The Best of Both Worlds: VPS Hosting

The most common web hosting used by site owners is shared hosting. A lot of the time, shared hosting is perfectly fine. If you have access to an easy to use Cpanel that offers everything you need then you might not need to look any further. On the flip side though, sometimes the limitations that shared hosting brings to the table can be a hindrance.

On shared hosting, your hosting provider is the one in charge. They get to choose which software, scripts and databases you’re able to use. If you discover one that you would like to use, but it isn’t provided by the hosting company, you’re usually pretty much just out of luck (though there are occasions where they accommodate you if you contact them). So if you want to have the ability to change and add features at your discretion then shared hosting might not be a good fit for you.

If you have the funds, you could invest in a private server. But for most people, that isn’t a viable option since it’s pretty expensive and just not feasible to do within their budget. The next best thing is a virtual private server, or a VPS.

What is a VPS?

A VPS makes use of hardware virtualization. This means that it’s able to maintain a number of different instances of a single operating system all on one machine. Server workload is reduced, so the hosting provider is able to run multiple virtual machines at the same time without lagging down performance.

VPS hosting allows for shared computer resources, while still giving you the ability to have incredible control over the environment (software, scripts, programs, databases, etc…). So many businesses get a win-win here. You don’t have to shell out the kind of money a private server requires, but you get many of the same benefits. Not to mention, that running your own private server can be tedious.

The Advantages of VPS Hosting

If the above doesn’t make much sense, here’s a condensed and easier-to-understand summary of why you might or might not want to invest in VPS hosting:

• More Control  – A VPS gives you the ability to install and run whatever software you need. Chances are, your hosting provider has already given you a slew of helpful scripts, software programs and other programs that has what you need (if it’s a good hosting company). But if not, you’re free to install your own.
• Cost-Effective Pricing – Yes, you’re going to pay more for a VPS than you would for shared, but it gives you the flexibility and control that most businesses need (or will need in the future as they grow). It’s cheaper than investing in a private server or even cloud hosting.
• Help When You Need it – Even if you were to invest in a private server, do you have the technical know-how to properly run it and keep it up-to-date? Or the money to bring in an IT team to do it for you? With a VPS, you’re not left out on a limb. If you run into problems, you can simply contact your host. Here at HostWinds, we strive to reply as fast as possible, as your business is our business!

Caution: How to Evaluate the TRUE Cost of Hosting

No one likes to throw money away, whether offline or online. The same holds true when it comes to web hosting. Given that there are thousands of hosting companies to choose from, it can seem overwhelming to find the one best suited for you. Don’t fall victim to an offer that seems too good to be true. As the saying goes, if it’s too good to be true then it probably is. If you find secure cloud hosting for $5/month then tighten down the hatches and prepare to be hit with some unexpected fees or restrictions. Here are just a few things to keep in mind when choosing a hosting provider for your business.

Set Up Fees

At one point, most trusted web hosting companies charged a hefty, one-time fee for set up and getting your site online. It was understandable to charge a small fee sometimes since it usually involved actual man hours and time to set up. However, today the best hosting companies have put some advanced automation into place. This means that when you order, there isn’t any delay. There isn’t a ‘set up’ time, as your hosting is automatically set up and deployed, ready for your use upon ordering.

Cancellation Fees

Yep, you read that right. Some companies will charge you cancellation fees if you choose not to use their service anymore. Most hosting providers will offer you several ways of paying. You will have the option to pay month-to-month or, semi-annually, annually, etc… Make sure you understand the terms of any contract. If you pay for a year’s worth of hosting and decide it’s not working out six months into it, will you get a refund on the remaining six months? Will there be additional fees to cancel?

Resource Allowances and Fees

When you order hosting, you’re actually paying your provider for a number of things: Of course, all the different hardware, servers and data-centers that they physically run. The time and resources it takes to ensure it’s all up to date and remains in good working order regardless of weather and other factors. And other things.

If you’re on shared hosting then you’re usually paying for a percentage of what all that hardware provides. You’re allocated a certain amount of space, bandwidth, RAM, etc… While HostWinds gives unlimited space and bandwidth for all accounts, many providers don’t. So here’s where you have to be careful. If you choose a company that limits your resources, you could be charged over-the-top fees if you go over the allocated amount. Sometimes the fees can be twice as much as what you would have paid if you simply ordered a hosting plan that gave you that extra space.

Don’t Pay For Help

Unfortunately, many hosting companies are purely motivated by dollar signs. Pretty much any provider will offer email support or support through a support ticket system. But what if your problem is urgent, one that’s causing extensive damage or making you lose customers? Then what? Some companies will charge fees in order to get quicker help. Not at HostWinds. If you look at our contact page, you’ll see that we value each and every customer. Everyone has the option to put in a ticket, call us directly or even chat live with someone who can help. If it’s at an odd hour when most of us are not working, don’t fret. We always have help available through our emergency alert support system.

Technology is an amazing thing that’s brought us many benefits over the years, but it also continues to grow security risks. It doesn’t matter if you run a small personal blog or a large retail business site, security should never be put on the back-burner. The security of your website can only be as strong as the security of your web hosting.

