Do you know of the biggest challenge an organization faces when they go digital?

Striking a balance!!!

Striking a balance between on-premises and off-premises computational systems, the business operations, the storage and the time to the cloud…

If it sounds complicated, let me assure it’s a bit more complicated to put into practice. But businesses do manage somehow. Now things have gotten easier thanks to the evolution potential of cloud technology.

Cloud computing has been intriguing IT people and corporate decision makers for years now because it can give that balance they have been seeking. Many of them realized its potential. Still many are reluctant to shift to the cloud because of security concerns. Having all the data in the cloud logically means they’ve been made accessible to almost every one right? On the contrary, no they aren’t. But that’s another story for another time.

I am here to introduce you to one of the latest evolutions of the cloud which impacts web hosting – The Hybrid Cloud.

A lot of companies that took the leap of faith by adopting cloud technology for their businesses are having a great time now. Still there’s some confusion regarding the necessity for various cloud solutions to meet a wide array of client needs.

We will consider the web hosting needs for now, which brings us to…
 

Hybrid Cloud Hosting

 
It’s a web hosting model that employs both public and private cloud services.

Let me put it this way.

You know how good dedicated servers are when it comes to security. You are the single tenant in a dedicated hosting server, which essentially means robust security systems and all the server resources for your website alone. Now combine that trait with the many benefits of public cloud. The result is Hybrid cloud hosting.

Still don’t get it?

Okay, let me cram it up in a nutshell.

Hybrid cloud hosting provides an absolute solution for an organization by coupling private and public cloud.

You might be thinking of the benefits now? How is it better than a dedicated server or a public cloud service? Well for starters, you don’t have to deal with any limitations of both.

Let’s look at the benefits to give a better idea.
 

Benefits of Hybrid cloud to give you a better idea

 
1. The right solution for the right job

Public cloud helps you deal with spiking traffic with a scalable service where you pay as you grow. There will be other tenants in the environment. Dedicated server is where you are the only tenant – a service ideal for a moderate control over traffic and for mission critical applications requiring advanced security.

With that said, let’s start thinking about the many use cases of a business. Different types of applications of a business will have different sets of requirements. While a public cloud can aid start-ups, handle web traffic spikes, and benefit test and development, it has limitations when it comes to security for mission critical applications.

Dedicated servers can give that but has limitations when it comes to handling applications with variable demand patterns.

Hybrid cloud combines the benefits of these two to provide the solution you need when you need it. Dedicated, public cloud and private cloud servers essentially function as a single platform providing a one size fits all solution. Technical barriers are not going to be a problem. Trade-offs are so insignificant that they are negligible.

End result – More focus on growing the business and reaching your business goals.

This same benefit brings us to the next one.

2. Enhanced business agility and flexibility

Public cloud aspect of the hybrid cloud solution aids you in times of heavy usage effectively reducing the likelihood of outages and minimizing downtimes. Host the applications in the development & testing phase temporarily till you can decide where to host them permanently.

When it comes to hosting, customers may expect a lot. They will want the services to be seamless. This is where the ‘self-service’ aspect of hybrid cloud comes into play. The customers will get the scalability and cost efficiency benefits of a public cloud (off-premises infrastructure) while housing their key applications on a private cloud. This way, the customers will have more control, allowing them to determine even the scalability of the service by themselves.

End result – Enhanced business agility and flexibility for their enterprises. Meanwhile hosting vendors won’t need a lot of technical staff, and can focus better on priority requests.

3. Improved security

Almost all of the security concerns a business will have can be addressed by combining both cloud and dedicated resources. When it comes to securing personal information of customers and their transactions, businesses used to rely on a dedicated hardware (because…robust security systems). Cloud wasn’t an option.

Now that hybrid cloud is here, they can have sensitive information totally secured on a dedicated server while still retaining the scalability and high performance of the cloud.

End result – Security benefits of dedicated server and scalability/performance benefits of the cloud combined will let them seamlessly conduct business and financial transactions in a secured, agile environment.
 

Conclusion

 
Everything you read till now is what hybrid cloud offers in the web hosting department. It’s a solution that gives power to customers while meeting the varying demands of businesses whenever necessary. You basically pay for what you use while having your business run in a high performance, scalable, secure and responsive environment. The self-service aspect is what makes it intriguing.

