Windows Hosting Is Great
Windows Hosting
Microsoft has developed its own operating system for servers as a special version of its Windows based pc, Windows Server 2003. It is a commercial product which requires the operator to purchase a license, which increases the price of operation for the best web hosting service
and usually results in higher hosting prices. Windows is designed to be user friendly, but it is generally considered to be less powerful and secure than UNIX for operating in a network environment. ASP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion are scripting languages which will only run on a Windows server, as will the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access database programs. These are popular for certain web programming applications, and if you are planning on using them to build your website, you will need to find a Windows host.
What are some of the terms I must know when I choose a web host?
Disk Space or Storage – Because your websites are a collection of files being offered on the web for viewing, they have to be stored somewhere for retrieval and take up space. Each web server has a finite amount of hard disk memory to divide up and offer to hosting customers. Typically that space is divided up by different package levels so that the more you pay, the more space you are allowed to store pictures, web pages, videos and whatever other files you like on the internet server’s hard drive. If your website gets bigger than the space you are given, you will have to purchase more disk space from the best web hosting sites.
Bandwidth or Data Transfer – Whenever you visit a website and view a page, you are transfering a copy of the files that make up that page over the internet from the web server to your computer. If the page you are viewing consists of an HTML file that is 3KB in size and three pictures of 47KB, 100KB and 250 KB, then you have just used 400KB of bandwidth or data transfer, because that is the total amount of data you just downloaded from the web server to view that page. Bandwidth is a commodity like disk space that the best webhost has to buy from its internet service provider, so it too is divided up and offered to the customers in specific amounts. Bandwidth amounts are usually measured in gigabytes (GB), because while only one copy of your files must be stored on the server, thousands or even millions of copies may be downloaded for viewing. If your website is viewed more times than the amount of bandwidth you are allowed can handle, your website may be turned off until the next billing period starts, or you may simply be billed for the excess amount used, depending on your host’s policies. You could purchase more bandwidth as your site’s traffic increases.
Uptime – In a perfect world, every web server would ready to go and offering your web pages to the world round the clock, 7 days a week forever. However, web servers are computers, and like any other computer, things happen to be fail, or they get old and out of date and require maintenance and repair. When a web host gives you a 99% uptime guarantee, they are saying that the web server will ready to go for 99% of the billing period. If they fail to meet this guarantee, most web hosts will refund a certain portion of your money with respect to the amount of excess downtime they experienced.



