company today. And often this is done according to the reselling model, that is, resale. This is done simply, we find a large, most often European or American hosting provider, buy a powerful dedicated server from him and then attract customers, whom we place "as if" on our own servers.

In Europe, by the way, you can buy a dedicated server cheaply. I rent a server from the German company Hetzner (http://ru.hetzner.com/) for only 40 euros per month. At such a price in Russian hosting companies, you are unlikely to be able to buy a dedicated server. The maximum is a Virtual Dedicated Server.

How is a virtual dedicated server (VDS) different from a separate dedicated server (OVD)?

Only your project is placed on the ATS. In fact, this is a separate computer with Internet access presented completely just for you. A VDS can host multiple projects. This is the same separate computer, but each client has the ability to customize the server settings for themselves.

What then is the difference between ordinary virtual hosting and VDS and ATS? Regular hosting is also hosted on a separate server, but there may already be dozens or even hundreds of sites. To make it clearer, let me show you a hypothetical example:

Virtual hosting - the number of clients on the server from 10 to 100.
GVA - number of clients on the server from 2 to 10.
ATS - number of clients on the server 1.

Naturally, all this greatly affects the performance of the server. And the server, I repeat, is the same computer as the one on which you are now reading this material. Have you noticed that if you open a lot of different programs, then it starts to slow down and freeze? If not, experiment at your leisure.

The same thing happens with the web server. The fewer sites it has, the faster it works.

But back to the form of ownership. So, I gave the examples listed above so that you understand that even an ordinary student can offer hosting services today by renting a dedicated server and converting it to virtual hosting.

But an ordinary student is unlikely to open an individual entrepreneur or LLC. Only a serious entrepreneur will do this. And if the hosting company does not have legal entity, then this is the first sign that the service may not be of high quality.

2) The presence of an office. This point follows on from the previous one. If the hoster is an ordinary student, then most likely he will work from home. And if this is a serious organization, then it will definitely have an office open, and its address will be indicated in the Contacts section.

You can check this through the Whoishistory.ru service. If we see that the domain of the hosting company was registered no more than 3 years ago, then you should seriously think about whether it is worth contacting such a young company. Many market monsters are already 10-15 years old. For example, the Sprinthost company registered its domain in 2005, about which there is a corresponding entry on the Whoishistory website.

4) Round the clock support. If a company has round-the-clock support, then this indicates that it has many customers and has resources for employees who will solve problems around the clock. technical problems clients.

True, you need to be careful here, since small companies can also declare such a service, which in fact will have one incompetent student in support who will not be able to help you with complex issues.

This can be checked before registering with the company. For several days at a later time, try contacting the support of the hosting company you are interested in. If you notice a long wait or the fact that the same person constantly answers you, then this may indicate that one person is sitting in support and difficulties may arise in the future.

Now we will try to figure it out: hosting - what is it and why is it used. If you are interested in a similar question, then you probably know the Internet.

Let's start with the definition

If you briefly try to answer the question "hosting - what is it", then you can

to say that this is a service that sites need to provide themselves with round-the-clock rotation on the World Wide Web.

We are talking about the services of placing a certain resource on - this is a software and hardware solution (combination of a computer and a special system or program), the main task of which can be considered the processing and storage of information.

In addition, thanks to this decision many other computers access the data that fills the site. Based on the foregoing, let's try to give another important definition: server hosting is a service for placing servers, as well as equipment on a special site. This is a set of measures to ensure the stable operation of the server.

Website hosting

The next reasonable question is: "Website hosting - what is it, and how is it different from the previous solution?" Let's start with the main advantage. The popularity and demand for website hosting is much higher. The reason is that the last solution is optimal for any resources placed in world wide web, and server hosting is reasonable only in the case of large sites.

There are varieties

These virtual parts have all the features of regular hosting. It is interesting that virtual hostings located nearby can work under the control of different operating systems: Windows, Unix. Each own server has one or more dedicated IP addresses, it is guaranteed

minimal resources, as well as fast reboot. As you can see, VPS differs significantly from traditional solutions. It guarantees stable operation and low cost of services.

Who needs it?

