Hosting Terms Glossery

Hosting.net Glossary of Terms

A B C D E F G-H I J K-L M N O P Q-R S T U-V W-Z

Anonymous FTP
An option of FTP provided by a Web hosting company to allow users to download files without having to set up an account. It is often used for large files of public archives. It is sometimes condensed to Anon FTP. Use Anonymous FTP if you want visitors to your Web site to have access to free downloads without a password or other identification. This will create fewer steps for your visitors, allowing your Web site to be more “user friendly.”

Apache
Apache is a freely available Web server that is distributed under an "open source" license. Version 2.0 runs on most Unix-based operating systems (such as Digital UNIX, AIX, Linus, and Solaris), on other UNIX/POSIX-derived systems (such as BeOS, Rhapsody, and BS2000/OSD), on Windows, and on AmigaOS.

ASP Web Hosting
Web hosting that supports ASP (Active Server Pages). ASP, which stands for Active Server Pages, is a technology that uses server-side scripting that allows users to create imaginative, interactive Web pages. ASP hosting make it possible for a Web site to appear just as it is intended to appear on any visitor's computer regardless of the browser being used. HTML doesn’t offer that same sort of certainty.

Autoresponder (Auto Responder) A program that returns an automatic form response to incoming emails. Most autoresponders have a standard reply to all emails sent to a certain address. There are custom autoresponders that respond based on a set user-defined rules.

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Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time over a communications channel. It is expressed in kbps, or kilobits per second. Larger Web sites need a Web hosting plan that provides more bandwidth. Web hosting plans usually offer bandwidth amounts in gigabytes per month

Burstable Bandwidth
A Web hosting option that permits Web sites to use the available network capacity to handle periods of peak usage. Burstable bandwidth is another option to dedicated bandwidth. Many Web shared hosting plans provide burstable bandwidth, because it is cost-effective for both the Web hosting company and the customer.

Business Web Hosting
Business Hosting is Web hosting for business-class customers. Reliability is key for business Web hosting, because “down-time means money” for businesses. In addition to standard features like bandwidth, storage, etc., a Business Web hosting package must focus on real 24/7 customer support, reliability (uptime, backups, monitoring), mailing list management programs (list servers), statistical data on visitors, autoresponders, high security, and Anonymous FTP.

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Cold Fusion Web Hosting
Cold Fusion hosting is Web hosting that supports Cold Fusion, a software suite from Macromedia, makers of Flash. Cold Fusion allows Web-based interaction with databases. Cold Fusion Web hosting allows you to query, update, index, and chart databases from any Web browser.

Colocation Web Hosting
Colocation hosting provides the bandwidth of a large business with a cost only slightly more than that of a typical, basic Web hosting package. Colocation hosting allows you to buy your own server and install it in a data center’s “rack” of servers. With colocation you actually own the hardware, and also benefit from the resources of a large, well-established, and reliable data center – backup systems, redundancy, building security, controlled environment, and access to the company’s technical support. Compared to dedicated Web hosting, colocation Web hosting can reduce the total long-term hardware expense.

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Data Transfer
The total amount of outward bound traffic from a Web site, with the exception of e-mail. That includes any HTML, graphic, audio, or video file that is accessed by a visitor to a Web site. High rates of data transfer indicate a Web site with heavy traffic. Data transfer is normally measured in gigabytes (Gb).

Dedicated Web Hosting
A Web hosting option in which the Web hosting company provides the client with the equipment, dedicating an entire server to the client’s Web site. Dedicated web hosting is for those companies that want total control not only over the administration of their Web site but also over the actual hardware and software used to run it. If a company is large enough or growing fast enough that it requires its own Internet connection and server, it should certainly look into Dedicated Web hosting.

Dedicated IP
An IP address dedicated to a single Web site is referred to as Dedicated IP.

Disk Space
Disk space is the amount of hard drive capacity on the server that is available to host a particular Web site for graphics, pictures, HTML, etc. It is usually expressed in megabytes (MB).

DNS
DNS stands for Domain Name System (or Service). It is an Internet service that renders domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they are easier to remember. The Internet is based on IP addresses. Every time a domain name is used, DNS service must translate the name into the parallel IP address, i.e., the domain name www.webhosting.com might translate to 198.105.232.4.

Domain Name
The exclusive name that identifies a site’s Web address (URL). A domain name has three levels. For example, for the domain name www.webhosting.com, the top level (TLD) is “.com” – some other top levels are .org, .edu, .net, .gov. The second level Web site name, in this case it is “webhosting.” The third level is “www”.

Domain Parking
Refers to when a Web hosting company supplies a name server for a domain that doesn’t have its own hosting set up yet. If a business doesn’t have its own name server, it can "park" it with a domain/ Web hosting company.

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E-commerce Hosting
A hosting plan offered by Web hosting companies that allows businesses to accept orders online via credit cards, PayPal, etc.

Email Forwarding
Also known as email redirection, it is the process of automatically sending email messages from one email address to another email address.

Email Web Hosting
Plan offered by Web hosting companies that allows users to send, receive, and store email messages.

Firewall
A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially intranets (networks belonging to private organizations, corporations, etc.) All messages entering or leaving an intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security standards.

