Web hosting plan is the different plans provided by Hosting Companies for hosting your web site. Web hosting plans include the storage limit, bandwidth, access to server resources, database base access etc. for your web site. Different hosting plans are provided by the Web Hosting Service Providers to cater the different requirements. Example of web hosting plans are:
- Mail Only Plans:
In this case web hosting provider will provide you the email server to send and receive the emails. In this case you can't put your pages on website.
- Beginners Plans:
This includes the static pages and email facility on the server. This plan for hosting the static pages on the web site.
- Intermediate Plans:
This plan may give you the all the features of Beginners Plans plus database access, support for scripting languages, JSP , Servlets etc. You can also add more features on requirements on some extra changes.
- Advance Plans:
This plan is good for high traffic web site. The hosting provider will charge handsome amount for advance hosting. Here you will database access, scripting supports, SSL Encryption, Shopping Cart and many more features.
Web Hosting companies vary greatly in the options they offer to web developers, but a number of standard features can be found in virtually all hosting plans. Web space, e-mail capabilities, access to a CGI-Bin, FTP, Bandwidth and account maintenance via web control panel are the most common features among all reliable web hosts.
Web Space
Server space is basically the amount of hard drive space made available to the developer for publishing his files on-line. Developers opting for their own server will obviously have more server space than those who select to share space on a server with others.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is a measure of how much data the server serves (McFedries, 1999). It is the lifeblood of the Internet and should be accorded the appropriate consideration (Putting the Focus on Bandwidth, 2001).
It’s important to consider how much bandwidth you will need. Suppose a company put a 2500 MB per month limit on your account. Now suppose that your site is exactly 1 MB. To reach your limit, 2500 visitors would have to visit your site and view everything on it.
A company's advertising of unlimited bandwidth is misleading according to Burnham (2001). While the allowable bandwidth may seem endless, there is a physical limit to any server and thus a limit to the bandwidth.
E-mail Services
Another nice option is a number of free POP3 accounts. This means you are given an email address at your domain such as myname@example.com. Hosting sites vary on how they charge for POP3 accounts. They may charge for each POP account, look for free POP offers.
CGI-Bin
These days almost all paid hosting services come with your own CGI-Bin to run various scripts.
FTP
It allows you to upload your files on the web server.
Advanced Features
Server-side functionality including SSI, JavaScripting, Active Scripting, Java Server Pages and PHP capabilities are among the added features . User logs and error tracking along with daily site back-ups are also important components of a quality hosting solution.
Control Panel
Some hosts give a special administrative page to each of their clients. This enables the client to adjust certain attributes and check the status on certain parts of their account without having to contact their host.
Upgrading Choices
This is important if you plan on your site growing overtime. Hosting sites tend to offer packaged deals that include specific limits. These are nice if you know how much of a particular resources you require for your site. It is important however to see what types of charges a site might add if you exceed your limit on these resources.