In the current digital world, buying decisions are the quintessence of any business. The most important factor in defining the success or failure of your business relates to finding the right hosting vendor. Few years back, options were limited and relying on one amongst the various available options was the only choice left to the clients. Fortunately, this catch-22 situation has changed drastically with the explosion of hosting service providers in India. However, performing apples-to-apples comparisons of web hosts operating in India can be a daunting process. It is a must to have a well-defined selection criteria and a reasonable analysis of factors including trade-offs so as to make effective use of capital while gaining access to high-end facilities.
Through this blog, I have attempted to elucidate some of the important factors that can help decision-makers to select a right fit for their end-to-end business applications:
Comprehend Your Business Requisites: Know the ropes before you head forth. In other words, first comprehend what exactly you are seeking to have for your critical enterprise applications. Try to jot down answers with respect to the following:
- Which kind of applications/websites you are planning to host
- How many hits you are expecting on your website
- How much computational power would your website need to respond to
- Are your applications compatible to any specific operating system, hardware
Operating System: Today a host of operating systems are available that offers unique level of functionality and convenience to end-users. Every operating system runs its own set of protocols and is compatible to a defined set of applications. Nevertheless, the two most popular and widely-spread are Window and Linux. Windows seekers can learn and manage their applications by taking a look through Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). ACT provides a capability to analyze portfolio of applications, computers, and websites. It also allows users to centrally manage compatibility and evaluate the impact of OS deployments, updates, and compatibility. ASP.NET, MS SQL Server, Windows Media Services, Windows Media Services, and Microsoft IIS are a few of the apps that best suit Windows platform. On the contrary, Linux is an open-source OS that is considered as an optimal platform for open source stack such as Apache, PHP, MySQL (LAMP, and Ruby on Rails.
Computer Hardware: In today’s IT driven ecosystem, large number of computer networking & hardware devices are in usage and so are various operating systems. This in turn brings in the necessity of confirming database of hardware models with respect to specific operating systems. Well, it goes without saying that good brands ensure ostensible performance, which further helps in translating application/website success. Always try to cull local hardware as it may lead to blunders and cause irrecoverable losses. Performance is more dependent on the speed of the processors, RAM, and integrated hardware. For example, Apache web server and MySQL databases are exceptionally reliant on processor speeds and server memory whereas audio and video intensive apps are more inclined towards greater operating speed.
Overall performance is dependent on these four constituents. Ensuring each of the below mentioned attribute will define your business lifeline:
Hexa-core, Octa-core, and Deca-core processors help in augmenting overall speed of programs amenable to parallel computing. Moreover, SSDs offer greater capacity and performance.
Bandwidth: We dwell in a world, where almost everything is getting converted into e-trading. Be it booking a ride or ordering apparels, everything can be achieved within a jiffy. Bandwidth defines how fast the data travels from a source point to the end-user. How fast the bandwidth is – the best will be the application/website throughput. When we relate bandwidth to web hosting world, it is of immense importance to check what bandwidth speed does your service provider offer. Today, most of the benefactors provide 1 Gbit/s – 100 Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth so as to meet their network uptime agreement. So, it is good to see that vendor you have chosen to partner with offers premium bandwidth for your critical business applications.
Resilient Data Centers: A data center bestowed with top tier grading such as Tier IV and Tier III have the potential to super-charge your business growth. Tier grading determines the stability and reliability of the service provider in terms of scalability, security, and performance. Multiple application monitoring tools are deployed to gauge the functionality of business apps so that they may stay functional all the time .Select a vendor that gives you the freedom to quickly upgrade your server to the most and is latency-optimized. In addition to this, it helps in meeting your scaling market demands without curtailing your performance. A carrier-neutral facility that has multiple telecommunication networks allows migrating to different environment without showing a drop in the overall business efficiency.
Security: Select a vendor that adheres to ideal security standards and have all the provisions to eliminate application, asset, and data breaches. It should provide complete protection at application, network and data layer. Moreover, it also depends on the server type that you have chosen to host your critical business websites. For example, dedicated server offers greatest security as compared to VPS and shared hosting. It will be no wrong to add that security is in your IT administrators and service providers’ hand. The more you are cautious, the less are the chances of vulnerabilities.
To conclude, these pointers will help you make right decisions and take your business to new heights.