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Free Web Hosting
Web hosting offered for free.

MS FrontPage
A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) building tool from Microsoft that creates and manages Web pages.

FrontPage Extensions
A collection of server add-ons programs and scripts that enable the Microsoft FrontPage functions. In order to publish a Web site with Microsoft FrontPage, a Web hosting company’s servers must be set up with FrontPage Extensions.

FrontPage Web Hosting
A Web hosting plan offered by Web Hosting companies that support FrontPage. FrontPage is a software program that allows the user to create dynamic, interactive Web pages without the need to have any knowledge of HTML or other Web programming scripts. This user-friendly point-and-click model, based around a straightforward "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) display, is familiar to most users of other products in the Microsoft office suite.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a standard Internet protocol, is the simplest way to exchange files between computers on the Internet.

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High Bandwidth Web Hosting
A Web hosting plan offered by Web hosting companies with the ability to handle very high traffic volumes.

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IIS
IIS (Internet Information Server) is a group of Internet servers (including a Web or HTP server and an FTP server) with additional capabilities for Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

IP Address
An Internet Protocol Address is a unique number that identifies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packets across the Internet. An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network. On the Internet itself - that is, between the router that move packets from one point to another along the route - only the network part of the address is looked at. To avoid replication each IP address must be registered to identify each computer or device.

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JSP Web Hosting
JSP (Java Server Pages) Web hosting is one of the many Java Web hosting options available to Web developers. JSP Web hosting refers to the ability to easily run and manage Java Server Pages. JSP allows Web designers to combine dynamically generated HTML in with their standard, static HTML code. JSP is similar to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP), so JSP hosting is not much different from ASP hosting.

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Linux Web Hosting
A Web Hosting plan offered by Web hosting companies that supports Linux. Linux is a Unix-like operating system designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost operating system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive Unix systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Linux Web hosting plans are usually not as expensive as Web hosting plans using operating systems by Microsoft.

Load Balancing
Load balancing is dividing the amount of work that a computer has to do between two or more computers so that more work gets done in the same amount of time and, in general, all users get served faster. Load balancing can be implemented with hardware, software, or a combination of both. Typically, load balancing is the main reason for computer server clustering.

Log Analyzer
A program that takes a server's "raw" log file data and summarizes it into reports. In general, an access log can be analyzed for: the number of visitors (unique first-time requests) to a home page; the origin of the visitors in terms of their associated server's domain name, (for example, visitors from .edu, .com, and .gov sites and from the online services); how many requests for for each page at the site, which can be presented with the pages with most requests listed first; and, Usage patterns in terms of time of day, day of week, and seasonally.

Log File
A log file or access log file is a list of all the requests for individual files that people have requested from a Web site. These files will include the HTML files and their imbedded graphic images and any other associated files that get transmitted. The access log (sometimes referred to as the "raw data") can be analyzed and summarized by another program, a log analyzer.

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Managed Web Hosting
A Managed Web hosting plan provides a dedicated Web server for Web sites as well as a range of support and technical services. These can take care of some or all hosting related needs. Services on offer will vary from Web hosting company to Web hosting company but most will include managed hosting options such as monitoring, advice, administration, support, security, updates and upgrades, testing and troubleshooting. This option allows for a dedicated hosting management service in an extremely cost-effective manner and closely mirrors an in-house operation.

Multi-Domain Plan
A multi-domain plan, also known as a Webmaster plan, is a Web hosting plan offered by Web hosting companies that permits multiple domain names to use the resources of a single Web hosting account. These plans are cost-efficient when a client has several small Web sites, which don’t need the resources of a dedicated server.

MySQL Web Hosting
A Web hosting plan offered by Web hosting clients that support MySQL. Whether it’s client records or shopping list items, any data needs to be stored on a database. Used in conjunction with various software scripting languages, most notably PHP, and part of the LAMP family (Apache, Linus, MySQL, and PHP), MySQL is a comprehensive database management system.

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.NET Hosting (“dot net”)
A Web hosting plan offered by Web hosting companies that supports .NET, A Microsoft operating system platform that integrates applications, a suite of tools and services, and a change in the infrastructure of the company's Web strategy. It removes the boundaries between applications and the Internet. Instead of interacting with an application or a single Web site, .NET will connect the user to a collection of computers and services that will exchange and combine objects and data. Users have access to their information on the Internet from any device, anytime, anywhere.

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OC
Short for Optical Carrier, used to specify the speed of fiber optic networks. A Web hosting company's Web site for listing data center information might have detailed information on the capacity of their connections to the Internet. Common OC speeds are: OC1 transfers data at a speed of 51.85 Mbps; OC3 at 155.52 Mbps; OC12 at 622.08 Mbps; OC24 at 1.244 Gbps; OC48 at 2.488 Gbps; and OC 192 at 9.952 Gbps.

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PHP Web Hosting
A Web hosting plan that has activated support for all files with the extension of .php. PHP ( Hypertext Processor) is an open source scripting language that borrows from Java, Perl, and C, and can be embedded in HTML pages. PHP was created to streamline the process of creating dynamic Web pages and accelerating their publication online. PHP is a server-side language, which means it can be run on any platform (Windows, Linux, Unix) because the PHP hosting server, and not the client's computer, is the one reading and interpreting the code. The PHP hosting server merely inserts the results of the PHP code into the HTML file sent to the client.

