What’s A Domain Name and Web Hosting ?

Domain Name and Web Hosting

What’s A Domain Name When you register a domain, it gives you sole ownership and rights to the name of your site. No one else in the market has the access to the actual name of that particular domain besides you.However, just because you have a domain does not mean that you are ready to serve your website to the world. To put up and operate a website, you will need a domain name, and a proper-configured web server (hosting).  (1) a domain name is like your house address; and, (2) a domain name can be registered only with a domain registrar.

For Example:

We like to use the “Car / Garage / DMV” analogy.
Your domain is like the license plate for your car. With it, you can be identified and located on the world wide web.
You can’t get a license plate for your car until you register it, nor can you have a domain until you register it, either.

A domain registrar is like the DMV of the internet. You use a registrar to register your domain for a period of time – 1, 2, 5 or more years.
Once you have registered your domain, you need a place to park it – a “garage”. A web host is where you do that.
Now that you have registered your domain, and have a place to host it, you need to set up your website – your “car” – for all the world to see.

Website – Car
Registrar – DMV
Domain Registration – Registration
Domain – License Plate
Web Host – Garage

What’s A Web Hosting

A web hosting normally refers to the web server (big computer) that stores lots of data files).

A web hosting providers normally rent out web servers and network connection to the end-users or the resellers. For most cases, the hosting providers will be the parties handling most server maintenance work (such as backup, root configuration, maintenance, disaster recoveries, etc); but for certain cases, the end users will need to get everything cover by themselves.

Types of Hosting

Smaller Hosting Services

The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web “as is” or with minimal processing. Many Internet service providers
(ISPs) offer this service free to subscribers. Individuals and
organizations may also obtain Web page hosting from alternative service
providers.

Free web hosting service

is offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes
supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid
hosting.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient for personal web pages.
Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored,
or inexpensive. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense
depending upon the size and type of the site.

Larger hosting services

Many large companies that are not Internet service providers need to
be permanently connected to the web to send email, files, etc. to other
sites. The company may use the computer as a website host to provide
details of their goods and services and facilities for online orders.

A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java EE, Perl/Plack, PHP or Ruby on Rails). These facilities allow customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. Also, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is typically used for websites that wish to keep the data transmitted more secure.

• Shared web hosting service:one’s website is placed on the same server as many other sites, rangingfrom a few sites to hundreds of websites. Typically, all domains may

  share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU.

  The features available with this type of service can be quite basic and

  not flexible in terms of software and updates. Resellers often sell

  shared web hosting and web companies often have reseller accounts to

  provide hosting for clients.

• Reseller web hosting:allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers couldfunction, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed

  types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a

  reseller. Resellers’ accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may

  have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server. Many

  resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider’s shared

  hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.

• Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server(VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resourcescan be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying

  hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to

  many VPSs relationship, however virtualisation may be done for a number

  of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between

  servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space.

  Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the

  server (unmanaged server) or the VPS provider may provide server admin

  tasks for the customer (managed server).

• Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (user has root accessfor Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the usertypically does not own the server. One type of dedicated hosting is

  self-managed or unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for

  dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the server,

  which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance

  of his own dedicated server.

• Managed hosting service:the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full controlover it (user is denied root access for Linux/administrator access for

  Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or

  other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so

  that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the

  user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems.

  The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the

  client.

• Colocation web hosting service:similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns thecolo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server

  takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and

  expensive type of web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation

  provider may provide little to no support directly for their client’s

  machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage

  facilities for the server.

• In most cases for colo, the client would havehis own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardwareupgrades or changes. Formerly, many colocation providers would accept

  any system configuration for hosting, even ones housed in desktop-style minitower cases, but most hosts now require rack mount enclosures and standard system configurations.

• Cloud hosting:is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful,scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers

  and utility billing. A cloud hosted website may be more reliable than

  alternatives since other computers in the cloud can compensate when a

  single piece of hardware goes down. Also, local power disruptions or

  even natural disasters are less problematic for cloud hosted sites, as

  cloud hosting is decentralized.

• Cloud hosting also allows providers tocharge users only for resources consumed by the user, rather than a flatfee for the amount the user expects they will use, or a fixed cost

  upfront hardware investment. Alternatively, the lack of centralization

  may give users less control on where their data is located which could

  be a problem for users with data security or privacy concerns.

• Clustered hosting:
  having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource

utilization. Clustered servers are a perfect solution for

high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting

solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting

capability. (Usually web hosts use clustered hosting for their shared

hosting plans, as there are multiple benefits to the mass managing of

clients).

• Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.

• Home server:usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used tohost one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband

  connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old

  PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing

  incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user’s connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses.

• A common way to attain a reliable DNS host name is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.