Hosting (English. hosting) — service for the provision of computing power for the physical placement of information on the server, constantly online (usually internet).

Usually, the term hosting service means at least the service of hosting site files on the server, on which the software is running, necessary to process requests for these files (web server). Usually, the hosting service already includes the provision of a place for mail correspondence, databases, DNS, file storage on a dedicated file server, etc.. P., as well as support for the functioning of relevant services.

Database hosting, file placement, email hosting, DNS services can be provided separately as standalone services, or join a comprehensive service.

One of the hosting selection criteria is the operating system used., because software depends on it, which will support the functionality of certain services. An important aspect of the description of hosting is the availability of certain services and features.:

• CGI support: Perl, PHP, Python, ASP, Ruby, JSP
• .htaccess/.htpasswd support (for Apache)
• database support

As well as installed modules and frameworks for each of the features.

Hosting as a service compared, describe and evaluate by quantitative constraints:

• disk space for user files
• amount of monthly traffic
• number of sites, that can be placed under one account
• number of FTP users
• the number of E-Mail boxes and the amount of disk space, intended for mail
• number of databases and disk space for databases
• number of concurrent processes per user
• amount of RAM, and maximum execution time, allocated to each user process

quality restrictions:

• free CPU resources, random access memory, that affect server performance
• channel capacity, which affects the loading of information.
• remoteness of the hosting equipment from the target audience of the site, which affects the loading of information.

Some paid hosting companies provide a free test for a certain period, after which the user must decide whether the selected hosting company is suitable for him, and does it make sense to pay for long periods. As a rule, such tests are provided only to owners of second-level domains in order to avoid speculation with test accounts..

In addition to paid hosts, there are also free hosting companies., supporting most of the described web technologies. However, in Russia they are not common., so people mostly use paid hosting services.

Based on materials: Wikipedia