Web Hosting Reviews and Tips

So, just what is a game server? Before answering that question, it’s important to understand how online gaming works. Many popular games today, first person shooters in particular, support online play. Such Internet-based play expands the game to whole new levels, and provides an experience not possible in single player environments. Players ranging in numbers from half a dozen to as many as sixty-four can all join what’s called a game server and play on the same map (game level) at the same time. Gaming servers work much like web servers, but instead of hosting websites, host game matches that others can join. Though the game itself is not loaded from the server, important game information such as player scores and rules are. Think of them in terms of a soccer stadium. The stadium provides a scoreboard and a field to play on, and the players come to the stadium to play.

While it is possible for a gamer to host a server on his computer, such servers are only suitable for a small number of players due to the slow speed of their connections. Game servers of any decent size are hosted by what are known as server providers in large data centers. With high-speed connection speeds and high-end server hardware, these providers can host servers of any size. The most popular games hosted these days include the Battlefield series, Counter Strike: Source, the Call of Duty games, the Medal of Honor series, and Unreal Tournament. Most providers offer free support, the ability to change the hosted game on the fly, free voice servers for oral communication, and web hosting. Prices for gaming servers vary greatly from provider to the provider and game to game, but the average is around $2 per player. People who run game servers sometimes pay for them out of their own pockets, but often times a group of gamers will form what is called a clan and share the cost of the server. Once a server is setup, anyone can play on a server for free, though some servers are private and require a password to join.

They make it possible for game lovers worldwide to get together and play their favorite games in an online environment, and have created a whole new market in the gaming world and have changed the way people view gaming. As technology increases, it will be interesting to see how the game server market changes.

After designing of website next important thing is to get it hosted on the internet. The task is not at easy as there are so many companies offering various types of web hosting packages like shared web hosting, dedicated web hosting, managed web hosting etc. Now the problem is which one to use?

In general it is considered a good idea to go for shared web hosting if the user is in a small business and wants to save cost. However before finalizing the deal it is good to know what is shared web hosting service and what are the merits and demerits of shared web hosting.

Defining shared hosting:

If extremely high performance and high bandwidth are not the points in question, then shared web hosting service can be a most convenient and economic way of hosting web sites.. As name implies, in case of shared web hosting service, the web server that hosts the web pages is shared by several other websites. Talking about number of websites on a shared hosting server, they can be in thousands. Now due to the fact that just one server is fulfilling the requirements of many other websites, the plus point is they can offer cheap prices for their server.

As there are so many websites hosted on a single web server, still there is no pint of worry for the user as the web hosting providers will not compromise on any kind of security and performance issues in case of shared hosting servers. Not only that, shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and look after around the clock by IT professionals, so as to minimize server downtimes.

Shared hosting servers run on UNIX or other multi-user operating system and each website hosted on the web server is provided a separate account in the operating system. These websites hosted on shared servers are provided unique shared IP addresses and are provided with a fix amount of web resources.

The following are some of the merits and demerits of shared web hosting:

Merits:

1. Cost effective: Due to the fact that many websites are hosted on a single web server, web hosting providers provide economic shared web hosting services. Generally, the cost is as low as $5-10 per month for shared web hosting services. Now-a-days due to cut throat competition in web hosting industry, one can find several web hosting companies offering huge web space and bandwidth with as high as 1000 MB disk space and 40 GB bandwidth.

2. Feasible: Due to the fact that shared hosting web servers are operated, monitored and look after around the clock by IT professionals, who are experts in their respective field, one can concentrate more effectively on his/her web business and the problem of downtime and maintenance will not bother him/her any more.

3. Utility options: In case of shared web hosting, though web resources are shared, utility options are provided by the hosting company so that user can manage his/her website using control panel or similar tools. User is having an option to upload files, modify /remove web pages, add database, check web statistic etc. Not only that, user is also provided facility to create domain name specific e-mails accounts.

4. Efficient: Now-a-days shared web hosting service usually comes with web space and bandwidth that are more than sufficient for small business websites. Efficiency lies in the fact, that in addition to above, one can add more resources and can even overrun the web space or bandwidth usage.

Demerits:

1. Problem with response time: As the web server is shared, websites in the shared web hosting have to face problem of slower server response time as compared to dedicate server hosting.

2. Problem of Reliability: In case of shared web hosting, problem of reliability remains as usually web hosting providers may take care of the security and performance of the shared server but it is also possible that some of websites hosted on the shared server run a nasty program or script or over-utilize the resources, resulting in bringing down the web server. Thus due to fault of one all websites have to suffer downtimes and inaccessibility in case of shared web hosting.

3. Problems related to sharing: As discussed above also, due to fault of one all users have to face the problem for example if there is any one “bad” website in shared web server, due to it all websites on the server can be banned altogether by ISP or search engine due to shared IP address. However it is worth to note that one can always pay extra to get a dedicated IP address to avoid the above problem.

4. Problems related to Security: As many websites shared one server, problem of security always remains in case of shared web hosting as it is quite easy to hack one’s sensitive datas by another on the same server.

Thus in conclusion it can be said that before deciding to deal with shared web hosting, one should consider all the merits and demerits of shared web hosting as highlighted above. One should not forget the success of his/her business depends upon his/her website which in turn depends upon good host provider.