Dedicated Server | Dedicated Server Hosting | Web Hosting UK

Web Server Load balancing is a way of distributing the throughput or processing requirements evenly among multiple web servers in a clustered environment. Web Server Load balancing allows a computer system to easily handle large fluctuations in volume to web sites or databases. Without web server load balancing, one web server could be under utilized while at the same time another web server was being swamped by requests.

Web Server Load Balancing — Methods

Web Server Load balancing can be accomplished with software, hardware, or a combination of both. There are trade-offs to consider in how to implement web server load balancing, so it is best done by someone with web server load balancing expertise.

Web Server Load Balancing — Benefits

While web server load balancing improves the throughput and efficiency of a computer system, it does not improve reliability. Because of this, it is typical to combine failover capabilities with load balancing to improve the robustness of the system.

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Web Server hosting is where a server has only one customer on it and he controls all aspects of the server. This provides much greater flexibility than a virtual server, but the burden of administration must be handled by the customer or outsourced to a web server hosting provider.

Web Server Hosting — Control

You get much greater control with web server hosting as you do not share the web server with anyone else. No longer will the volume of another site on the server impact you. Web server hosting also allows you to add any application onto the server that you require, so you are no longer limited to just the standard email and other basic applications found on a virtual server.

Web Server Hosting — Reliability

Web Server hosting provides much greater reliability than virtual hosting. You no longer are exposed to the business practices of other companies sharing a virtual server. Plus you can ensure that security and upgrades are implemented since you control server administration with web server hosting.

Web Server Hosting — Support

Engineering support is also vastly improved with web server hosting. You will still need to select a qualified provider that has good technical skills, but with dedicated hosting the support engineer to customer ratio is much more attractive.

At some point your business requirements may out grow web server hosting on a single server and cause you to upgrade to clustered hosting, but web server hosting is a logical first step for most businesses. Web server hosting allows you to control how your server is used which improves speed, reliability and scalability.

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SQL Server Hosting

SQL server hosting is where a server that stores and manages databases via Structured Query Language (SQL) is located off site at a hosting company. The hosting company provides access to the Internet and leases the use of the SQL server.

Most often, the phrase “SQL server” refers to Microsoft’s version of SQL which is called either MS SQL or SQL Server. However, some people do use this term when referring to other versions of SQL such as MySQL or PostgreSQL.

SQL Server Hosting Support

The Internet has substantially increased the demand for SQL server hosting as more companies look to make their databases available to customers, vendors and employees. This also requires that the SQL server be available 24/7 so the choice of SQL server hosting provider is critical as well. Unfortunately trying to find a SQL server hosting provider that is qualified is difficult.

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Linux Dedicated Server Administration basics:

UNIX-Like operating systems

Set up authentication & account management before connecting to the network

• All accounts should have strong passwords.
• Administrative or root accounts should have even stronger passwords or passphrases.
• Only use the administrator or root account when absolutely necessary.
• Assign a unique administrative account and password to each individual to better distinguish activities between multiple administrators.
• Use different passwords for administrator or root and general user accounts.
• Force new users to change their passwords when they first login.
• Regularly review the access list or log for users, especially of root and groups. Look for unexpected rights or changes.
• Limit the use of the same password across dissimilar systems (use of the same password on a less secure system may endanger a more secure system).
• Disable or delete old or unused accounts that belong to people who no longer need access.
• Be sure to have a plan and process for securing administrator and root passwords that allows appropriate access to the server in case of illness, turnover, or unforeseen circumstances.

Install and patch the operating system before connecting to the network

• When installing third party software on the dedicated server, consider using the ports or package trees available with each operating system. This ensures that the software is compiled with all available patches on the computer that it will be installed upon.
• See the list below this section for more information on location of patches for various Unix-Like operating systems.

Run minimum number of services

• Turn off unnecessary services.
• Turn off linuxconf and IRC.
• Disable telentd service, if SSH is installed. Otherwise restrict access to telnetd service.
• For all computers except for email hubs, make sure that the sendmail daemons are not running in daemon mode.

Install filters or firewall

• Install and configure a packet filtering utility such as TCP wrappers, Ipchains, Iptables or a software or hardware firewall to limit access to the computer. The rules should reflect the acceptable use and security policies that have been defined for the computer.

• Set up and review logs

• Install security related software

• Maintain backups and operational continuity

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Dedicated Server Web Hosting Glossary

Apache - A free open source web server software.

ASP - Active Server Pages, is a server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. With ASP, you can combine HTML pages, script commands, and COM components to create interactive Web pages and powerful Web-based applications that are easy to develop and modify.

ASP.Net - A free technology that allows anyone to create dynamic web sites. It is the successor to ASP.

Bandwidth - The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.

CentOS - A free enterprise class computing platform.

CGI - Common Gateway Interface, information server that is to respond to requests by returning output.

Data Transfer - The stream of bits or bytes which are sent from one location to another - the total amount of outbound traffic from a website.

Dedicated IP - This is when your site is the only one on the internet using a unique IP number. Often said to be a necessity if you have a business oriented website.

Disk Space - The amount of hard drive space on the server that is accessible to your websites.

DNS - Domain Name System, is a system which “translates” number based IP-addresses into text based network addresses. Instead of writing e.g. 145.97.39.155 in your browser when you want to visit this site

Domain name - Identifies a computer and appears as a component of a websites URL.

Domain registrar - Is a company accredited the authority to register Internet domain names.

E-mail - Electronic mail, Messages sent from one person to another via computer.

Firewall - Software protecting the computer from the Internet. Denying or permitting passage, through a computer, based on a set of rules.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol, is one of the earliest and most popular file transfer protocols on the Internet.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language, is a markup language for web pages. HTML is written in the form of tags and it denotes certain text as headings as links, headings, paragraphs and so on.

IP Address - Internet Protocol address, a unique address which computers uses to identify and communicate with each other.

Keyword Domain Name - Naming a site after its domain name. This could be considered as spam since such a domain usually has all target keywords embedded in the domain name.

MUA - Mail User Agent, computer program used to manage e-mail.

MySQL - Free open space database software.

PHP - Recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. A computer scripting language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. PHP is often compared with ASP.

Private Domain Registration - Keeps spammers and scammers away. Personal information, such as name, home address and e-mail keeps out of the public.

Private Name Server - Private name servers are ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com.

RedHat - Company dedicated to free software.

Ruby on Rails - Application which aims to boost the speed and ease with which database-driven web sites can be produced.

Shared IP - Hundreds of websites sharing one server and one IP address. Makes it easier for web hosts to manage and maintain servers.

Site Builder - An application made to help you create, manage and promote your website.

SMX - Server Macro Expansion, text-embedded macro processing language for producing dynamic content.

Snap Names - Auctions for expired and deleting domain names.

SSL - Secure Sockets Layer encrypts data when it travels from your computer to your hosting server, making e-commerce safe. With a shared SSL you use your web hosting company’s SSL certificate - no costs. Private SSL means that you purchase your own SSL certificate.

Subdomain - A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain.

TLD - Top-level domain, is the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in this domain www.webhostingsearch.com, the TLD is com.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator

Web Hosting - Service allowing individuals and organizations to provide their own website.

Web Mail - E-mail that is accessed via a web browser.

Web Server - A computer program, or computer, that supplies web pages and delivers them on request to the web browsers client computers.

Video Hosting - Web hosting service which allows its visitors to upload videos on a website/forum.

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