The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce). They are commonly used by larger companies to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company.
An Internet hosting service is a service that runs Internet servers, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content to the Internet. There are various levels of service and various kinds of services offered.
A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting providers offer a combined variety of services. Web hosting services also offer e-mail hosting service, for example. DNS hosting service is usually bundled with domain name registration.
Web hosting technology has been causing some controversy lately as Web.com claims that it holds patent rights to some common hosting technologies, including the use of a web-based control panel to manage the hosting service.
Generic, yet rather powerful, kinds of Internet hosting provide a server where the clients can run anything they want (including web servers and other servers) and have Internet connections with good upstream bandwidth.
Types of hosting
There are many kind of Web Hosting Service, we discuss about three kind of Hosting Services
1.Email Hosting
2.DNS Hosting
3.Game Server Hosting
Many large companies who are not internet service providers also need a computer permanently connected to the web so they can send email, files, etc. to other sites. They may also use the computer as a website host so they can provide details of their goods and services to anyone interested. Additionally these people may decide to place online orders.
- Free web hosting service: offered by different companies with limited services, sometimes supported by advertisements, and often limited when compared to paid hosting.
- Shared web hosting service: one's website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite extensive. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.
- Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a reseller. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a collocated server. Many resellers provide a nearly identical service to their provider's shared hosting plan and provide the technical support themselves.
- Virtual Dedicated Server: also known as a Virtual Private Server (VPS), divides server resources into virtual servers, where resources can be allocated in a way that does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. VPS will often be allocated resources based on a one server to many VPSs relationship, however virtualization may be done for a number of reasons, including the ability to move a VPS container between servers. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. Customers are sometimes responsible for patching and maintaining the server.
- Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.
- Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.
- Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of web hosting service. In most cases, the collocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes.
- Cloud Hosting: is a new type of hosting platform that allows customers powerful, scalable and reliable hosting based on clustered load-balanced servers and utility billing. Removing single-point of failures and allowing customers to pay for only what they use versus what they could use.
- Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization. Clustered Servers are a perfect solution for high-availability dedicated hosting, or creating a scalable web hosting solution. A cluster may separate web serving from database hosting capability.
- Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.
- Home server: usually a single machine placed in a private residence can be used to host one or more web sites from a usually consumer-grade broadband connection. These can be purpose-built machines or more commonly old PCs. Some ISPs actively attempt to block home servers by disallowing incoming requests to TCP port 80 of the user's connection and by refusing to provide static IP addresses. A common way to attain a reliable DNS hostname is by creating an account with a dynamic DNS service. A dynamic DNS service will automatically change the IP address that a URL points to when the IP address changes.
E-mail hosting service
An e-mail hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs e-mail servers.
E-mail hosting services usually offer premium e-mail at a cost as opposed to advertising supported free e-mail or free webmail. E-mail hosting services thus differ from typical end-user e-mail providers such as webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding e-mail users and Small and Mid Size (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own e-mail hosting service. E-mail hosting providers allow for premium e-mail services along with custom configurations and large number of accounts. In addition, hosting providers manage user's own domain name, including any e-mail authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce in order to convey the meaning that using a specific domain name identifies and qualifies e-mail senders.
Most e-mail hosting providers offer advanced premium e-mail solutions hosted on dedicated custom e-mail platforms. The technology and offerings of different e-mail hosting providers can therefore vary with different needs. E-mail offered by most webhosting companies is usually more basic standardized POP3 based e-mail and webmail based on open source webmail applications like Horde or SquirrelMail. Almost all webhosting providers offer standard
DNS hosting service
A DNS hosting service is a service that runs Domain Name System servers. Most, but not all, domain name registrars include DNS hosting service with registration. Free DNS hosting services also exist. Many third-party DNS hosting services provide Dynamic DNS.
DNS hosting service is better when the provider has multiple servers in various geographic locations that minimize latency for clients around the world.
DNS can also be self-hosted by running DNS software on generic Internet hosting services.
Free DNS
A number of sites offer free DNS hosting, either for second level domains registered with registrars which do not offer free (or sufficiently flexible) DNS service, or as third level domains (selection.somedomain.com). These services generally also offer Dynamic DNS. Free DNS typically includes facilities to manage A, MX, CNAME, TXT and NS records of the domain zone. In many cases the free services can be upgraded with various premium services.
Free DNS service providers can also make money through sponsorship. The majority of modern free DNS services are sponsored by large providers of telecommunication services.
Game server hosting
Game server providers (GSPs) are companies that lease game servers. Gaming clans will often lease one or more servers for their chosen game, with members of the clan contributing to the server rental fees. Game server providers often offer Web tools to control and configure the game servers; most allow those that rent or lease to modify the games being leased.