The internet, today, is seen as the key that unlocks a lucrative future for businesses. For this, the businesses need to have an identity in the digital realm, and that we refer to that ‘identity’ as websites. People access the internet and visit websites to get information on products and services they are interested to buy. But for the business, a website isn’t actually the beginning.

Before creating a website, they need to find a ‘home’ for it. That is what web hosting is all about. A good web hosting solution and an appealing website can take a business quite far in the digital world.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the web hosting server which houses a business’ website will have all the important files and information of the website in it as well. If someone else other than the business owner gets an unauthorized access to those data, it basically spells DOOM for the business. This is why business owners should be extra careful when it comes to securing their web hosting servers.

Here are a few things you can do to secure those servers from cyber-attacks and other threats.
 

1. Ask your web host if SFTP is available

 
FTP or File Transfer Protocol is basically what you use to upload files to the hosting server. It’s quite secure but still open to attacks. There will always be that security risk. So go for secure FTP or SFTP instead, as it’ll have an extra layer of protection.
 

2. Keep changing the password at regular intervals

 
This is by far the most obvious and the easiest way to minimize risks of an attack to your server. If you keep changing the password, hackers won’t have an easy time figuring it out.
 

3. Always keep cPanel updated

 
cPanel is a Linux-based control panel widely used in the web hosting industry. With every update, many issues from the previous versions are fixed while improving performance. The updates generally also address security concerns. So make sure you keep cPanel updated. You can enable Auto Update from the Configuration settings.
 

4. Firewall your cPanel servers

 
You probably know that Firewalls prevent unauthorized accesses. So use firewalls to fortify your cPanel and thwart attempts to get through it. You can find a lot of good Firewalls specifically designed to protect cPanel servers.
 

5. Activate cPHulk in cPanel

 
cPHulk is your best bet against brute force attacks. Brute force attack is basically a password identification technique where a persistent key search is executed which checks every possible character combinations to get the right password. Brute force attacks can give hackers access to even encrypted data.

To enable the defense mechanism, go to the Security Center tab in the Web Host Manager (WHM), and simply enable cPHulk.
 

6. Antivirus

 
The internet might bring you a lot of profitable business opportunities. But it’s also a medium for viruses. The server, by itself, will always be at a risk of virus infection, which is why it’s a good idea to have antivirus for your cPanel.
 

7. Rootkit scanners

 
A rootkit is a malicious program designed to infiltrate servers without getting detected. Most anti-virus applications have a difficult time detecting rootkits. So in addition to an antivirus program, you should also set up rootkit scanner, adding to the security.
 

8. Remove accounts that you don’t need anymore

 
Accounts in the web server are also not safe from hackers. These accounts give privileges to users so as to access appropriate data and use certain features. However, over time, a web server can have unused accounts that are not needed anymore. It’s wise to remove them so that they won’t exploited to get a backdoor access to the server.
 

9. Make sure unknown users cannot upload files to the server

 
This is a ‘Settings’ issue where the option in settings that allow unknown users to upload files to the server is enabled. You need to make sure that only authorized users are allowed to do this. To disable this option, go to WHM, proceed to Server Configuration and then to FTP Server Configuration.
 

10. Backups

 
It’s not just cyber-attacks that you need to worry about. It’s best to always prepare for a server crash as well. That’s why backups are necessary. Regularly back up your data so that in case there’s a server crash, you can get the system up and running in no time.
 

End-note

 
Security for your website and your web server is as important as marketing your business online. Proper security measures should be undertaken to secure sensitive data of the users visiting your website. Hopefully, the tips mentioned above should reduce some risks and add to the security of your web hosting server.

Stepping into the world of web hosting but with a mind full of questions? Worry not, for this blog is a concoction of just the right amounts of knowledge you would need to understand the fundamentals of web hosting and how things run behind the scene.

Let’s begin with the definition of web hosting.

In a nutshell, web hosting is the practice or business of providing storage space for websites thereby making them available to be viewed by internet users.

You store all the files and data required to run and operate the website in a web hosting server. Generally, from a business perspective, web hosting may also refer to the company which provides the hosting service – storing your website, providing internet connectivity, database etc.

So basically it’s a data center then?

No it isn’t. The hosting part is handled by a server of the hosting company. You are leasing a space in that server for your website. In some cases, you can have the whole server for your website alone. We’ll get into that later. So this server essentially holds important data of your website.

