Ecommerce Web Hosting

To start with, an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each of the four numbers can be from 0 to 255, an example would be 192.168.0.5 . The IP address identifies a sender or receiver of information across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more than one is required) and sends it to the IP address of the server to which you wish to communicate. The recipient can see the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can respond by sending another message using the IP address it received. Each machine on the Internet is assigned a unique IP Address for the purposes of communication.

One term that is familiar to anyone who has their own website, is the phrase “IP Address”. But what is an IP address, and how does it affect your website? And what is the difference between a static and a shared IP Address?

Based on this definition, we can establish that an IP Address is analogous to one’s home address. If someone is to send you mail, they put your address on the front of the envelope, and the mailman delivers it right to your door. IP Addresses work precisely the same way.

There are typically two types of IP Address that can be used in web hosting, Shared or Static. While there is no difference in the IP Address itself, there are some configuration changes on the servers they rest on.

Back to our home address analogy, you might consider a static IP Address to be a stand-alone home. There is only one house who gets mail at that address. You might then consider a shared IP Address to be an apartment building. Many different households get their mail at the same location, and in turn it is distributed to the correct location.

How does this affect you? In most cases, it wont. A static IP Address may be required if you need to have some sort of special access to your website, like SSL or Anonymous FTP. If you have no special requirements, then a shared IP will work under most conditions.

A static IP Address is when a website has their very own IP Address. This means that whether you type in your URL or the IP address of your website, both will bring you to the same page.

A shared IP Address is when multiple websites all share the same IP Address. In this case, the web server does a little bit of extra work when it receives your web request, and passes you to the correct website. Typing in the IP Address will not bring you to your desired website, under most conditions. Why do we need this? I’m sure you noticed that, based on the above definition of an IP Address, that there is a finite number of IP Addresses available before we run out completely. If every single website on the internet had it’s own IP Address, there would be no room for any new ones.

Technorati Tags: IP, IP Address, Static, Shared

Webhost Panel

Bankoi WebHost Panel is a multi-server management and control system for Windows 2000 and 2003 based web hosts.
Bankoi WebHost Panel is a multi-server management and control system for Windows 2000 and 2003 based web hosts. The system is designed for any size web hosting companies, datacenters and ISPs, which require a solid platform that automates all of the day-to-day tasks that would otherwise require highly skilled man power, and large work forces

VHCS Virtual Hosting Control System

VHCS delivers a complete hosting automation appliance by offering significant security, total-cost-of-ownership, and performance advantages over competing commercial solutions.

With VHCS Pro you can configure your server and applications, create user with domains with a few point-and-click operations that take less than a minute. There is no limit to the number of resellers, users and domains that can be created.At the core of VHCS Pro are 3 easy-to-use, Web-based control panels. VHCS provides graphic user interfaces for the administrators, resellers and users.
VHCS is…
Free: VHCS is Free Software and dedicated to giving users, administrators and developers the ultimate level of control over their linux web servers, and their data.
Usable: VHCS understands that usability is about creating software that is easy for everyone to use, not about piling on features.
Supported: Beyond the worldwide VHCS Community, VHCS is supported by the leading companies in Linux and Unix.
Accessible: Free Software is about enabling software freedom for everyone, including users, administrators and developers with disabilities. VHCS Accessibility framework is the result of several years of effort, and makes VHCS the most accessible control panel for any Linux platform.
International: VHCS is used, developed and supported in dozens of languages, and we strive to ensure that every piece of VHCS software can be translated into all languages

Hosting Controller Windows control panel/hosting automation software

Hosting Controller is a complete array of Web hosting automation tools for the Windows Server family platform. It is the only multilingual software package you need to put your Web hosting business on autopilot.

The HC has its own complete billing solution which is tightly integrated within Control Panel & does all the invoicing & billing.