If there’s a security breach on your business site, you could face an enormous loss of income. Worse yet, it could be the death of your business should identity theft take place. We’ve all seen it on the news. “6,000 records of personal customer data stolen.” If it can happen to large-scale, nationally-recognized companies then you can bet it can happen to you if you aren’t proactive in preventing it.

Why has security become such a threat?

Pretty much everyone has access to and uses the internet. It’s also becoming one of the main places for businesses to sell. That means it’s bound to attract the attention of people who are only out for themselves. If they see an opportunity to exploit something for personal gain, they’re going to do it. Hackers, ‘blackhatters’ and criminals alike always have their ear to the ground for new possibilities.

With the billions of dollars that are passed around and exchanged on the internet every single day, that should come as no surprise. And that’s why you need to ensure that your site is secure, especially so if you’re running any type of business. Protect your customers or lose them. Simple as that.

Three Types of People that Pose a Threat

While most of the time, the main threat is someone who is trying to steal valuable, personal information. These people are usually looking for an easy sweep to successfully steal and use identities – identity theft. They lay low and do their best to remain undetected. The longer they can silently lift information from your site, the more identities they can gather.

The next group is a group not looking to steal information, but to simply take advantage of your site. If you have a site that’s respected by Google then they would love to hack into your site to place a link to their site. This may not seem so bad to you, but it really could be. If the site they link to is of poor taste (porn, gambling, etc…) and they manage to sneak a link onto your site that you don’t notice, it could have a negative impact on your rankings. That means lower search rankings and most likely a drop in traffic, resulting in decreased revenue.

However, there’s another, smaller group of people to be aware of. This group of people are hackers, not out for personal gain, but simply out to cause problems. They enjoy bringing down a perfectly innocent site and celebrate in their success when your site comes to a screeching halt. Often times, instead of seeing your site when you go to your domain, you’ll be greeted with a message from the hacker. You will almost-instantly know when you’ve become a victim.

Here, we’ve only scraped the surface of how poor security can affect your site and your business. But we hope that you clearly see why it’s so important to make sure your host takes security seriously. Here at HostWinds, security is one of our main focuses. Your site and the success of your business is important to us. Let’s face it, if you aren’t happy and leave then where does that leave us?

More businesses than eve are offering their goods or services through online transactions. Most consumer expect to be able to purchase directly from your site, especially if they’ve found you through an online review or one of the many social networks they might be active on. Unless it truly makes no sense to offer your goods online, then you should try to make them available to your website visitors. If they’re in buying mode, you don’t want to lose the sale.

However, just putting up an order form is not enough. Consumers are well aware of phishing, hacking and online fraud. Today, security risks are high and it only gets riskier with each passing day. That means you will have to ensure that their information is safe and make it clear to them that their information will never be at risk or misused.  You’ll need to make sure they feel safe purchasing from your site. The very first thing you’ll want to do is start using an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate.

Even if you run a very small business consisting of 3 employees (or even just you), you have to remember that online you aren’t only competing with similar-sized businesses. You’ll be competing with any other business offering similar goods regardless of their location or size. And you can bet that some of them are using SSL and other measures to ensure visitors feel safe purchasing. If you aren’t doing it, you’re almost guaranteed to lose potential customers to them.

How Does SSL Protect Customers?

By implementing an SSL certificate, you’re providing the user a secure environment. Hackers never have a chance to see the information that they enter while on your site, such as their personal identification info or credit card numbers. When a user inputs information where an SSL is present:

• The information is encrypted on their PC by a hidden key before their information is ever sent
• The key is what’s sent out instead and by using a different encryption system, the receiving computer is able to decode the information that was sent hidden in the key.

How Do You Get an SSL Certificate

There are many companies that are well-known for their SSL certificates. They offer them with a variety of security levels and can be purchased in different security packages. There are also sites that act as a gateway for your payment, such as Paypal. But that requires the user to normally leave your site, make payment and be redirected back to your site (which you have to set all up). The best route is getting your own SSL that can be installed within your own site, branded and make checkout easy.

Most good hosting companies will have SSL available. Either as free or a small addon. For example, at HostWinds we offer you your own SSL certificate for a mere $35 and will even install it for you to make sure everything is set up correctly. If you buy one from somewhere else, that’s ok too. There’s simply a $10 installation charge.

We here at Hostwinds strive to be the reliable hosting company you can depend on. We have technician services over the phone and on skype around the clock. Also, we have ample ways in connecting with the Hostwinds community. Whether it be on our brand new, revamped forum or over Twitter and Facebook, we are here to service your hosting needs and questions. We take great pride in our customer service and the assurance our customers have in knowing that their websites are always online and being taken care of. We strive everyday to meet and exceed the standards of brilliant web hosting and welcome any constructive criticism. We truly thank you for being a part of the Hostwinds family and invite you to engage with us.

