I need experts to tell me about web hosting!!! Urgent

[gredodenda]

I'm trying to find a paid web hosting service, but I do not understand their terms at all. please someone explain it to me.

Shared hosting
Dedicated hosting
application hosting

Dedicated server
Virtual Hosting


I know this is a lot to ask, but this is very important for me and I need to know very soon. Thank you for all the inputs.

PS. I'm looking for the church web hosting, so I need your advise. Mainly the web site will be used to put pictures and text.

 

[nukefarmer]

With dedicated hosting your website is the only one on a server (dedicated server) so you get max performance.
With virtual hosting you share a server with a lot of other customers (sometimes hundreds others, or even more).
Virtual hosting is cheaper and usually not a problem for low traffic sites.

 

[osmo]

gredodenda-

Be sure to mention that it is for a church. Some of the ISP's in my area provide free/or reduced fee services for churches, schools, and other similar organizations.
Good Luck!

Osmo.

 

[gredodenda]

Thank you for inputs. Can anyone explain to me more?

 

[Poof]

A good friend of mine is an ISP and provides hosting and domain registration. Usually the ISP will give you a fixed amount of space on a server depending on what package you sign up for and can even host a domain for you. If you opt for the church having its own domain, then you can usually register that domain (and pay the fee for it) with the ISP and they will give you a set of IPs (again, depending on the package) that you can use for your domain. They usually run a DNS and will maintain it with your registered domain. At that point, you can put up a web site with your registered domain.

Once you have a domain (or choose to use theirs as part of a subdomain), then you're all set to configure your stuff. They will setup a secure account to your space so that you can get in and configure what you need.

I think alot of the current ISPs used to get services through someone else and then decided that they needed to do their own thing - ie., contract for their own pipe (eg., T1) and hardware. Depending on the ISP, some allow the dedicated solution where you can provide your own equipment and just lease bandwidth from them.

There are alot of help sites and FAQs out there on hosting, etc. that you might want to check out. It's really no big deal but you might want to research it a bit to make sure the ISP is reliable.

 

[mindless]

I second the research part. I work for an ISP and alot of our customers are resllers, meaning the have servers with us and they provide hosting for their customers. Now my point is that alot of the resellers cram as many sites on their servers as possible and they tend to crash alot, it doesn't matter what OS its running if its overloaded its going to crash. Im not saying all resellers do that, but alot (of ours anyway) do, however their prices are generally cheaper. Also when considering one it would be a good idea to ask for references (if none are listed on the site), if they refuse to provide any forget them. If you have any questions feel free to email or pm me and Ill help as best I can.