AlternC Opensource Hosting control panel

AlternC is a set of user-friendly mass hosting management software. It is easy to install and based on open-source software only. AlternC is GPL Licensed.
AlternC includes an automatic installation and configuration system, and a web-based control panel to manage users’ accounts and web services (e.g. domains, emails, ftp accounts, statistics…)
AlternC is based on the Debian GNU/Linux system (’Sarge’ version), and it requires other softwares such as Apache, Postfix, Mailman …
It also contains a documented API, so you can customize your web panel quickly and easily.
AlternC was initially written in French. However, the debian package includes an English version. The translation in any language is possible. Volunteers are welcome ! (See the internationalization page). The documentation is only available in French (so far).

AlternC has been created by the system administrators of Lautre Net, members of Lautre Net and is currently developped by some organizations such as Eitic, Koumbit and Metaconsult.

Web-cp

web-cp is a full-featured, open source web hosting control panel written in PHP and released under the GPL. It consists of 4 control panels: personal, domain, reseller, and server. The personal control panel allows users to update their personal information, change their password and set their spam control settings. The domain control panel allows domain owners to add new users, aliases, subdomains, domain pointers and databases. The resellers control panel allows resellers to add or modify their domain accounts. The server control panel allows the server administrator to add or modify resellers, edit VirtualHost and DNS templates, restart services and monitor server usage. Scripting, shell access, SSI, databases, mail, domains, etc are all controlled from a top-down approach. Web-CP.net is a continuation of the development of web://cp with it’s ultimate goal being a 1.0 release. web-cp runs on almost every version of Unix/Linux/BSD and only Apache, MySQL and PHP are required.

HostFlow

HOSTFLOW BUSINESS SUITE is intended for growing hosting providers, ISPs and telecommunications providers. HostFlow is ideal to consolidate multiple customer bases onto a unified platform post-acquisition, significantly reducing service management overheads and operating costs.

Directadmin

Ease of use. DirectAdmin is the easiest to use control panel, period.
Speed. DirectAdmin is programmed to be the fastest running control panel available.
Stability. DirectAdmin avoids downtime by automatically recovering from crashes.
Support. We offer lightning-fast support by phone, e-mail, forum, and live online chat.

Ravencore RavenCore Hosting Control Panel

The RavenCore Project is an Open Source Hosting Control Panel aimed toward making the most robust, secure, and reliable hosting software available.
Mission statement: “To provide the world with a free, comparable alternative to expensive hosting software.”

Easy to use - Even the installation of RavenCore is a no-brainer. The control interface is simple to use, easy to understand, and only gives options for the components you want installed so you are not looking at things you will never use.
Portable - RavenCore is designed to run on any Linux system without any configuration changes, as it detects what distribution you are using, and automatically configures everything for you. It also is designed to be ran with any web browser, even text browsers such as lynx.
Secure - Designed completely around security, RavenCore employs several fail safe mechanisms and hack-attempt detection features to make sure your server stays safe.
Free - Licensed under the GPL and distributed freely to all. Although you do not have to pay a dime to use RavenCore, we would gladly accept donations.

Technorati Tags: web hosting panels, control panels

When choosing a web host provider, one first has to determine if they wish to use a paid or free hosting service. There are plenty of both available. Before even examining the differences between paid or free hosting, it should be understood that if you have plans for your web site to be anything more than a personal “About Me” or “My Hobby” site to share with your friends–a free hosting service should be out of the question.

In short, providing free hosting services isn’t a very sustainable business model and the majority of those who attempt it fail, often disappearing overnight and leaving all of their users stuck with no web sites, and worse yet, no access to the files they had on their free hosting accounts.

Reliable web hosting depends upon quality hardware along with trained customer care and support technicians. Obviously, a hosting provider who offers their services to users for free–even if they include some small advertising on their customer’s pages to earn a minimal return for the service–isn’t going to be able to provide top of the line hardware or hire the highest trained and most experienced personnel; it simply won’t be within their operating budget.

