Any person interested in publishing any data
on the Internet requires Web Hosting. Web hosting has been around for
several years now and has evolved from simple HTML pages hosting,
small simple sites with a few images into full blown web based hosted
applications where end users can visit a site, interact with the web
site owner and even purchase goods and services all over the internet.
The use of Internet as a medium for integrating business across the
globe with the help of Web Based software applications has produced
wide range of web based technologies like ASP,
ASP.NET, JSP, PHP and
others. This choice has forced various options for web hosting now as
HTML based sites work equally well on both Linux and Windows
platforms.
Web hosting platforms vary from different types of operating
systems. Microsoft Windows Server and Redhat Linux are just two
examples and probably the most well known web hosting platforms. So,
what is Windows or Linux web hosting and what are the advantages and
disadvantages to hosting your web site on either Server. And why now
Linux is gaining more popularity. Well, that's just the answer isn't
it ?
Linux platform has been developed by Community based efforts and it
has been rendered for professional use with the efforts of many IT
companies like Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake and like. This background of
Community development and open source nature of Linux Server and
backup of professional IT companies has made Linux platform more
powerful, inexpensive and secured.
The cost effectiveness in this competitive era is a major boost
that the companies required without compromising on the quality and
security of the product. Apart from ASP,
ASP.NET, all other major web
based technologies work well with Linux. The virtually free
distribution of PHP, MySQL, PERL has reduced the costs of the website
hosting tremendously on Linux Server. At Sakshay, we provide both kind
of hosting services but the advice to companies requiring Hosting for
HTML based websites, small applications like Recipe site is to use
Linux Hosting.
The menace of viruses, spamming and hacking is also quite less with
Linux Hosting. Firstly, this is due to the robust architecture of
Linux Server and Secondly, due to many cost effective softwares
available for protection on Linux Platform.
The following are the advantages of using Linux based web server
compared to Windows based web server :
Stable and Robust: Linux/Unix operating systems has traditionally
been believed to be very stable and robust. A web site housed on a
Linux operating system will have very high up-time (of the order of
99.9%). Of course, other factors such as power supply, network admin
skills, and network load etc. also matter when it comes to maintaining
the system uptime.
Low cost of ownership: The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very
insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full
fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with
the OS. These server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS
Server, File Server etc.) being free, are also very stable.
User Friendly : When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on
Linux web servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same
for both Linux and Windows web servers. If you want to use a Windows
based tool such as Front Page for uploading a web site on to a Linux
based web server, make sure that the Front Page extensions are
enabled. This is only required if you are uploading using HTTP feature
(http://www.yourwebsite.com)
of Front Page. Front Page also makes it possible to upload a web site
using FTP. You need to select
ftp://www.yourwebsite.com for up loading using front page FTP
option. Note that if you select ";Front Page Extensions"; during web
site design, you must enable Front Page extensions on a Linux web
server also. These days, all Linux web servers are coming with
installable Front Page extensions, and this should pose no problem for
hosting on a Linux platform. You can use almost all types of file
extensions (or scripts) when using Linux web server. Commonly, the
following extensions are supported: .cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml,
.xml, and others. Basically it means that you can host web sites that
use different types of server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php,
and .asp (with plug-in).
Easy to move between hosts : A web site designed to be hosted on a
Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily,
where as the reverse is not always true.
Most widely used : Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used
compared to Windows based web hosting.
Scalability : Scalability and future expansion are other major
criteria to consider while hosting an application. A web site is
dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows
over a period of time to suit the customers requirements. It is
preferable to design a web site keeping this requirements in mind. A
web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server
meets the scalability requirement easily without making any site wide
design changes.
Self Management of your website on a Linux Web Hosting Plan with
Sakshay hosting is made very easy with our Implementation of the Award
Winning Control Panel software by Sw-Soft called Plesk. Plesk is a web
based interface to your Linux web hosting account that allows you to
create e-mail addresses and mailboxes, view your web site traffic
statistics, set permissions on your HTML, PHP pages, MySQL... and
more. We also provide Windows Hosting with Plesk Panel.
So, all kudos to Linux and open source technologies for making the
technology affordable and within the reach of common man.
