Apache tomcat and Java hosting

Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation for java Servlets and java server pages. If you are using Apache 2.0/2.2, Tomcat, My SQL, JDK 1.6, JSP and Servlets it is better to choose Java supported web hosting solutions. Java Servlets allows you to create component based and platform-independent web based applications. It is a popular choice for building interactive WebPages.

How the JSP works

If your website is built with java technology, the JSP components in your web pages are compiled to java Servlets, These Servlets recognized by web container and integrated with web server such as Tomcat. When the user goes to a JSP web page, the browser passes the request to the web-server via internet. The request is then communicated to Servlet engine and generates Servlets. After servlet source code is compiled and instantiated, the html result is sent back via internet and displayed on the user’s web browser.

Java hosting

Website built on Java technologies and Java server pages works well with the hosting solution specifically designed for them. These hosting solutions facilitate easy creation of Servlets, JSP integration and support for similar application such as Java Beans. A Java application can be customized for any client requirements and it is particularly useful if your website handles high traffic and volume. You can find many cheap hosting solution for java based websites. However before choosing the hosting plans compare the different hosting features such as domain hosting, email hosting and dedicated hosting solutions and select the best hosting for your business.

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Linux web hosting and Apache web server

Linux based servers are normally built on LAMP architecture. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. It is an inexpensive and effective server architecture that is known for its reliability and excellent performance. Linux based server is the most popular and cheap hosting solution that is available today for webmasters.

In this blog we shall see some of the features of Apache servers in LAMP architecture. The important aspect of the LAMP software bundle is all the softwares in this combination are free to download and have no license fee. Apache is a powerful http compliant web server. It is highly flexible and extensible with any third party modules.

Apache is a feature rich web server and updates itself regularly for modern server requirements. It provides full source code to the developers with unrestricted license to operate. It can be easily customized to specific user requirements with Apache API patches.  It supports different operating system environment such as Windows NT, Linux and UNIX platforms.  Apache allows you to easily set up password protected pages with enormous number of authorized users. You can set some customized response to errors and problems. There is no fixed limit in the number of redirects and Aliases in Apache server. You can have powerful rewriting engines and solve most of the URL manipulation problems.  Apache supports multi-hosted servers. It can distinguish the request made to different IP addresses that are mapped to the same server, helping you to set up a virtual hosting platform for websites.

Apache is a powerful and reliable web server used for both static and dynamic websites. You can configure apache for a simple HTML web hosting to a complex enterprise web hosting.

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Domain Registration and Web Hosting, What’s the Difference

This is the Web age, and a website is a prerequisite for success in business. The basic requirements to get your website online are a domain name that identifies your website and storage space to store the files and folders associated with your website. Domain registration refers to the process of acquiring ownership to a domain name (e.g. www.indiancyclebrands.com) for your proposed website and webhosting is the process of publishing your website and making it available to your audience. While a domain registrar offers domain registration services, a web hosting company (also called a web host) provides the necessary disk space, internet bandwidth and other technical resources required to publish your website. Most web hosting services include both domain name registration and website hosting to ensure a seamless publishing process for clients. Customers of such hosting companies can select suitable domain names and register them through the website of the web hosting provider.

You can register a domain for, say 1 year or more or less, depending upon your requirement and the mandatory minimum period set by the registrar. Once the period elapses, you need to go for a renewal. Dedicated domain registrars who sell and manage domain names are also available. Dedicated services can be beneficial if you intend to have multiple domain names with domain forwarding.

You can go for web site hosting providers offering both registration and domain name hosting, or you can use separate services for each. If you are looking to obtain multiple domains at low costs, you can go for domain registrars; however if you are conservative with your time and want it easy with all services at one place, you can choose site hosting companies that offer such combined services.

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Domain Management – What You Need to Know

Whether you intend to use Linux web hosting or Windows website hosting for your business, you need to go through domain registration first. Domain registration is not complicated, provided you are familiar with the essential technicalities that go with it. You just need to locate a genuine domain name registrar, select a suitable domain name, provide needed information, pay for the domain, and there, you have got yourself a domain. But you need to go a bit further and learn more to manage your domain(s) successfully. With domain name frauds becoming increasingly rampant, skepticism abounds domain management.

Business owners are faced with a slew of crucial decision-making elements while graduating from domain registration to hosting. So, what do you need to know to manage your domain(s) optimally? What is it you need to do to be more informed and prevent becoming a fraud victim?

Know about Domain Name System Servers/ DNS Servers

This is a common term encountered when you move from domain registration to webhosting. A domain name system server associates a computer-recognizable identification with your domain name. It converts a domain name/ hostname (e.g.: www.yourwebsitename.com) into its corresponding IP address and vice versa, so that the user gets access to the requested website represented by the URL. DNS servers point to the web host that provides you with the web hosting service to achieve proper synchronization between the domain name and the website.