If you want dependable and stable hosting, you have to use a paid service. The good news is that the costs for paid hosting are extremely affordable so there really is no reason to risk sacrificing the quality or security of your web site with free service providers.

With paid hosting you generally receive very generous disk space and transfer allowances, the ability to use your own domain name, email and FTP accounts, support for multiple scripting languages and third-party applications like forum boards, blogging software, content management systems, advanced eCommerce and shopping cart solutions, comprehensive visitor statistics and even web site design tools to work with.

In addition, with paid hosting you will usually also have access to qualified online and phone support 24/7.

Everyone has their own budget to work from, and it basically comes down to a risk versus rewards decision. With free hosting you risk the reliability of the service for your visitors and that your provider may go out of business without warning at any time. In making your decision you will have to weigh those risks against the rewards of reliability and advanced features that come with using a paid service for your web site.

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How do the free web hosts make money?

The free website hosts often make money in other ways, such as putting banners, popups, or popunders ads on your free webpages. Some free web hosting companies do not put ads on your site, but require you as the webmaster to click on banners in their control panel or signup process, or just display banners in the file manager in hopes you will click them. Some lure visitors with free hosting in hopes you will upgrade and pay for advanced features. A few send you occasional emails with ads, or may even sell your email address. A new method that is becoming popular is requiring a certain number of “quality” forum posting, usually as a means of getting free content for them and thereby being able to display more ads to their website visitors.

Are free web hosts reliable?

Generally no, although there are a few exceptions. If the free host is making money from banner ads or other revenue sources directly from the free hosting service, then they likely will stay in business, provided someone doesn’t abuse their web hosting server with spam, hacking, etc., as often happens to new free web hosting companies with liberal signup policies. If the freehost accepts just anyone, especially with an automated instant activation and it offers features such as PHP or CGI, then some users invariably try to find ways to abuse it, which can cause the free server to have a lot of downtime or the free web server to be slow. It is best if you choose a very selective free hoster which only accepts quality sites (assuming you have one).

Uses for free webspace

Free web hosting is not recommended for businesses unless you can get domain hosting from an ad-free host that is very selective. Other reasons for using free hosting websites would be to learn the basics of website hosting, have a personal website with pictures of your family or whatever, a doorway page to another web site of yours, or to try scripts you have developed on different web hosting environments.

Hints for finding the best free web hosting service

Generally it is best not to choose a free hosting package with more features than you need, and also check to see if the company somehow receives revenue from the free hosting itself to keep it in business. As already mentioned, it is best to try to get accepted to a more selective free host if possible. Look at other sites hosted there to see what kind of ads are on your site, and the server speed (keep in mind newer hosts will be faster at first). Read the Terms of Service (TOS) and host features to make sure it has enough bandwidth for your site, large webspace and file size limit, and any scripting options you might need. Read free webspace reviews and ratings by other users on free hosting directories. If you don’t have your own domain name, you might want to use a free URL forwarding service so you can change your site’s host if needed.

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Hi,

Ipwalk.com has become the latest company to offer an uptime monitoring service. The ”Monitoring service” is an uptime analysis software that provides you an information about the downtime periods your website may experience from time to time.

There are two different types of website uptime monitoring - “Remotely hosted” and “In-House”.

Remotely hosted monitors are third party software agents used to measure your uptime and network availability. “In-House” monitoring provides information on server’s status and processes it runs.

If you run a business website that must be up most of the time you need to be sure your web hosting provider is very reliable one or to monitor your site uptime using independent (third party) uptime monitoring service. The site monitors are software programs, owned by someone, that visit periodically your domain name and website. The monitoring software usually measures not just your “http” uptime but also whether all the programs your website uses are available and work properly.

I suggest you to sign up with reliable hosting company instead of using a cheap one and to use third party monitoring service that will report long periods of downtime. You may check netcraft.com where the you can find information on web hosts that produced best uptime.

A comprehensive article about website uptime monitoring is available at whreviews.com/monitoring-uptime.htm.

Thanks.