Doing Your Own Web Hosting

When it comes to web hosting, the economist Adam Smith’s theories of labor division really apply. It may seem like a good, money-saving idea to be your own web host, but there’s much more involved than it appears at first glance. Prior to purchasing any web site hosting equipment, consider everything that being your own web host will entail.

Server: The word “server” means a powerful computer with certain custom networking abilities. You might be able to get by with a small server for a minimally sized business for a short time. Servers that are good are made by Hewlett Packard and IBM. Dell manufactures servers as well.

Security: Securing your Server is probably the most difficult part of doing your own website hosting. Network Security specialists are trying to keep up with the hackers and spammers (not the other way around). Server Security is a highly technical task that never ends. It is certainly not a matter of installing an antivirus or internet security program. Unless you have a Certified Administrator or equivalent on staff, you’ll probably need to forget doing your own hosting.

Software Licensing: In the majority of instances, server operating systems have licenses covering a limited number of concurrent connections. Licensing all the software can end up costing you an arm and a leg.

Network: It will be necessary to obtain a data trunk in the location where you want to base the server. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to just connect your server to your ISP. Some users try that for personal websites and playing around, but you should avoid doing that when hosting your own website as the ISP will restrict your bandwidth. If you are still convinced you want to do your own hosting, and your resource needs are minimal, look into the TOS (Terms of Service) with your ISP.

You will need additional equipment like a dependable off-site backup system to safeguard the data, and a reliable battery backup to handle power failures.

Employees: If you are short a network guru employee, then you must hire one who is available 24/7 with on call support. Servers and networks go bad all the time, the best ones included. You cannot just set it up and then just leave it be, for long. Absolutely not!

In Summary: Your website will benefit from the powerful and reliable servers provided by leased web hosting services, and you will save lots of money on hardware, administration, and labor. Without the support of dedicated IT technicians, you will be spending too much money as well as valuable time running your operation. It is possible to get shared web hosting if you have a smaller site, with prices from approximately $10 monthly. I bet you can’t find anything to beat that!