Virtual hosting - the cheapest way to get your business online.
The basic hosting option, Virtual hosting explained and the pro's and con's highlighted.
Virtual hosting (also referred to as shared hosting) is the cheaper of the web hosting options. It's where multiple sites are hosted on a single server, so each account ends up 'sharing' server space with other users.
By nature, hosting a website only requires the host computer to work whenever a viewer requests a page. Consequently, if a server is hosting only one website, usually the majority of it's capabilities go to waste as it sits idle. Virtual hosting therefore enables other users to take this otherwise wasted space.
Virtual hosting is suited to websites that do not expect large numbers of visitors on a regular basis or which are running large, intensive web applications, or require large amounts of bandwidth or storage; dedicated hosting is more suited to you if you these apply to you.
Advantages of Virtual hosting:
- Lower start-up costs
- Lower maintenance costs
- Easy to use
- Probability of downtime increased
- Increase risk (from other users as own server)
- Confidentiality of data reduced
- Less suited to websites with high traffic
- Less server control