Basics Of Web Servers | Self Hosted, Shared Hosted, Virtual Private, Dedicated Web Servers

Web Servers are one of the most fundamental aspect of how the internet works

and are the backbone of how Web Pages from all over the world containing varied amount of information

are served to those in search of such information.

In this Article, we will be taking a really high level overview of

• What Web Servers are
• Various Types of Web Servers
• Why do most, if not all, people who need Web Servers, Lease a Web Servers
• And Finally, A List of some well known Web Hosting and Cloud Hosting Service Providers

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

What are Web Servers | Basics Of internet

Technically or otherwise, Web Servers are just computers connected to the internet that contains some sort of information

that the Website Owner or an Author for the said website wants to present to the world

and Software to present and manipulate such information in various sorts of format like

• Text
• Images
• Videos
• Audio
• Graphs
• etc

Usually a Web Server has a Static IP Address which means that the IP Address of the Web Server will not change.

This Static IP Address is then Aliased using a Domain Name which the website owner will need to lease ( You Can’t Buy A Domain Name )

just like how they would lease the Web Server from a Web Hosting or a Cloud Hosting Service.

Though aliasing using a Domain Name is Technically not at all necessary but Practically it will be quite foolish to not have a Domain Name.

The easier a website owner makes for his visitors to remember his / her website the better

as no one is going to remember every websites Static IP Address.

With that explained, let’s move on to the various types of Web Servers available to you for Hosting your Websites.

Various Types Of Web Servers | Basics Of internet

There are various types of Web Servers available in the market based on the needs of the organization looking into it.

Which option works for you for will completely depend on yours / your organization’s

• Needs
• Technical Know-How & Capabilites
• and the Price that you or your organization is willing to pay,
  whether it be in the tender of Currency or Time Spend to make sure that everything is working as it should.

There are 4 Major ways in which most people and organizations deploy a Web Server,

• Self Hosted Web Servers
• Shared Hosted Web Servers
• VPS – Virtual Private Web Servers
• Dedicated Web Servers

For most people and organizations, Shared Hosting will be the most affordable option

and also the one that takes the least technical know-how and capabilities.

The Concept of Shared Hosted Web Servers is literally as the name suggest,

You are basically sharing your servers resources like RAM, Storage, etc with other People

Your don’t have a dedicated allocation that is reserved for you.

In Case of VPS i.e. Virtual Private Server, you are still sharing the hardware with other people, but better than Shared Hosted Web Servers,

you have a dedicated allocation of parts of RAM, Storage, etc on the Hosting Providers Hardware based on the Hosting Plan that you have chosen

This allocation is done through the process of Virtualization which allows partitioning of resources even though there is only one piece of hardware.

After that comes Dedicated Web Hosting, where you are actually leasing hardware and this leased hardware will only be available to you.

There is no Virtualization being done from the Hosting Providers end, it is literally RAM, Storage, Processor being completely Dedicated to you.

And Finally we have Self Hosted Web Servers which as you might have already guessed are completely bought, managed and maintained by you.

You will need to buy every single piece of hardware, software and other services that you will need to host a website.

With that done you should have the understanding of the basic difference between each of these 4 ways of deploying a Web Servers

So, let’s move on to the very important question of why a lot of people / organization prefer to lease Web Servers then to host it themselves.

Why Do Most People Who Need Web Servers, Lease A Web Servers

Well you might have already guessed Self Hosting a Web Server at a large scale is not a simple task

and even if you are not Self Hosting a Web Server, just managing a Dedicated or a VPS Web Server can be a pain for most people.

Whether it be Self Hosted, Dedicated or a Virtual Private Server,

You will at the least need to be fluent with Linux as most servers use a Linux Distro as Operating System

and you will also need to have intermediate to advance level of understanding of Networking, Information Security and Web Development.

On top of that you will need to have the knowledge of how to operate and maintain various softwares that you will require to host the web sites from your Web Server.

So Finally, though Self Hosted Web Servers gives you an immense amount of freedom in what you can do with them,

the sheer requirement of knowledge and effort in monitoring & maintaining everything

and the high up front cost for getting the hardware and internet setup required,

leads to an culmination of many issues that most people / organization would rather leave to the professionals in the field

as even a minor misconfiguration can lead to a bad situation and legal ramifications for the operators of such web application.

List of some prominent Web Hosting and Cloud Hosting Service Providers

The list below only contains relatively easy to use solutions that will work even for non-technical people

and is in no particular order.

To know more about Cloud Hosting read this article on – Cloud Hosting Vs Traditional Web Hosting

Conclusion

Well Folks! That does it for this article.

I hope that you learned something and found the information that you were in search of.

May you have a successful career, whatever it may be.

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