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The advent of Virtual Private Servers revolutionized the shared website hosting industry. Is a VPS right for any situation, and when does a fully dedicated machine become a must have? This article examines the issues.

Virtual Private Servers remain the latest innovation in the fairly stagnant, technologically speaking, sphere of website hosting. They represent a different way to break up a server and separate user accounts, providing higher levels of control and security that mimic what was previously available only to fully dedicated servers. They can provide solutions for websites regular shared hosting is not able to handle, but still cannot handle every situation. This article looks at what a VPS can do, and when it may be prudent to consider stepping up to a fully dedicated solution.

What is a Virtual Private Server?
First a brief overview of what, exactly a VPS is and why it is able to simulate a dedicated server environment when, in fact, multiple VPS hosting plans can reside on the same server. VPS works because of the way it partitions the user accounts on the server. If you think about how your home computer stores files, most likely you have a single hard drive which has “folders” or directories on it. Inside the folders/directories are individual files. These files are managed by the computer’s operating system, which may be Windows or Mac OS. In a regular shared hosting environment all the customer accounts are directories on the same “hard drive”, managed by the operating system and made available to the internet via an installed web server, such as Apache. All files in all accounts are managed by the same webserver, share the same applications, and generally compete for the server’s attention depending on the popularity of the hosted site.

In a VPS, the accounts are not hosted only in individual directories, but on individual disk drives. Think of a computer with multiple hard drives, or, more commonly, a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive; each one of these drives has its own system of folders/directories, completely separate from the other drive. Via a process called “partitioning” a single hard drive can be divided up into many smaller drives that the operating system sees as unique, separate entities. On a VPS system, individual accounts reside completely within these separate drives. Applications are installed to individual accounts and are not shared between a single group of accounts on one big drive. This provides not only additional security, but additional control, as users can be granted “root access” to their unique drive to install and configure their own environment without effecting the configuration of any other client.

This is how VPS mimics the functionality of dedicated server, by having each account reside on is own “drive”, which is roughly equivalent to the single drive that would be found in a basic dedicated server. Software on the VPS server manages the individual drives/accounts to assure the smooth functioning and availability of all accounts on the server. This environment is ideal for those looking for an environment that has root access but are not able to afford a completely dedicated solution. Larger, modern VPS accounts can handle sites that may have required a dedicated server only a few years ago.

Fully Dedicated Solutions
A fully dedicated server is a single machine leased to a single individual for exclusive use. Root access is generally a given in any dedicated environment, allowing the sever to be customized with applications that suit the user’s needs. It is this root functionality that VPS hosting provides, but does so on a server that is still “shared” by other users. A dedicated server is completely at the disposal of a single users, to administer as they see fit. Due to the exclusive nature of a dedicated server, they generally require a larger capital investment than regular shared or VPS hosting plans. Many companies will offer a managed dedicated server for an additional cost. This is an important consideration, as most “budget” or low cost dedicated servers are unmanaged, perhaps leaving out even rudimentary technical support. Those unfamiliar with managing a server should strongly consider managed solutions if shopping for dedicated servers.

Though large VPS accounts can take the place of some dedicated solutions, they cannot completely replace them. There are a variety of activities and applications that only a fully dedicated server can adequately handle, such as very large, high traffic databases, large media hosting, and processor intensive web applications. At a very basic level, even simple sites that achieve massive amounts of traffic could outpace a VPS’s ability to effectively host them. Mostly though, the combination of high traffic and highly processor intensive, scripted, database driven web applications remains the domain of a fully dedicated server. Some of the largest, most popular websites are hosted on more than one dedicated server in order to handle the load.

A good host will provide a smooth upgrade path between VPS and dedicated solutions. There are a variety of management systems, such as HSP by SWsoft, that can provision both VPS and dedicated servers, and move accounts between these 2 different types of server. This would allow individuals with growing websites to transition from a large VPS to a fully dedicated quickly and easily, without any interruption of service.

Conclusions
Today, VPS hosting can handle some of the duties formerly solely the realm of dedicated servers. They will never completely replace dedicated servers, though, for very high traffic, processor intensive sites. Customers looking for the economy of a VPS should ask their prospective hosting companies if there is a smooth, automated upgrade path between VPS and dedicated hosting. Ideally such a path will allow a successful website to grow and prosper without any interruptions for server changes and site moves.

About The Author
Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support. Click for more hosting articles.