Let's see who and for what purposes may need such a service. The need for a VPS arises if the client wants to manage the operation of the servers himself. Most often, such a need appears in people who have a personal online store. VPS is also needed for those who want to use non-traditional software or custom configurations.

As for administrators whose websites require a huge amount of resources from the server, VPS is best solution, since many hosters refuse to host such a resource. Before becoming the owner of a virtual own hosting, you need to decide on a number of conditions. It is necessary that the owner has certain knowledge, including information about the operation of operating systems. You need to carefully study the information about the hosting that you are going to purchase.

Remember, the set of functional services in various VPS solutions can seriously

differ. You need to find out how many dedicated IP addresses you will receive, whether you will be able to make updates, whether limits will be set on individual server parameters.

Simply put, in order to use the new service, you must have a set of specific knowledge. However, people who understand such nuances have already figured out everything and made the indicated decision.

Is it hard to be a host?

Let's recap. We have already answered the question: "Virtual hosting - what is it?" It is about the place where the site is located in the Internet space. Services of this kind can be divided into several types: dedicated server, VDS, VPS, shared hosting. Oddly enough, the main difference between the services of different companies here (as is often the case) is the price.

In order to make a decision in favor of a particular company, you need to reasonably study the reviews about it. The lack of feedback most often indicates that the company is a newcomer. On the other hand, the presence of only positive reviews is alarming and does not always indicate the quality of services. An important component is

24/7 support: it allows users to seek advice by phone or Email and solve any issues right now. The company must have high-quality modern equipment and provide a data recovery system.

The key to the success of the company is the availability of a personal data center, which is equipped with appropriate equipment and meets all quality standards. Let's look at the technical options for implementing various hosting technologies.

Let's start with a solution that involves renting dedicated servers and hosting all services on them. This approach is typical, since it does not require huge costs.

A more complex solution involves moving the databases to a dedicated server, thus facilitating the processing of content and mail. The most complex system can be called the separation of the main services on different separate physical servers, which do not interfere with each other during operation. Each of the above systems has its own advantages and disadvantages.

If everything is hosted in a single server, then this is convenient for administration and control, however, on the other hand, it is also a significant drawback. If the server suddenly starts receiving a lot of requests, then an unpleasant incident can occur. The essence of the problem is that a lot of system resources will be required, and it may not withstand it.

We hope given material will help you understand this difficult topic.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The word "host" has two very close in sound (and in a sense in meaning) counterparts: Hosts and hosting. Today we will speak about host(without the Latin s at the end).

However, if you were interested in the question about that, then you can read about it by clicking on the link provided. About what hosting is and what it is eaten with, we will also talk about it in the near future.

So what is Host? In order not to fill your head with “smart” words, I’ll say it in a simple way. In the general sense host is a network node(a physical unit of computer equipment connected to a network). What network? Any working on the principle of client-server. What does it mean? Let's figure it out.

What is Host on the Internet and its relationship with hosting?

Let's start out of order, shall we? First, let's figure out why is this concept often confused with hosting? Well, because it works on the principle of client-server. In this scheme, the clients are the browsers of users accessing the sites (for example, your browser is the client), and the servers (hosts) are the computers where these sites are located.

So, sites are usually not hosted in the apartments of their owners, but on those that are rented out by the so-called hosting provider (in other words, a hoster, for example, 2Domains). And this server location is called hosting, and the server where the site is hosted is nothing but the host.

Translated from English, the word Host means the owner (receiving guests, i.e. clients). So, my server, where the site is hosted, is the host (host), and your browser is the client (guest visiting it). The browser sends requests to the server to display pages, and it sends them back to it.

Well, and all this badyaga (location of servers) called hosting(and how else to call the compact placement of thousands of hosts containing Internet sites). Is the connection clear? If so, then I'll powder your brains a little more. The server (host) in our scheme is not at all physical computer(although it is also a server, oh how!) - it's the same as a browser - software. In the client-server mode, two programs communicate with each other (a browser and a server program, for example, Apache).

In this regard, hosts on the Internet are most often virtual. The fact is that giving a separate physical computer for each site is very fat (expensive - few people will pull it). Therefore, the physical server is divided into dozens and even hundreds of virtual (programmatically created) hosts, on which the sites are located. Moreover, many sites can be hosted on one Host. Well, are you confused? I did my best.

