A Web Hosting service provides internet connectivity, colocation, and server space to allow clients – both individuals and organizations – to make their own website. The most basic web hosting service entails web page and small-scale file hosting. Offered free of charge by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs), files are uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web Interface.

While a single page is sufficient for personal web pages, a complex site requires a comprehensive package for database support, and application development platforms, such as PHP, Java, ColdFusion, Ruby on Rails, and ASP.NET. For managing the Web server and installing the script, the host may provide an interface or control panel for customers to set up scripts.

Uptime and Reliability of Hosting

Uptime is the percent of time the host is accessible in the Internet. 99.9% uptime (roughly 45 minutes of downtime a month) is the goal for most providers; however, some official uptime promises are not considered during maintenance and server restarts in the hosting environment. Most providers include uptime and accessibility in their own Service Level Agreement (SLA) and offer refunds or reduced costs when performance goals are not met.

Types of Hosting

• Free web hosting service: offered by companies with limited services, this is mostly advertisement-supported web hosting, and often limited compared to paid hosting.
• Shared web hosting service: when a website is placed on the same server as many other sites. Normally, all domains may share a common pool of server resources such as RAM and the CPU.
• Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers of individual domains may act as providers of hosting – depending upon who they are affiliated with. Their accounts vary drastically in size, with most offering services nearly identical to the shared hosting plan provider, and provide the technical support themselves.
• Virtual Dedicated Server: known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS), it divides server resources into virtual servers, without directly reflect the underlying hardware. Users may have root access to their own virtual space.
• Dedicated hosting service: although they may not own it, the user has full control over his own Web server (root access for Linux and administrator access for Windows). Another type is Self-Managed or Un-managed, which is usually the least expensive for Dedicated Plans. The user also has full administrative access to the server, but is responsible for its security and maintenance.
• Managed hosting service: users lease the server but do not have full control over it. However, they are allowed to manage their own data via FTP or other remote management tools so the provider may guarantee the quality of service by disallowing users to modify the server and potentially create configuration problems.
• Collocation web hosting service: is the most powerful and expensive type of hosting. It is similar to a dedicated web hosting service, however, the user owns the colo server and the hosting company provides the physical space and maintenance. In most cases, the colo provides only electrical, Internet access and storage facilities for the server, and little to no support for the machine.
• Cloud hosting: a new type of hosting system that provides powerful, scalable, and reliable service based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. It removes single point failures, allowing customers to pay for what they use instead of what they could use.
• Clustered hosting: has several servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. These servers are the perfect solution for high-availability dedicated or scalable web hosting.
• Grid hosting: a form of Distributed Hosting, Grid Hosting is when a server cluster functions like a grid and is composed of several nodes.
• Home server: usually a single machine in a private residence, a Home server is used to host one or more web sites from a common-grade broadband connection. This can be a purpose-built machine or old PC. Trying to block home servers, some ISPs do not allow incoming requests, and refuse to offer static IP addresses. A common way to have a reliable DNS hostname is by developing an account with a dynamic DNS service that will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.

Some specific types of hosting provided by web host service providers:

• One-click hosting
• File hosting service
• Blog hosting service
• Video hosting service
• Image hosting service
• Shopping cart software

It is important for clients to evaluate their requirements before choosing a hosting service. Web hosting is usually offered as part of a general Internet access plan and is occasionally provided free of charge by certain service providers. The majority of providers offer Linux-based hosting that provides broad range of different software.