Benefit from Domain Forwarding

Domain Forwarding, as the name indicates, forwards a domain to a website existing under a different domain name. For example a domain name yourwebsitename.org can be made to point to the website yourwebsite.com, using domain forwarding. This method is often used in case the website URL contains words that can be misspelt; for example in case of the website Massachusettsbooks.com, one cannot expect all users to spell the URL correctly at all times. In such cases the misspelt domain names are registered and the domains are forwarded to Massachusettsbooks.com. Users are most used to the .com domain format; so, if your website is non-.com, domain forwarding makes it easier for users to reach your website even if they use the .com format.

Make Sure You Deal Only with Your Original Registrar

An original registrar is the one from whom you buy your domain name. Safeguard the contact information of your registrar. Detect fraud when you find professional-looking unauthorized e-mails notifying domain renewals; only the original registrar is entitled to renew your domain name. Payment in response to fraudulent mails will result in transfer of your domain name to unauthorized parties. Believe information that you receive from authorized registrar contacts; double-check by calling the registrar.

Use ‘Domain Lock’ Feature

Avail of the ‘Domain Lock’ feature provided by domain registrars. Enabling ‘Domain Lock’ protects your domain name from frauds. Transfer requests are not granted without your permission, which shields your domain from hackers. Registrars usually provide this feature free-of-cost.

Update your Registrar Regularly

Keep your registrar informed about any change in your contact information so that you get domain renewal notices at the right address.

Use Privacy Service if Essential

Hackers derive information mostly from the public records displaying your domain information. If public records provide personal contact information, choose to use privacy protection service to shield your data.

Renew your Domain According to Your Requirement

If you intend to operate your website long term, renew it for a longer time span, say 5 or 10 years. If it is to the contrary, register it for a shorter time period, but renew it regularly for as long as you intend to keep it. Do not make it a practice to renew a domain at the last minute.

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Some Points to consider before choosing a hosting provider – Part 2

In the previous post, we have discussed about some features that you have to consider before choosing a hosting provider. The points discussed are server uptime, speed, server backup, FTP access, software scripts and SSL. In this post, we shall discuss some more features to consider.

Email service: Web hosting providers offer both POP3 and IMAP email service to their customers. It is best to choose a hosting provider that offers both POP3 and IMAP accounts.  POP3 represents post office protocol version 3. It allows users to fetch email messages from the server when they are connected to the e-mail server via internet. IMAP protocol is the modern alternative to the POP3 protocol where it allows the users to work in both online and offline modes.

Control Panel: All web hosting providers now offer control panel to administer the website by customers themselves.  You can ask for a demo version of these control panels to study the features and customize it for your business requirements. The control panels should be simple in navigation and comprehensive to use. It should provide access to email, file transfer, database and offer effective web site management. Normally Cpanel and VDeck control panel is offered by many web hosting providers.

Customers support: The web hosting providers should be accessible any time any day to support customer issues. They should employ some professional people to answer and resolve the queries raised by customers. Hosting providers should open all possible support channels to the customers. Online help tutorials, self help a guide, FAQ’s and dedicated email and Phone support is needed for any web hosting providers. Solid technical support from web hosting companies is crucial for your business success. If the customer support is not proper from the web hosting companies, they may lose a customer even if they offer excellent technology than their competitors.

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Some points to consider before choosing a web hosting provider

In this blog, we will see some features that you need to consider before selecting a web hosting provider for your website. These points will help to you analyze and compare different hosting providers in the market and identify the best plan and hosting provider for your website.

Uptime: Select a web hosting provider that assures uptime more than 99.5%. If possible, you can check for an uptime guarantee from your host providers.

Server speed: The visitor do not wait more that 15 seconds before your web pages loads in their machine. If it takes more than that, may be you loose a potential customer for your business. Selecting faster internet connectivity is required for your website to reach more visitors.

Server backup: To prevent data loss and ensure security of your web data, the hosting company should provide an effective data backup and recovery setup regularly.

FTP access: Confirm with your hosting providers about the FTP, CGI and SSH access to your website. If you have some professional website then you may need an anonymous FTP account.

Software scripts: Select hosting provider that offers extensive script library and support functions.

SSL: If you have any e-commerce websites, select hosting providers who offer, shopping cart software and merchant accounts. The web hoster should ensure that all the transaction are safe and secure encrypted with SSL certifications.

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How to select hosting providers

There are number of hosting providers in the internet. They offer various customized hosting plans based on the user requirements. Fast growth in the field of web technology and affordable hardware’s promoted spurting of many web hosting companies. As the numbers of hosting companies are more, it is difficult to select the right hosting company for your website. However, by analyzing your requirements and market trends we can easily identify ideal partner for your website.

The first thing you should have in mind before looking for a web hosting provider is that you have to be very clear about your requirements. If you are having a personal website, may be you do not need more disk space and bandwidth. You can finalize some cheap hosting plan which is economical for your budget. However, if you want to host some fully commercial websites such as e-commerce sites, you may need more flexibility and high-end hosting server for your website.