What is a Host on a local network?

In general, the word host is very vague (vague). This is not a clear concept, but a fragment of a phrase. The fact is that the name of the protocol by which the network is built must be added to the word host.

However, few people do this, and most often this word means a communication node in a TCP / IP network. What is this network? Well, this is the usual LAN that you “raise” at home in order to provide Internet access to all computers and gadgets available in the apartment.

So, any knot like this local network called a host. Moreover, these can be both physical devices - computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, game consoles, TVs, etc., and virtual ones, i.e. software.

In fact, this is not true, because host is the owner, i.e. server, not client, but it just so happened. In addition, this concept refers to the software, not the "hardware" level. But such an idea has a place to be (people tend to make mistakes, including in large numbers) and this should be taken into account. For example, you will come across such a concept as hosts (visitors with different IP addresses, i.e. unique visitors).

How is Host different from Hosts?

Hosts is a locally located (on the user's computer - see) file with a list of hosts he needs. More precisely, this is not just a list, but a table of correspondence between the computer name (host) and its IP address.

In a normal local home network computer names (domain names) are usually not assigned (IP is enough), but on the Internet, when visiting sites, the user does not enter the IP address of the site in the address bar of the browser, but enters its name (for example, https: // site).

When the Internet was still young and small (?), such local lists were quite enough and it was convenient. Now there are millions of sites on the network and the Hosts file will be of such a size that it may not fit on your computer. Therefore now instead of it use and with all tables.

Your browser turns to the nearest DNS server with a question, what IP does the site have, and after receiving the answer successfully addresses this host (server) already by IP. Although, by tradition, the browser still pre-refers to the local hosts file for this information, but, as a rule, does not find it there and takes the address from DNS servers(or from the cache, i.e. from previously stored correspondences between IP and site name).

So here it is. Everything is connected, yet different. And you say...

Good luck to you! See you soon on the blog pages site

How does website hosting work?

Each site consists of files (.html .php .css, etc.) and all of them are stored on the server of the hosting provider. Therefore, when a user enters the address of your site into the browser and wants to see it, at that moment the files will be launched on the server and, depending on what code is written in them, the user will see one or another design and functionality of the site. But all the text content of the site is stored in special file- MySQL database and loaded from it. This file has the .sql extension and is also stored on the hosting provider's server.

Virtual hosting (shared)

The server on which the site files are stored is actually the same computer. It has a processor (CPU), RAM(RAM) and HDD(HDD or SSD). But providing a whole server to run just one simple site (which does not use a lot of resources) is very expensive. Therefore, the hosting provider hosts several sites on one powerful server at once, including those from different owners. All of them simultaneously use the processor and memory. This type of hosting is called Shared hosting, Shared hosting or simply Hosting (). It is the most popular and widespread, because. is the cheapest. But it has one minus: if your "neighbor" on the server started to overload it (the server) too much, then your site will start to slow down, or it will stop loading altogether. Hosting providers of course limit the number of sites that can be hosted, databases and disk space. And they make tariff plans based on this. Those. the more sites you host and the more disk space they take up, the more you will have to pay. But still, problems on Shared hosting can occur, and if your site is very visited, then it needs a lot more resources.

Virtual server (VPS/VDS)

Therefore, hosters came up with another type of hosting - Virtual Server (Virtual Dedicated Server, VPS, VDS, Virtual Private Server, Virtual Dedicated Server). With this type of hosting, sites from different owners remain on the server, but a certain amount of resources is allocated for each of them (CPU power, amount of RAM memory and disk space). As a result, no matter what your neighbor does with the server, it will not affect your sites in any way. This type of hosting is more expensive, but it allows you to host as many sites and databases as you like, the main thing is that they fit within the limits of server resources (CPU, RAM and disk space).

Dedicated server

If this is not enough, and your project is growing very fast and requires full control over the server. Then the provider will offer you to single-handedly use all the resources of the server, without "neighbors". It will be more expensive, but you will get more resources and most importantly - full control over the settings. This type of hosting is called Dedicated server. It's quite expensive.