Note: These articles are provided for general interest and content purposes only, and should not be construed as “support” materials. Apollo Hosting does not guarantee the information contained within. All articles are free to reprint so long as they remain unchanged, the “About the Author” section remains, all hyperlinks are preserved, and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to the hyperlinks.

Thinking of being part of the growing website hosting industry? There are a variety of entry-level reseller solutions that offer different benefits to different types of user. Two common ones are briefly discussed here.

The website hosting industry continues to grow, despite the well-known “dot com bust” at the turn of the century. Though there is far less venture capital flowing into the hosting market, the demand for websites has not abated. As internet access spreads the number of potential website owners grows. Offering website hosting allows entrepreneurs the ability to tap into this market. A quick search will reveal thousands of potential website hosting companies, and it’s a sure bet most these companies, are, in fact, resellers of another company’s hosting services. To one degree or another, most hosting companies are resellers at some level. Even large companies may be leasing their datacenter space or servers from a separate provider. This article will examine 2 types of entry-level reseller plans, which will be designated “fixed” and “flexible”. Each type has benefits according to the kind of reselling in which a potential customer wishes to engage.

Fixed Reseller Plans
Fixed reseller plans provide a single, discrete selection of “products” for the reseller to offer. The reseller is given access to a set of plans with predetermined resources, such as disk space and monthly transfer, and features. Instead of receiving a single “chunk” of disk space to divide as they choose, fixed plans are sold “a la carte” to the reseller and have their own discrete resources. These plans are provided to the reseller at a steep discount. The reseller marks up the price for sale to their customers. Responsibility for technical support falls directly on the reseller, and is generally the reason the original hosting service provides the discount. This is an important consideration for prospective resellers.

When plans are resold, the customers essentially belong to the reseller and become their responsibility. A reseller’s customers will be calling them for technical support, not the originating hosting company. Resellers should be able to contact the hosting company’s technical support directly if need be. Resellers should be sure their hosting company provides detailed support materials on their website that will allow them to answer most general questions and provide basic troubleshooting if the need arises. The reseller’s provider should have some form of 24/7 live support available if the online support materials are not enough to solve a customer’s problems.

Fixed reseller plans are ideal for resellers who are new to the business or just starting out and do not have a great deal of customers lined up. They are generally easier to administer and troubleshoot, as the plans are maintained by the parent hosting company, not the reseller. Fixed reseller systems should provide more automation in billing and upgrading as well. The downside to fixed plans is primarily economical. As business grows, profits will always remain a percentage of the fee charged by the reseller’s host. There is also a danger the reseller host will be slow in updating plans and prices to move with the current market. Without the ability to custom tailor plans, a reseller is at the mercy of their host.

Flexible Reseller Plans
Flexible reseller plans allow resellers to create and price their own plans. Their resources are made available from a single, large pool out of which each plan they add will deduct space and transfer. For instance, a flexible reseller plan may provide a total of 50 Gb of disk space, and each customer a reseller adds deducts from that 50 Gb total. The disk allotment can be in the form of a virtual private sever partition, or even an entire dedicated server. Flexible reseller plans give the reseller ultimate control over how their plans are created in terms of disk space, transfer and price. This allows the reseller the opportunity to maximize profits as their company grows. One key similarity between fixed and flexible plans is the reseller’s Responsibility for technical support. Resellers looking for a flexible plan should keep in mind the advice about tech support provided above.

Flexible plans are more suited to larger resellers with more technical expertise. The trade off in terms of profit will be felt in the complexity of the management systems running flexible plans. Instead of simply choosing a pre-set plan and adding it, the reseller will be responsible for setting up their own plans, providing a billing solution, and creating an ordering system for their customers. The primary question a potential reseller must ask is whether the trade-off in automation is worth the potential increase in profits. Sever management software is generally not simple and intuitive and many flexible solutions require the reseller become proficient with it before they can add customers. Those willing to put in the time and effort have the opportunity to reap much larger rewards.

Conclusions
Fixed and flexible reseller plans suit different needs. Simple and straightforward, the fixed reseller plan appeals to the entry level reseller without a great deal of clients. Flexible reseller plans are best suited to tech savvy resellers who can understand complex server management software. Both types usually require the reseller provide their clients’ technical support. Choose reseller providers who offer strong online support materials and 24/7 live support. Such materials and services will help the reseller better serve their own customers. Happy customers are long term, profitable customers.

About The Author
Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support. Click for more hosting articles.

