What to look for in Shared Virtual Hosting

Operating System

The operating system is one of the first features you will notice when selecting for a web hosting plan. The most common operating systems used for web servers are Apple Mac, Unix, and Microsoft Windows platforms. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The selection of operating systems really depends on what type of tools or applications you intend to utilise in conjunction with your web site. For example, if you wish to run PHP scripts then we recommend a Unix web host, or if you wish to run .NET applications we typically recommend a windows operating system environment. Generally, we recommend a Unix operating system because it is widely recognised in the web hosting industry as a mission critical platform, and offers rock solid stability.

It is commonly perceived that the Windows platform is less flexible and technologically less superior for tasks such as web hosting than Unix. But since the mid 90's, Microsoft has placed a lot of effort and investments in gearing their operating systems for web services. In particular, Windows 2000 and upward are fine examples of its efforts. Although, they have not managed to match the numbers who have adopted Unix and its variants for web hosting purposes, its adoption is increasing. With the unveiling of Microsoft .NET initiative, no doubt the adoption will be pushed along over the next few years.

AT&T developed Unix in the late 1960s as a multi-user and multi-tasking operating systems. Ever since, it has been modified and transformed into many variants of Unix to handle different tasks. Even it has been through tremendous changes, it is still maintained as one of the most stable and secure operating systems. Its adoption has been very rapid because most variants are freely distributed and the source code of the operating system is allowed to be modified by anyone under the GNU licensing agreement.

Apple Macintosh operating systems are considered to be stable as Unix platforms but simply lack the features and support of the other two operating systems. However, since the release of OS X (an Apple platform based on a Unix core), its popularity is slowing increasing.

Control Panel

This is a good feature to have with your web hosting plan. A web based control panel empowers you to control the tools and features of your web site. It will also allow you to make changes without contacting the system engineers every time, hence saving time. For instance, to make an additional e-mail alias, you simply make it happen with a few mouse clicks. Traditionally, you would have to e-mail the system support to create it or do it in a command-line based environment, which can be very unfriendly to users who are unfamiliar with it.

The introduction of the web based control panel allowed the inexperience to utilize features without editing configuration files or have the technical expertise to exploit it. In my opinion, if you are shopping for a web host, then we suggest you consider this feature as a much have! Most providers will allow you to test drive their control panels before signing on. I advise you test-drive this feature to truly understand the simplicity and flexibility of such an essential feature.