We here at HostWinds want to know about your website(s) and help you promote it! We take great pride in our web hosting service and support of all kinds, be it technical or accounts. HostWinds wants you to tell us, along with the rest of the community reading this, about your site (please be pg) and the reasons you choose HostWinds as your primary web hosting provider. Also, a great place for everyone to cross-promote their sites and get to know others from the HostWinds community is on our forum dedicated to our customers and moderated by us.  Feel free to give each other feedback. Let the networking begin!

Thanks for choosing HostWinds!

–Rodney Cox
Account / Sales Executive

If you’ve been looking around and trying to find the best web hosting solution for your site you’ve probably seen the option of dedicated hosting. Pretty much every good web hosting provider offers dedicated hosting packages, along with shared hosting. At first, it can be kind of confusing trying to decide which kind of hosting is the perfect fit for you.

Lots of people think that just because something costs more that it has to be better than their cheaper counterpart. So they think that dedicated hosting is what they should choose. Truth is, both shared and dedicated can be a good choice. It all depends on your needs and your budget.

Understanding What Dedicated Hosting Really is

Unlike shared hosting, where your site would share all the server resources with other accounts on the same server, dedicated hosting gives you your own server dedicated to you. The hosting company maintains the server’s hardware for you and lets you run your site on it.

There’s usually a prepackaged suite of software and programs installed and ready for your use. You simply decide which ones you want to use and activate them. You are also often free to install new ones at your discretion.

On shared hosting, the amount of traffic your site can handle is limited. But with dedicated hosting, it isn’t a concern since there’s no chance of your site’s traffic bogging down other sites on the server and vice versa.

The Advantages of Dedicated Hosting

The advantages listed here look enticing, we know. But please understand that sometimes a site simply doesn’t need all these options. Sure, we love to sell higher-ticket packages. But only when it’s a good fit. Here at HostWinds, we don’t want to see you overspending. If your site is brand new and gets very little traffic, you probably don’t need this yet. If you run a small personal blog then you probably don’t need it. But if your site gets lots of traffic, if you’re running a big business or you expect to quickly get to that point, then by all means, dedicated hosting may be the best choice.

Stability & Scalability & Flexibility

With dedicated hosting, the chances of you needing to move your site to bigger, better hosting in the near future is very minimal. If you were on shared hosting and your site suddenly became popular, bringing in tons of visitors, then you could quickly come to realize that you need a server dedicated to your site in order to handle it. If you decide you need to add more sections, software or programs onto your site then you’re able to do so with no problem.

Control

On shared hosting, you are normally limited on how much control you have since there are other sites and accounts using the same server. But with dedicated hosting, you are given more control since it’s only your sites changes can affect. One example of this is whether or not you are given root access.

Variety of Available Features

You are given a variety of features that most shared hosting doesn’t come with. Of course, this will depend on your web host. Some offer a large suite or scripts, software, e-commerce tools, etc… Some will give you just a few and leave it up to you to add in whatever other ones that you might want.

The first thing you’re probably looking at when considering a web hosting provider is the cost. While that’s certainly important, it’s by far not the most important. If you find a great deal, you may realize down the road that it wasn’t such a great deal after all.

Imagine this: You find an amazing deal for a hosting package that seems perfect for you. So you immediately put down the money and invest in a year’s worth of hosting. A month later, your site is going down three or four times a week. When it is up, it seems to take forever for your page to load.

You go to your hosting provider’s site to find their customer support number, just to find that the only way you can get in touch with them is through email. So you email them about the problems. You check your email hourly waiting for a response that doesn’t come that day. Meanwhile, people are visiting your site and not being able to view it. You’re losing money.

The next day, they respond and apologize for the delay. They promise that they are looking into it and it will be taken care of. Later that day, your site is finally back up. Great! Three days later it goes down again and you’re left with playing the email game again. Obviously this hosting provider either:

• Lacks the needed knowledge to fix the problem for good
• Lacks the manpower to get it done
• Lacks the desire to provide reliable hosting for its customers

As you can see, this would be no way to run a business. It makes you look bad to potential customers and annoys or drives away current customers. That deal isn’t looking so much like a deal anymore.

Price isn’t everything.

Before you ever invest into hosting (or any other business decision), do your research. Make sure that should you ever need help or a problem arises, that they are going to be there, willing and able to take care of you. Call them, email them. See what kind of communication they have. Get a feel for how they run things. A hosting company that’s capable and cares about your business, like HostWinds, will have no problem answering your questions before any money ever changes hands.

An honest and legit company will not make you jump through hoops in order to contact them. We actually give you a number or ways to get in touch. You can call. You can email. You can live chat with us or put in a ticket. It all depends on the urgency of the problem and how you’re most comfortable communicating. In fact, we even give you an emergency contact solution. If something happens that requires immediate attention, use the emergency contact!

There’s absolutely no hosting out there that is 100% perfect 100% of the time. Just as with any business, there are bound to be bumps somewhere, eventually. The question is, how is your hosting company going to respond? Are they going to fix it asap and ensure your business is up and running? Are they technically capable to ensure your business is in good hands (or do they even care)?