Note: These articles are provided for general interest and content purposes only, and should not be construed as “support” materials. Apollo Hosting does not guarantee the information contained within. All articles are free to reprint so long as they remain unchanged, the “About the Author” section remains, all hyperlinks are preserved, and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to the hyperlinks.

Website owners face a unique challenge. Making an email address public to communicate with your visitors also makes that address a magnet for spam. Learn how to minimize your risk and still provide that important email contact.

Having a host that provides exceptional Spam blocking services is a must these days. Webmasters and business owners can find their domain email particularly at risk to Spam as their email addresses may be freely available on their websites for both humans, and so-called “spambots” to find. By following a few simple guidelines, you can reduce the stress on your Spam filters by making your email a far harder target to hit. Note that most of these tips are “preventative” in nature. If you read one and know you’ve already exposed your email to that very threat, then you will either need to lose that address or make sure you have a really good filter.

Fooling the Sensors
As a webmaster or the owner of an online store, you want visitors to have a simple avenue of contact. Placing your email address on your site provides this simple avenue, but that avenue is wide, and more than just your customers will journey down it. Having an email address properly formatted and linked from your website makes it the perfect target for spambots. Much like search engine bots that spider the web cataloging information, these bots harvest email addresses for use in mass market email lists. Keeping your email visible to humans but invisible to bots can be accomplished a variety of ways.

• Don’t link your email with a “mailto:” hyperlink
• Spell out your address, for example “sales at yourdomain.com”
• Display your email graphically, but don’t link the graphic
• Advanced users may consider displaying email using Macromedia Flash, as most bots can’t understand links embedded within Flash. This preserves the ability for humans to quickly click your email address and send. This is not to suggest your entire site be in Flash, simply a single email “button.”

Keeping the Secret
This may seem like common sense, but simply minimizing the exposure of your email off your website, as well as on, will aide in stemming the tide of Spam. Your professional email should be used as sparingly as possible. Don’t use it to sign up for personal newsletters or enter into contest forms on other sites. No matter what assurances of privacy a site may provide, the likelihood an address will be Spammed increases each time it’s used. Keep your professional and personal matters highly separated. If you want to get a newsletter, even a professional one, use a home address or consider the use of a free email account. There are a variety of services from large Internet portals like Yahoo and Google. Not only are they free, but they also provide built-in Spam filters, making their use far more preferable for “high risk” situations.

Finally, though it should be completely obvious, don’t respond to unsolicited mass email in any way. Don’t click on their links, reply to the mail, or buy their products. It should be obvious, but the fact is, the reason we all continue to be deluged with unsolicited emails is actually quite simple. They are still profitable to the people sending them. Even if their response rate is in the tenths of a percent, they still make money and thus still send out more. The people who respond are the ones that ensure a Spam filled future for us all.

The Removal Scam
Spam arrives, but, not to fear, there’s a helpful removal link at the bottom. Click, submit, reply, whatever- they come in many flavors, and all of them are potentially deadly. Though a natural response it to use these removal tools, it’s that natural response upon which Spammers prey. Following “removal” instructions may do one of two things. It may remove you from the list, or it may simply be the confirmation a mass emailer needs that the address asking to be removed is, in fact, a real live email account. Instead of stopping unwanted emails, the email account will only receive more, since it has become more valuable than before. It’s more valuable because there’s a confirmation someone is actively using it. Are all removal links scams? No, they aren’t. Some removal links are legitimate. Determining whether a removal link is completely valid is difficult. Never click removal links from unsolicited mass emails, they are most suspect.

Last Lines of Defense
The final lines of defense are filters. Keeping your professional email as quiet as possible and safe from roaming spambots are the primary preventative measures you can reasonably be expected to take. All that remains are filters, on both a server and local level. For site owners, having a host with strong anti-Spam and virus filters installed on your server is your best line of defense. A wide variety of server side filters are available, such as SpamAssassin and MailBoxCop. This kind of service stops Spam and viruses from ever reaching your inbox. Ideally, like MailBoxCop, the service will provide a web based interface to verify it’s quarantined emails and make sure nothing was “over filtered”.

Less effective and generally redundant in face of server side filters, are filters built into email programs. These filters will generally be simple blacklists or filters built on regular expressions. Some may have may have more advanced Bayesian filers built in that can “learn” from being fed a selection of Spam email. It’s preferable such a filter reside on the server and process a large amount of emails in order to be most effective. MailBoxCop functions beyond the server level, intercepting Spam and virus filters before they reach their intended destination’s network.