Dedicated game server
Most games use a dedicated server application. This program collects data from players and distributes it to other players. This is more efficient and effective than a peer-to-peer arrangement, but it requires a separate computer to host the server application. The additional computer is a server.
Network bandwidth, in particular upstream bandwidth, is often one of the major limitations in hosting game servers. Home broadband Internet connections rarely provide the necessary upstream bandwidth to host dedicated game servers with more than 4-10 clients. In the past, this was the only option available. Typically a player would buy the game and host the server, as well as running the client, on their home computer. Even if the bandwidth provided by the latest broadband services at the time could handle the outbound network traffic the computer itself still struggled to provide a good quality of service to the networked players, while simultaneously running the game on the same machine.
A professional server is a computer purpose-built to read data and transmit vast amounts of data as fast as players need it. A handful of game hosting pioneers realized the need for such systems. They purchased rack mounted server machines and colocated them within datacenters to host their games. They paid between $200 and $700 a month for this luxury, and the teams that could foot such bills were few and far between, but these setups significantly improved the gameplay. Within a few years online multiplayer gaming became a huge success. Prices have lowered dramatically and renting game servers, or dedicated servers to host game servers on, is something that has become very common for online gaming teams.
Types of game servers
Game servers can be classified as listen servers and dedicated servers. Listen server refers to a situation in which the server typically runs in the same process as the game client, allowing a player to both host and participate in the game. As a side effect, the server is usually terminated when the client is. Listen servers are operated mostly by individuals, often in LAN Party situations rather than over the Internet, and usually with a lower number of players due to the increased processing and bandwidth requirements associated with operating both server and client simultaneously on the same machine.
Dedicated servers are servers which run independently of the client. Such servers may be run by individuals, but are usually run on dedicated hardware located in data centers, providing more bandwidth and dedicated processing power. Dedicated servers are the preferred method of hosting game servers for most PC-based multiplayer games. Massively multiplayer online games run on dedicated servers usually hosted by the software company that owns the game title, allowing them to control and update content. In many cases they are run on clustered servers to allow huge environments and large player counts.
An SMS gateway is a way of sending a text message with or without using a mobile (cell) phone. Specifically, it is a device or service offering SMS transit by either transforming messages to mobile network traffic from other media or by allowing transmission or receipt of SMS messages with or without the use of a mobile phone. Typical use of a gateway would be to forward simple email to a mobile phone recipient. It can also be useful in developing web applications that we can interact with via SMS (Short Messaging Service).
Some SMS gateway providers can be classified as aggregators or SS7 providers. The aggregator model is based on multiple agreements with mobile carriers to exchange 2-way SMS traffic into and out of the operator's Short Message Service Centre (SMS-C), also known as "local termination model".[citation needed] Aggregators lack direct access into the SS7 protocol, which is the protocol where the SMS messages are exchanged. These providers have no visibility and control over the message delivery, being unable to offer delivery guarantees. SMS messages are delivered in the operator's SMS-C, but not the subscriber's handset.
Another type of SMS gateway provider is based on SS7 connectivity to route SMS messages, also known as "international termination model".[citation needed] The advantage of this model is the ability to route data directly through SS7, which gives the provider total control and visibility of the complete path during the SMS routing. This means SMS messages can be sent directly to and from recipients without having to go through the SMS-C of other mobile operators. Therefore, it's possible to avoid delays and message losses, offering full delivery guarantees of messages and optimized routing.[citation needed]
Several operators have true fixed-wire SMS services. These are based on extensions to the ETSI GSM SMS standards and allow fixed-fixed, fixed-mobile and mobile-fixed messaging. These use Frequency-shift keying to transfer the message between the terminal and the SMS-C. Terminals are usually DECT-based, but wired handsets and wired text-only (no voice) devices exist. Messages are received by the terminal recognising that the CLI is that of the SMS-C and going off-hook silently to receive the message.
Implementations
Direct To Mobile Gateway Appliance
A Direct To Mobile Gateway is a device which has built-in wireless GSM connectivity. It allows SMS text messages to be sent and/or received by email, from web pages or from other software applications. Direct To Mobile Gateways are different to SMS Aggregators because they are installed on an organization's own network and connect to a local mobile network. The connection to the mobile network is made by acquiring a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card from the mobile operator and installing this in the gateway. Typically Direct To Mobile Gateway appliances are used for low to medium volume messaging.[citation needed]
Direct To SMSC Gateway
A Direct To SMSC Gateway is a device which allows SMS text messages to be sent and/or received by email, from web pages or from other software applications. The Gateway connects directly to a Mobile Operator's SMSC via the Internet or direct leased line connections. It converts the message format into a format understood by the SMSC, typically this is the SMPP protocol. Direct To SMSC Gateways are used by SMS Aggregators to provide SMS services to their clients. Typically Direct To SMSC Gateways are used for high volume messaging and require a contract directly with the Mobile Operator.