Linux or Windows Hosting servers

Hosting providers are offering either Linux or Windows based hosting service. The choice mainly depends on the scripting you have used to build your website. If your website is built based on ASP.NET and Microsoft application, then it is better to go for windows based hosting service. You can also select Linux hosting for Microsoft based applications but it is ideal of websites built with open source scripts such as PHP, Perl and Python. Some applications such as cold fusion support both Linux and windows based hosting.

Shared or dedicated hosting service

Choosing a shared or dedicated hosting service mostly depend on the expected traffic for your website and administration control you require. If you expect your website to bring more traffic to your website then you can go for dedicated web hosting service. Shared hosting is the cheap hosting available in the market, because the same server is distributed to many users. If you are planning to run any e-commerce websites and large scale business websites, it is better to go for dedicated hosting service. It offers more controls and independency to your website. Some web hosting companies provide exclusive e-commerce hosting service that offer focused benefits and advantages to your websites.

Space and bandwidth requirements

Many hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth and space for their customers. But based on statistics and analysis the web hosting companies claim that they can identify the maximum requirement for your website and allocate space according to it. If your website needs more download support, it is better to select the plan with more disk space. Depending on the expected traffic requirements, you can choose your bandwidth requirements.

Domains and sub domains

Parked domains can significantly increase the amount of traffic to your website. Sub domains are helpful from the search engine point of view. It helps you to build better search rankings in the internet. Some hosting companies offer such domains as a package offer for their customers.

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What is Dedicated Hosting Service

Dedicated Hosting is a type of Web hosting in which client gets access to an entire server exclusively. When an individual entity or business leases a dedicated server, it gets to utilize the entire bandwidth and server space without anyone sharing the resources as in Virtual Hosting. A point of significance in dedicated hosting is that clients do not usually own the server, they can only lease it. In case a proprietary server is needed, one can subscribe to Colocation web hosting service.

Dedicated hosting provides clients with full control of their server; they get to decide the type of OS and software that need to be used, and customize settings to suit their requirements. Exclusive server allows for greater freedom in setting up complex applications such as databases, high-end multimedia, and advanced e-mail systems. With dedicated Web hosting services, one can have greater control over server safety. New and extra features conducive to increased server security can be added, which ultimately benefit the customers in addition to the client. Multiple website hosting on a single machine is also possible in this type of Web hosting. Hosting providers use high-end network infrastructure and round-the-clock server monitoring to provide such dedicated hosting.

Another significant advantage of dedicated server web hosting is reduced server maintenance. Since the dedicated server is owned by hosting company, responsibility for server maintenance and network infrastructure & connectivity is also shouldered by them.

In dedicated webhosting, clients get exactly what they need. Since they decide on the hardware and software to be used, this type of web hosting solution provides customized infrastructure.

As dedicated hosting is more client-controlled, clients need to possess considerable knowledge of servers and networking. Clients would have to invest more time and resources compared to shared/ virtual hosting.

Though dedicated hosting demands greater monetary investment, several options at different price packages are available; customers can choose from range of high-end servers to affordable hosting options, according to their requirement.

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E-Commerce Web Hosting

E-Commerce hosting is a type of web hosting service used by businesses to sell products and services online through their websites. Trading online requires access to sensitive customer information, and as such hosting e-commerce websites differs from other site hosting types. An ideal e-commerce web host provides a hosting solution that effectively manages client’s e-commerce website, and integrates technology and practicality to provide customers with a safe and sound online shopping.

Hosted e-commerce solutions are provided by hosting companies for inventory management, customer order acceptance and order fulfillment. This eliminates the burden of dealing with technical considerations and software management on business owners. Owners just need to open an account on the website of the hosting company, perform domain configuration so that the domain name is resolved to its server, input product/service information, and commence accepting orders. Hosted service providers may charge a setup fee or monthly fee for such services; however customers can be free from the task of site maintenance or security as they are managed by the web host.

E-commerce websites need to be continuously active without any downtime; any server inefficacy impacts financial and sensitive customer information directly, and results in loss of reputation and money for the website owner. Server reliability is thus a major factor in E-commerce web site hosting. A service provider specializing in e-commerce website hosting offers hosting packages that include powerful servers and numerous other options that allow for upgradation and reduce any possible downtime.

Data security is paramount to an e-commerce website. Most E-commerce webhosting companies provide SSL certificates to ensure security of customers’ private data. Such information as the domain name and the website owner’s name and address needs to be provided. Though there are different grades of SSL certification, the level recommended for e-commerce websites involves full verification of the business and domain owner authentication. Some web hosting service providers also offer security testing and patching services wherein software applications are examined for any security deficiencies, and if detected, are patched to make them foolproof.

A web hosting provider offering a highly responsive customer support is essential for e-commerce websites. Most web hosting services include fast customer support as part of their premium hosting packages. Certain web hosts have server monitoring service included in their web hosting solution, which helps them determine any possible downtime beforehand and implement precautionary or remedial measures.

One needs to invest considerable time and resources in choosing the best e-commerce website hosting, but it is a major step to online success.

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