So doesn’t that mean the server should be protected?

Why, yes of course… which brings us to the answer to the first question – Data center. The server is housed at a secure facility to protect it from unauthorized accesses and other threats. This facility is what we call the data center.
 

Types of Web Hosting

 
Now that you have an idea what web hosting is, it’s time to introduce you to the various types of web hosting.

In general, there are 4 types.

• Shared hosting
• Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting
• Dedicated hosting
• Cloud hosting

Basically, all four serves the same purpose of storing websites but differs in the features. Each of the four will differ in the amount of control of the user over the website, the storage space for the website, the bandwidth, server performance and even reliability of the service.

Let’s get into the details.
 

Shared Hosting

 
Shared hosting is where your website is one of many websites hosted by a single server. It’s more like a building where tenants lease apartments. There’ll be many tenants in the building with their own space to live. Similarly, your website will have its own space in the server. The catch is that your website will have to share the server resources with the other websites.

It’s an entry level hosting solution, the least expensive of the four, and the ideal choice for small websites with a limited amount of traffic. The cons include the ‘bad neighbor effect’. This is when other websites in the server utilizes a lot of the server’s resources leaving your website with only a little to work with. This affects the website’s performance. You also don’t have access to the server. A shared environment generally won’t be able to handle higher traffic.
 

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

 
Virtual Private Server or VPS essentially means a virtual server which will be hosting a website. You are probably wondering how a virtual server can do this, because it’s well… a ‘virtual’ server.

Because, this virtual server is part of a physical server. So your website is technically hosted on that physical server but in a virtual partition. That virtual partition is what we generally refer to as virtual server, because it does resemble a dedicated server.

The hosting environment is secure, and you can also use your own copy of an operating system of your choice. The VPS also gives you a super user level access to this instance so that you can add and use programs that are compatible with that OS. This is an ideal option for those users who cannot invest in a dedicated server or have a mid-scale website with only a moderate amount of traffic.

The ability of VPS systems to handle traffic spikes can be limited. But you can upgrade the hosting package to acquire more features for your growing website. It costs a bit more than shared hosting, and considerably less than dedicated hosting.
 

Dedicated Server Hosting

 
Like its name suggested, dedicated server hosting service is when a full hosting solution completely dedicated to your website. Your site will be hosted on what we refer to as the dedicated server, and there will only be your website in the server. This means all of the server’s resources are at your website’s beck and call. You get more control over the server compared to the other types of hosting. Most dedicated hosting packages come with premium technical support and server performance.

However, this should make something else quite obvious. It affects your wallet. Dedicated hosting is the most expensive option out of the four types as it offers the best server performance, technical support and control. The price is of course justifiable. But this level of service is ideal only for big websites with a large amount of traffic.
 

Cloud Hosting

 
When it comes to high traffic and frequent traffic spikes, no other hosting is as good as cloud hosting. You’d have realized from its name that it is a cloud computing technology; and at its best. It’s also referred to as cluster server hosting or server-on-demand hosting.

It’s where multiple computers connected as a network (called a cloud) collaborates in operations, data transfer and storage thereby acting as a single super computer. So essentially, your website is hosted on multiple machines in the cloud. Now you know why spiking traffic isn’t an issue in cloud hosting.

Apart from its ability to handle high traffic, cloud hosting also isn’t confined to a single data center. The web hosting features like FTP, email services etc. are taken care of by different servers in the cloud. The point is, even if one server fails, your website will not be affected at all, as another server will take over. Another advantage is that the hosting solution is pay-per-use, meaning you will be charged only for what you use.

A dynamic, scalable, and robust solution cloud hosting is getting more popular each year with more users starting to realize the cloud’s potential. Add and remove resources on the go without compromising control and flexibility. The only con is that the reliability of a cloud solution depends on the solution provider. Some solutions may not give root access to change server settings despite having a high price tag.

That takes care of the hosting types. Now to address the most common confusion about web hosting.

Domain name and web hosting are sometimes confused to be the same

They aren’t.

Basically, a domain is the name of your website while a web host is the home of your website. The domain is more like the address to this home and not the home itself. Web host is the space where your website resides (in a server of course). Now that you understood the difference between domain name and web hosting, let’s explore a bit more about domain.