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Raw Logs
A file that lists actions that have occurred. For example, Web servers maintain log files listing every request made to the server. With log file analysis tools, it's possible to get a good idea of where visitors are coming from, how often they return, and how they navigate through a Web site. Raw logs are important because they list detailed information that is not available from the Web hosting company’s default log analyzer.

Reseller Web Hosting
Web hosting reseller programs let you act as middleman between existing Web hosting providers and new clients that you find for them. Income is derived in the form of commissions paid directly by the provider and/or profits based on reselling discounted packages at a higher price.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a method of manipulating aspects of a Web site to improve its ranking in search engines. Various approaches are taken to achieve that goal, such as submitting the Web site to directory services, and addressing Web site content (via keywords) and site architecture.

Secure Shell Hosting (SSH)
SSH Hosting, which stands for Secure Shell Hosting, is a secure, Linux-based protocol for remote terminal access to computer systems. It's a secure method to communicate with a computer that is remote.

Setup Fee
A Web hosting setup fee paid one time at the beginning of a Web hosting contract. Setup fees are usually substantially lower than the ongoing Web hosting fees.

Shared Web Hosting
Shared hosting is Web hosting in which the service provider serves pages for multiple Web sites, each having its own Internet domain name, from a single Web server. Most Web hosting companies provide shared hosting. Although shared hosting is a less expensive way for businesses to create a Web presence, it is usually not sufficient for Web sites with high traffic. These sites need a dedicated Web server (dedicated or colocation Web hosting), either provided by a Web hosting service or maintained in-house.

Shared IP
An IP address shared by more than one Web site.

Shopping Cart
The programming that provides a Web site with the ability to build a catalog and its associated databases and to integrate pages into its site that provide users the ability to shop is known as shopping cart software.

Site Monitoring
A service that is repeatedly checks a Web site and warns the administrator if there are any problems with the Web site.

SSL
The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a commonly-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet. Developed by Netscape, SSL also gained the support of Microsoft and other Internet client/server developers as well and became the de facto standard until evolving into Transport Layer Security. The "sockets" part of the term refers to the sockets method of passing data back and forth between a client and a server program.
SSL is an integral part of most Web browsers (clients) and Web servers. If a Web site is on a server that supports SSL, SSL can be enabled and specific Web pages can be identified as requiring SSL access.

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T1
The T1 carrier (part of the T-carrier system) is the most commonly used digital transmission service in the United States, Canada, and Japan and capable of transferring up to 1.544 Mbps. T1 lines originally used copper wire but now also include optical and wireless media.
It is common for an Internet access provider to be connected to the Internet as a point-of-presence (POP) on a T1 line owned by a major telephone network. Many businesses also use T1 lines to connect to an Internet access provider.

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Unix/Linux Web Hosting
Unix Web Hosting supports Unix, a multi-user computer operating system designed primarily for servers and advanced users. Unix provides the base for many open source companies, including Linux, Solaris, and others. Unix hosting is cheaper than Windows Hosting. Because most Web hosts use the free version of Unix (Linux), they don't have to compensate for huge overhead expenses. This savings is then passed on to customers. In addition, those who use Unix hosting usually get free tools and applications that have been written primarily for the Unix community. Unix source code is publicly available because it is an "open system.”

Unlimited Bandwidth Web Hosting
A Web hosting plan offered by Web Hosting companies in which the client will not be charged extra fees for very high levels of data transfer.

Uptime Guarantee
A guarantee made by a Web hosting company that uptime will meet a percentage agreed upon. Uptime is a computer industry term for the time during which a computer is operational. Downtime is the time when it isn't operational. Uptime is typically measured in terms of a percentage. For example, one standard for uptime that is sometimes discussed is a goal called five 9s -- a computer that is operational 99.999% of the time.

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Web Hosting
Web hosting (also known as Webhosting, Web site hosting, and hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web site. Web hosting companies offer numerous hosting plans to fit small- to medium-sized businesses as well as large corporations.

Web Hosting Control Panel
Web hosting companies offer a Web Hosting Control panel (or simply control panel) to allow clients access to sophisticated Web site management functions.

Web mail
Web mail, or Web-based email, is email that is accessed with a Web browser. You don’t need to have a mail client on your computer – you are using the services of the server.

Web Server
A Web server is a computer that, using the client/server model and the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), serves the files that form Web pages to Web users (whose computers contain HTTP clients that forward their requests). Every computer on the Internet that contains a Web site must have a Web server program.

Windows Web Hosting
Web hosting that supports any version of Microsoft Windows. Web hosting companies with the newest Window hosting version offer Window hosting clients a collection of third party applications called Web Site Starters custom designed for a Windows environment. Although a Windows server can be quite expensive, it has one of the simplest user-interfaces available and is therefore a server of choice for new and inexperienced administrators. Window hosting is also incredibly convenient in that it is compatible with most other Microsoft products.

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