Conclusions
Keeping your business email as confidential as possible is the best preventative measure against Spam. If you need to have contact email on your site, ensure that it is not directly linked or formatted in such a way as to make it an easy target for spambots. The ideal solution is a simple button in Flash that humans may use like any other button but that is unreadable from a bot’s perspective. Beyond confidentiality, ensure you have strong, robust filters for your site’s email addresses. This is the only option for an address that’s already been picked up by the mass emailers. It’s difficult to completely staunch the flow of Spam, but good filters can put a stop to most of it.

About The Author
Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support. Click for more hosting articles.

Note: These articles are provided for general interest and content purposes only, and should not be construed as “support” materials. Apollo Hosting does not guarantee the information contained within. All articles are free to reprint so long as they remain unchanged, the “About the Author” section remains, all hyperlinks are preserved, and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to the hyperlinks.

Are you a website owner that receives a lot of Spam to your domain’s email addresses? This article presents an overview of basic spam-fighting techniques available to website hosting companies. See if yours measures up.

Virtually anyone with an email address knows what Spam is, and has, perhaps, considered giving up the speed, convenience, and simplicity of email because of it. Those who have their own websites are more vulnerable than the average person with a single work or home email address from their company or Internet Service Provider. Email addresses visible on a website can quickly become Spam magnets, as automated programs, similar in form to search engine spiders, roam the web, looking for addresses to which new broadsides of Spam may be fired. Website hosting companies generally provide their clients email accounts for use with their domain, but are you with a host that provides those email accounts with Spam and virus protection?

Local Blacklist Filters
Webmasters shouldn’t need to seek out local filters for their site’s contact email addresses. There are a variety of server level solutions a hosting company can offer to protect their users from unwanted emails. A most basic step is provision of a very rudimentary “blacklist” functionality to their users, allowing them to prevent future Spam emails from arriving from the same address. This type of filter is virtually worthless in today’s Spam environment, though, as it is quite rare to see unsophisticated email arriving from the same address multiple times. Spammers have grown far more sophisticated than that. Blacklisting functionality is only really useful in avoiding email from other real people you don’t particularly wish to hear from anymore.

Keywords and Regular Expressions
More advanced server level Spam filters are available. A small advance is accomplished using keyword filters. Keyword filters merely check for instances of a certain string of characters and deny the message if that string if found. The core problem with keyword-only filters is they can “over filter”. Someone who puts “sex” on their keyword filter will find receiving local news and event announcements difficult if they live in a town named “Essex”. Some filters attempt to address this deficiency by using “regular expressions” in order to build a sophisticated rule set to prevent Spam from reaching your inbox. Briefly, regular expressions are syntax rules used to identify certain strings of text or numbers. These rules can be set up to identify text patterns that are commonly used in Spam. They can become quite complex, but, as with most any filtering method, are not 100% bullet proof. Some filters that use regular expressions come with a basic set that can be appended by the user. Obviously this kind of feature is of little use to someone not familiar with regular expressions.

Bayesian Filters
Currently the most sophisticated filtering methods use Bayesian inferences. Bayesian filters take a large data set and determine the probability a message is Spam based on its similarity to previous Spam messages. The more emails that are processed and flagged theoretically make the filter more accurate. Services that provide filtering on an ISP or host level, like “MailBoxCop”, filter thousands of emails and provide the highest level of success and fewest “false positives”. MailBoxCop is already highly intelligent about identifying Spam and only becomes moreso the more users it filters. The online, browser based interface keeps flagged messages in an easily accessible “quarantine” and allows the user to check for any false positives. White and black list functionality is provided to aide in the prevention of future false positives. A hosting company offering such an advanced service takes Spam and virus filtering for their customers seriously.

About The Author
Mr. Lester has served for 4 years as the webmaster for ApolloHosting.com and previously worked in the IT industry an additional 5 years, acquiring knowledge of hosting, design, and search engine optimization. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers. Established in 1999, Apollo prides itself on the highest levels of customer support. Click for more hosting articles.

Note: These articles are provided for general interest and content purposes only, and should not be construed as “support” materials. Apollo Hosting does not guarantee the information contained within. All articles are free to reprint so long as they remain unchanged, the “About the Author” section remains, all hyperlinks are preserved, and the rel=”nofollow” tag is not added to the hyperlinks.