Types Of Hosting And How To Choose The Right Hosting For Your Online Business
Hosting is the service of storing web pages on a server connected to the Internet.
Hosting includes many types, such as Shared Hosting, VPS virtual servers and Dedicated Server physical servers.
Most often misunderstand Hosting as the Shared Hosting type that a lot of people use because it is a cheap hosting type – easy to manage and you usually get support from a shared hosting service provider.
Not everyone can understand all the related terms and especially how to choose which hosting is suitable for the needs of a particular website.
Table of contents
The Popular Hosting Types
When buying hosting – in fact, you rent the server’s hardware resources (Servers)…depending on how many resources you rent, people will offer appropriate hosting types.
1/ Dedicated Server
This is the most powerful type of hosting, you will rent an entire physical server. And the service provider will provide a place to place the server, and an internet connection so that you can use this server to install everything from operating systems, applications, websites…
Of course, the Dedicated Server is the most expensive compared to other types of hosting. But in return, you will be able to fully use the server’s hardware and secure the data on it.
2/ Virtual Private Server (VPS)
A VPS virtual server is actually a part of the resources of a physical server. Using hardware virtualization technology, people will install virtual machines on physical servers and rent them out to you to store and install applications, websites, etc. on the virtual machine.
Based on the level of hardware virtualization, there are 2 types of VPS worth noting:
3/ OpenVZ VPS – VPS Using OpenVZ Virtualization Technology
OpenVZ is a “software” virtualization technology, VPS packages on a physical server will use the same Linux kernel, but in a separate state. VPS plans also share memory and actual performance will be affected back and forth.
Because OpenVZ technology is less expensive, the price is usually cheaper than KVM virtualized VPS, and OpenVZ technology is only used for Linux kernel operating system.
For example, AZDIGI’s Cloud VPS is currently OpenVZ – with a server using cloud computing technology to optimize the performance of VPS packages.
The famous and good quality OpenVZ VPS services are Ramnode, GreenCloudVPS or a cheap VPS service that is trusted by many people, HostUS.
4/ KVM VPS – VPS Uses Virtualization Technology KVM
KVM is a new virtualization technology that allows virtualization from hardware…
Although KVM VPS packages run on the same physical server, they use separate resources, not shared with each other.
Because it uses its own kernel, KVM VPS can run both Linux and Windows. KVM technology requires powerful physical servers, so the price will be much higher than OpenVZ.
A similar type of virtualized VPS is XEN, sometimes you will see some VPS providers use this term.
Famous high-quality cheap VPS services – trusted by Vietnamese and international users for a long time are Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, OVH and Dediserve.
Shared Hosting or Cheap Hosting is actually a small part of VPS or Dedicated Server, people will install operating systems (Linux or Windows) and pre-install applications on it (such as Web Server, MySQL, PHP…) for you to upload and run websites.
Shared Hosting is usually divided into 2 types based on the operating system installed on the server:
Linux Hosting
This is a type of shared hosting that uses the Linux kernel operating system. Because the Linux kernel operating system is fast, light and secure, and completely free, most Shared Hosting services are Linux Hosting.
Because Linux kernel operating systems operate based on the command-line interface (CLI), Shared Hosting services often pre-install the cPanel application for you to easily install and manage on the graphical interface.
Some cheap Shared Hosting services also use another Control Panel, DA – DirectAdmin, which takes up fewer resources when operating but is difficult to use for inexperienced people.
For premium Shared Hosting services – Managed Hosting like Kinsta, SiteGround or WordPress VIP, they use specially developed Control Panels to maximize the performance and speed of Hosting.
Windows Hosting
As the name suggests, this shared hosting installs Windows Server operating system!
Because the Windows operating system is heavy and resource-intensive, Windows Hosting is only popularly used to run applications that work on Windows but cannot be installed on Linux such as websites, applications using .NET programming language, and databases. MS SQL Server, MS Access data…
Windows Hosting uses the famous Plesk Control Panel for management, similar to cPanel on Linux.
Some Other Classifications
In addition to the classification by server resources, operating systems, based on the actual needs in the market, there are some other terms for Hosting:
Managed VPS – Premium VPS
It is also a regular VPS, but the management, installation and support of software technical issues will be taken care of by the support team of the VPS provider.
This type of service is much more expensive than Unmanaged VPS and it is suitable for those who have the need to use VPS but do not have the time or knowledge about installing, managing and using VPS.
