People usually emphasise more on web design and domain name, but not on web hosting. Irrespective of what we see online- be it webpages, memes, tweets and online games- are saved on a server that is maintained by web hosting companies in UAE for us to access them. Web hosting is indeed an essential but invisible part of our online experience.  

Looking to launch your own website. If so, you should be aware of some basic concepts behind web hosting before proceeding. Here are five things most people are unaware about web hosting.

Hosting Types are Different from Each Other

If you spend a couple of minutes on a web host’s website, some terms like Shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, reseller, email hosting and others in UAE will catch your attention. These are different web hosting types, and every online object will require a different solution. 

Most webhosts provide shared hosting, which is the cheapest type of web hosting in Dubai. Shared hosting means that a server’s resources are shared between with many other sites. If you are short in cash and don’t see much traffic coming to your sites, this is the right way ahead. 

Larger businesses having larger footfalls to their sites should consider VPS or dedicated hosting since each offer has increasing powerful server capacity. VPS is a high-powered version of shared hosting with lesser number of websites sharing a server’s resources.

Bandwidth is Different from Data Transfer

Bandwidth and data transfer are often used in consonance with each other but technically means different things. Bandwidth represents the total amount of data that can be transferred at one point of time, while data transfer is the actual amount of information that is consumed over a specified period -say a month.   

A web host may advertise a maximum of 10GB bandwidth, but will allow only 2GB data transfer a month.

If a user goes beyond the allowance, a web host may slow the site’s speeds or charge more for the extra consumed data or slowly nudge you to upgrade your plan. Therefore, you need to have a clear understanding about your sites data limitation before surprising yourself in such situations.  

There is Nothing Called Unlimited

Many web hosting will lure users to their web hosting plans with “unlimited” storage or monthly data transfers. This is simply not the truth. While they are not lying completely, unlimited storage or data transfers often always have caps which varies company to company. For example, they may offer unlimited disk space with no limits on a user’s content, but only if the user remains fully compliant with the company’s terms and conditions. Check with a web host’s terms of service, or talk with their customer service personnel, to know exactly what your limitations are regarding unlimited storage. 

Troubles of Solid State Drive/Hard Disk Drive

In a shared web hosting plan, a user will probably get a space on a traditional hard drive(HDD) server. The HDD-bases server offers huge storage space at a more reasonable price. Hence, shifting to a more robust hosting solution like VPS where you will be given the possibility to build a site on solid-state drives.

SSD- based servers are a lot quicker and more expensive, which is why servers are providing this is in a more limited edition than HDDs. 1TB SSD servers are still very few, which is a storage space common for HDDs.

Using Linux Server is Enough in Most Cases

Most web hosts offer Linux as the server operating system. Even people with no understanding of Linux will find it easy to build a website to make the process simple and fast.    

However, if your site needs ASP or ASP.NET scripting frameworks, it will need windows server operating system since the script and web pages produced will only work in a window-based environment.