These are 3 fundamental things you should know about domain names:

• The name should be unique and relevant, and should relate to what your website does or have in it. (For example, if it’s a blog site, bloggersdeck.com is a good domain name)
• Purchase and register this domain
• Point the domain to your web hosting solution by changing the DNS

To know more about the significance of domains in the digital realm, point and tap here – domain registration
 

Conclusion

 
This is just a 101 guide to give you just the right amount of knowledge you need to find the right hosting for your website, or to give the hosting business a shot. Feel free to go through this one to know how to nail an ideal web hosting service. It’s sure to come in handy.

The general idea about blogging is that it’s easy to set up a blog, and it will be successful soon if one’s good at it. That’s an optimistic approach for sure but be prepared to face hardships is what I’d say to people with such an idea. Starting a blog is easy of course. But where and how you start are the most difficult part of the puzzle that is blogging.

Where to start?

From the web hosting service

How to start?

By choosing the right host…or by not making hosting mistakes that will let you make a bag full of regrets soon.

People don’t normally bother about the hosting aspect of their blogs, probably because it’s either too complicated or too boring. This makes it more likely for new bloggers to make mistakes with their hosting choices. And what would these mistakes get them? A negative impact on search engine rankings, another on their online authority over time, and on top of all this, waste their time and money.

Here is a list of common hosting mistakes bloggers make, and should avoid if they want their blog to be successful.
 

Going for a cheap or free hosting service

 
Yes, your budget influences your decision. Naturally, a cheap or free hosting service will get your attention. Besides, what could go wrong when you use free hosting for ‘just a blog’, right? To be honest, things could go wrong in so many ways if you aspire to become a professional blogger.

There are exceptions like Tumblr of course. But to become a professional blogger, using WordPress is your best bet. Figure out a good domain name, register it and install WordPress on it. You are all set.

That said, let me give you a few reasons that can give you second thoughts on availing a free hosting service.

Don’t expect to have control over everything – Yes. It’s a free blog. You don’t get to control every aspect of a service you just got for free from the internet. In most cases, you will only be leasing a portion of the hosting server. Do you like limited control over the hosting environment, the themes, settings and configurations? Yes? Be my guest. But expect issues to follow just when you almost start to make it big in blogging.

Scale it up the way you want it….not –  Eventually visitors will start coming from all directions to read your blogs, indicating that the time is right for you to scale up your blog. But the free service will stand in your way though. You won’t be able to scale up the blog the way you like it. You will be forced to do it the way the host wants it….mostly. Unacceptable for future pro bloggers.

Cold shoulder from Google – Legend has it that when a blog gets a cold shoulder from Google, the number of visitors they get decreases. Any expert SEO specialist will attest to the fact that Google don’t like ranking free domains in the search result pages.

Website performance issues – It’s a free service. But it doesn’t mean you are the only getting it for free. So while other website owners in the hosting server squeeze the resources, your website will be left broken. Slow loading speed of a website tend to annoy visitors. They don’t want to wait for a couple of minutes to read your blog while they can read a few others with that time.

In addition to all this, migrating to a paid service won’t be easy as well, especially if your link structure changes.
 

Going for a host without live support

 
You would by now that hosting is quite complicated. Because it’s complicated, errors in different shapes and sizes are likely to occur (not that they always will). If or when they do occur, you would feel more secure when you have the live support staff of your host about to answer your prayers. They can resolve the issues in a jiffy, even in the middle of the night.
 

Trusting advertisements with ‘unlimited’ in big letters

 
This trick’s become old. But it still works on new bloggers. Alright so the thing is there is no ‘unlimited’. It’s just a ruse to attract customers. If you can’t believe that hosting providers do this kind of things, just check the fine print of those hosts.

Most would probably make it apparent that there is still a limit. Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage and the likes are myths in the hosting industry. Once your website reaches a certain limit, you will start noticing something wrong with the services.

If all the sites accommodated by the ‘unlimited’ shared hosting server starts taking up a lot of bandwidth, your website will start slowing down to reduce the strain on the server. This is called throttling. In some cases, in addition to throttling, the host might even stop backup services if you exceed the limit of something that they claimed to be unlimited. Lack of SSH and support for multiple POP accounts are other things to watch out for.
 