Unmanaged VPS – Cheap VPS
It is a regular VPS and you only get support for registrations, payments, or when the server has problems.
The issues of installing, customizing, and managing VPS will be done by yourself, not supported (although each provider has quite complete documentation for you to do yourself).
This type of VPS is only a little more expensive than shared hosting but much more powerful than shared hosting… it’s great for those with VPS knowledge.
Reseller Hosting
This type of Shared Hosting has great resources. The purpose is so that you can split up many smaller shared hosting packages to resell (Reselling) to customers and make money for the difference.
A Reseller Hosting package can usually be divided into 10 or less shared hosting packages (refer to HawkHost).
WordPress Hosting – Optimized for WordPress
WordPress boomed so strongly (accounting for more than 30% of websites worldwide) that providing pre-installed, optimized Shared Hosting packages for WordPress source code became the new business strategy of providers.
This is actually Linux Hosting installed and customized to best support the WordPress source code (refer to DreamHost)
eCommerce Hosting – Hosting for Web Sales
This term refers to Shared Hosting packages that are optimized to run eCommerce websites and applications. Hosting is usually strong and secure to ensure that eCommerce source codes (like Magento) work smoothly and keep information safe. customer news.
SEO Hosting – Hosting for SEO Campaign
Also Shared Hosting but optimized for satellite site systems, can run many websites and each website will have a separate IP to serve SEO.
The use of private IP is a strategic method in SEO GreyHat – called PBN – Private Blog Network – literally building a satellite site system to place backlinks of the main site (money site).
Using a private IP helps to bypass Search Engines like Google, Bing to avoid being detected intentionally building unnatural backlinks (same IP -> all related satellite sites – owned by the same person).
Cloud Server – Cloud Hosting
The term Cloud refers to Cloud Computing technology.
This is the most modern and booming technology in the global computing field.
Cloud Server (VPS | Shared Hosting) is a type of Virtual Server that applies Cloud Computing technology to manage and distribute server resources, it has outstanding advances compared to traditional resource management and distribution. system.
Most of the major hosting providers in the world have applied all or part of Cloud Computing technology and some less reputable providers also use the term Cloud to advertise their hosting services, so Don’t let this term haunt you when choosing hosting.
How To Choose The Most Suitable Hosting Service Provider
When choosing to buy Hosting, it is necessary to consider the factors affecting the performance and stability of Hosting, make sure not to choose Hosting that is too weak or too redundant for your needs.
Factors to consider when buying Hosting
1/ How Many Server Resources Do Your Websites Need?
To determine the right server resources for your website, you must answer the following questions:
- What source code do you use, heavy or light to consider the number of CPU and RAM of the hosting.
- The number of visitors to your website is more or less at a time to choose the amount of RAM.
- Do you store a lot of data to choose the right hard drive (Storage).
- Your website’s monthly download/upload data is high or low to choose the bandwidth level (Bandwidth).
- How many Websites do you need to run on Hosting, using Windows or Linux.
2/ Where Do Most Of The Visitors To Your Website Come From?
Every website has a priority audience, for example, most of the visitors are in the US or Europe… You have to specify to choose the Hosting locations (Datacenters – Where the server is located) to meet the download speed that area.
3/ Do You Have Basic Knowledge About Using Hosting?
Most Hosting services will only support you with general problems, but when installing and managing directly, you have to learn or hire someone to help.
If you don’t have time and don’t have much expertise, consider Shared Hosting because it’s easy to use or VPS has good technical support, or hire services like Managed Hosting/VPS (usually quite expensive). much)
4/ Is The Data On Your Website Highly Secure?
Nothing is absolutely safe when putting data on hosting, if your data is of the type that cannot be exposed, it is best to buy a separate server and store it where you want…
If it is not so serious, you should choose to rent physical servers from reputable providers because if it is not for national security reasons or involved in big cases, the providers will have no reasons to touch the hard drive of the server you rent.
5/ How Much Does Your Hosting Cost?
Cost is an important thing when buying Hosting because most of them run websites for business purposes and make money, so the amount for each person’s monthly Hosting is very different.
Because with the same quality of service, if you look closely, there will be places with much cheaper prices than others, and sometimes you can sacrifice some factors (such as slow support, fewer resources). a little bit, less famous brand…) to be able to choose a good quality and affordable Hosting service.
From the above factors, we will decide to choose the right Hosting package for our needs.