Website hosting

Website hosting can be generalized to be the process of providing storage, connectivity and other related services that are needed for the formation, access and maintenance of a website.

Website hosting is usually carried out by companies often referred to as web hosts. Web hosts provide space to their clients on a server, alongside internet connectivity and other services needed for website hosting. There are various types of website hosting. Few prominent ones being:

• Free website hosting- The website hosting is done for free (usually supported by advertisements.)
• Shared website hosting- The website is placed along many other sites on the same server. This type of website hosting involves sharing of a common pool of server resources by many domains.
• Reseller website hosting- The clients are allowed to become web hosts themselves. This type of website hosting can function with a combination of its counterparts.
• Virtual dedicated server – A server is divided into virtual servers, where the user shares the server with many although the user feels to be on an own dedicated server. The root access to the virtual space is denied to the user.
• Dedicated hosting service- The client gets an own web server and has complete control over it.
• Managed hosting service- In this type of website hosting, the user gets an own server but is denied the full control over it. The management of data is done by the user.

Grid hosting, clustered hosting, home server and collocation website hosting services are few other types of website hosting.