Choosing a host without going through reviews first

 
Let’s get real here. This is an important decision that could affect your blogging career. Unfortunately, many new bloggers don’t think that way. For them, hosting is about getting some space for themselves in the internet. If the host you chose is bad at what they do, you will be the one suffering. On top of that, you will also be paying for that suffering.

Before choosing a host, visit their website and do some research. Because they are doing a business, they wouldn’t reveal any information that might discourage potential clients from buying their services. You can get in touch with one of their customers and enquire about the host’s services or rely on third-party reviewers to get their opinions.
 

Experimenting with the hosting package where your blog resides

 
A growing blog should have a house for itself i.e. it should have the hosting solution for itself. Many bloggers often try to experiment with other websites and blogs by using the same hosting account they use for their growing blog. That’s a bad idea, and downright bothersome when it ends up cluttered and crowded.

Blogs that are generating good traffic, and having a decent number of subscribers need to be kept secure, and that is achieved by keeping the blog on its own host. You can use another hosting account to house your experimental websites.
 

Selecting a hosting package that doesn’t feature daily/weekly backups

 
New bloggers tend to think that blogs are safe from hackers because they are not worthy enough as a profitable prey. They are wrong. Hackers can make do with all those sensitive information of the subscribers of your blog. Other than this, they don’t even think about the possibility of a critical technical error that can jeopardize their hard work.

Critical technical errors, getting hacked, corrupted database – These are just a few things that could ultimately lead to the demise of your blog. Though there is always a chance these can happen, you can still make sure that you recover in excellent condition. Just make sure to choose a hosting provider that performs daily (recommended) or weekly backups.

The point to note is that there is no foolproof path to building a successful blog without a good hosting solution to nurture it. Many of the mistakes mentioned above won’t be of concern if you are going for a good WordPress hosting solution. Before signing up for a hosting service, make sure you don’t repeat the mistakes countless others did. Learning from these mistakes kind of gives you a path that lets you grow your blog without hitches.

Name Servers…

It may sound familiar to people who own web hosting accounts. Normally it isn’t something they need to bother about, and web hosts generally don’t go into detail about name servers either.

So what’s so special about name servers then?

For starters, it’s because of these name servers that your website appear visible on the web. To be more specific, you need to ask how the browser takes you to a website when you type in the website address.

All will be explained. But first, let’s get into the basic details.
 

Where it all begins

 
It all begins when you buy a domain name for your online business. This name gives you an identity in the digital realm, a home for your website and a path for users who want to visit that website. Your web host can take care of domain name registration and name servers allocation.

Normally, you will be given two name servers referred to as ns1 and ns2, and it doesn’t take too long either.

For instance, ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com

The name servers can answer that question we discussed above… you know…about how the browser takes you to a website.

Let’s just assume the website is yours, in this case. So how does a browser take other visitors to your website? Name servers, of course.
 

And how does a Name Server work?

 
Every website on the internet has its own identity. We call it the IP address – basically a set of numbers by which the machine recognizes the website. You can remember the IP address of every website you visit…..if you are a genius that is. Normal humans remember a website by its domain name.

Warning: Memorizing IP addresses can drive you crazy

So how does the machine read the IP? That’s where DNS comes in. Standing for Domain Name System, the DNS is basically a phone directory for computers. It converts a domain name to its IP address so that the machine can understand.

So if your domain name is “www.thislinkdoesntwork.com”, the DNS transforms it to its machine-readable IP form like “21.234.111.52”. The DNS does this by using name servers.

Starting to get the idea, right?

So when someone types a domain name in the browser, the name server in the DNS sends the IP of that domain name to the browser. So basically, the name server is a server with DNS software in it.

However, in modern times, it’s mostly the term for those servers that web hosts own. They use it to manage domain names of their customers.

To summarize, this is what happens when you visit your website.

• You enter “www.thislinkdoesntworkaswell.com” into the browser
• The DNS finds the name servers for “www.thislinkdoesntworkaswell.com”
• It then retrieves your ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com
• The browser finds the IP address of “www.thislinkdoesntworkaswell.com” using name servers
• The browser then sends a request to that IP address, normally to the page you want your browser to show
• Your web host sends that page to your browser

The other uses of a Name Server

 
A few other things name servers do:

• Diverts traffic on your domain to a web server of a specific web host
• Makes websites visible on the internet
• Helps customers locate your business
• Safeguards data from unauthorized accesses
• Breaks domains into subdomains