Web Hosting Information
Web hosting is the service used to deliver web pages to surfer's web browser. If you are viewing a web site including this site, those pages and files are residing on a web server. These are special purpose computers, similar to your own PC but configured for a single purpose. Typically they are housed in racks in a large network operations center (NOC) and do not have any keyboard or monitor connected to them. They are managed remotely via a central console at the NOC or via the internet at some remote location. If you have a hosting agreement with us, when you connect to the control panel to manage your email accounts, for instance, you are managing a small portion of the web server via remote access.
Web servers can use Windows(c) MacOS, Unix or a number of versions of Linux operating systems. In addition to the OS, there is a server program that actually responds to and delivers the contents of a web site. Each OS may have it's own server application but the most common on the internet is Apache. Windows servers typically use the Microsoft IIS but even a Windows server can use Apache.
Other applications that are used along side the server application are the mail server, FTP server, programming language interfaces to render pages written in various languages such as PHP, ASP, Perl, Python etc. These interpret the code in the pages to display as an html document when it reaches your web browser. The mail server application only handles emails. The FTP server is used only to provide for the transfer of files to and from the web server's hard drives.
Other special types of server applications may deliver streaming video or audio content or support web pages designed in specific applications such as FrontPage or ColdFusion etc.
Web servers also have database programs installed. The most common is MySQL which serves as the database backend for most dynamic web sites.
Most commercially run web servers are installed in some form of central location where they share certain resources that would be cost-prohibitive to install for only a couple of servers. The server may be leased, as ours is, or owned by the hosting company. Leasing provides for continued availability of updates and around the clock monitoring by full time staff. In the share environment of a large NOC, the servers are connected to very high speed redundant connections close to internet hubs. The power is conditioned to prevent brown outs and spikes from damaging the hardware and is backed up short term by battery backups which, in turn, are connected to large diesel generators. This results in a very reliable full time server that is virtually never off line.
The NOC is climate controlled to prevent overheating. There is high security including video survelience inside and out. Access is strictly limited to those authorized manage the NOC. The facility as a whole meets strict PCI security compliance standards.
Other services provided are routine and automatic backups of all of the data on the servers including your web site. We have three levels of backup in place. One is the set of current files on our local computers where we develop and maintain your site. The second is via a RAID or multiple drive array which maintains a complete mirror copy of the main hard drive in the server. If the primary drive were to fail, it will take only a short time for a technician to move the redundant drive to primary position and to install a new backup, ready to mirror the first drive again. In addition, we have an off-site backup which duplicates all of the web data at a site over a thousand miles away from the primary server. These features combine to create a nearly disaster proof web delivery system. When you pay your monthly hosting bill, these services are what you are paying for.
