What flavor of web server do you need?
Monday, January 7th, 2008To run a website you typically need to use three different services. You most likely already have internet services provided by an internet service provider (ISP). Your ISP connects you to the internet so you can send and receive email, visit web pages and move files to an from different computers. Your ISP may be your phone company, cable company or a third party.
To actually serve web pages you need a web hosting service, or web host. A web host provides the computers and internet connections that make it possible to serve web pages to a specific portion of the internet, the world wide web. To provide your site with a name, like www.google.com or www.amazon.com you also need a domain name server (DNS). Without that your website can only be accessed by its IP address, which consists of a string of numbers like 127.0.0.1, which is not the easiest address to remember.
It is possible for any computer connected to the internet to act as a web server. However there are a large number of good reasons for not hosting your own web site. Web servers need a high level of security in today’s environment of hackers, crackers and viruses. Unless you are very knowledgeable and vigilant you don’t want to go there. In addition to the security concerns, you probably can’t provide the connection speed, bandwidth, or reliability of a good hosting company. I can go on listing reasons for not hosting your own web site, however, the bottom line is that most of us should not even consider hosting out own web sites, especially considering the low cost of professional web hosting services. The only exceptions involve organizations large enough to have a dedicated information technology or services (IT or IS) staff.