HostEase Hosting Blog

Many people don’t satisfy with their hosting providers but have to stay with them; this is simply because they think that moving to a new server is too complicated. They don’t want the down time when they move their websites, reset domain name severs and change email settings. Fortunately, it is possible to move a website without downtime.

Here is step-by-step on how to move your website without downtime.
1.Keep the current hosting account
While you are finding the new web hosting make sure you don’t cancel your current hosting account. If your current hosting provider knows you want to cancel your hosting account, they would terminate your account early. This will cause the downtime.

2.Analysis your website needs and select a new hosting
Select a hosting that can provide what your website needs. Sign up a new hosting account, you should have two hosting accounts at this time.

3.Backup and download all of your files
Backup the entire website .You can use a FTP program or whatever development tools you may be used to download all files. Then upload the entire website to the new hosting account. Keep the directory structure exactly as it is on your previous hosting account. If you have built the site it is most likely that you already have all of these.

4.Update your name severs
You’ll get at least two name severs in the new account information email from your new hosting provider. After moving the entire website to the new hosting account, it’s time to update your domain name servers. Go to domain control panel to change the DNS to the new hosting provider’s.

5.Monitor (for ) the domain name change
Once the DNS has been changed, it usually takes 24 to 48 hours for the entire world to see the change. During this period your DNS is propagating worldwide and your website will be bouncing from the previous host to the new host every other minute randomly. Once the propagation has completed that means you are safely to cancel the previous hosting account.

And there you have done it; you can move your website without downtime.

Tags: downtime, move website, Server, webhosting

After you have finished your web design and you think you are well prepared to publish your website to the people from all over the world, then it is essential to purchase a web host for your web business online. Web host is divided into two categories when it talks about operating system, Linux and Windows hosting plans. Which one is better, Linux or Windows? This is a real dilemma especially if you are lack of understanding.

In this state of things, it is natural for you to fall into the popular debate of which platform is better. Actually, both have pluses and minuses. Leave the debate alone and think of what is best for you. Many people who have little computer knowledge may make a decision according to the operating system that is installed on their personal computers. This is an error of judgment as the operating system of your PC is totally irrelevant to your selection of web hosting operating system and there is really no need to take it into account. Instead, the basic criterion for your selection should be in accordance with what platform will help you the most. In short, it is your website requirement rather than operating system of your PC should be considered.

Do you need to use following components or technologies that is only compatible for Windows server? .NET scripts, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Access databases, ASP or ASP.NET scripts and other Windows scripting applications will not compatible with Linux server. Therefore, if you are a fun of Microsoft, it is advised that you should choose a Windows based platform so that you will make full use of different software and application of that company.

On the other hand, with Linux server, you will be able to run PHP scripts, MySQL databases, Python, XML and many other languages. If you are planning to run your website with platform independent languages such as, PHP and MySql, it is a wise choice to go with a Linux server. Linux is an open source system, where anyone can contribute to the development and it is well known to possess remarkable power and stability. As long as they are administered properly, Linux servers are able to execute several queries at the same time. Linux based databases, such as MySql and PostgreSql are relational databases and they are both inexpensive and very efficient. With either of these database, you website can operate very well. Linux servers are famous for dependability as they often maintain a very high percentage of uptime, at least 99.9%. Linux web hosting servers enjoys great popularity among webmaster and developers also contribute to its great reliability.

Linux hosting plans are generally 20% cheaper than Windows hosting plans. This is mainly because that Linux server and its supporting technologies are open source technologies and many online communities make various contributions without any charge while Windows is developed the stuff of Microsoft Company at very high operative costs and the company force people to pay for their license fee before using the Windows server. To use Windows server software it will cost your hosting company much more than using the free of charge Linux server software. And less cost for your hosting company will means less cost for you.

In addition, with Linux server, you will enjoy the greatest of ease when it comes to switching over to Windows system. If a user’s requirement changes with the website development, it is also fairly easy to upgrade a Linux server to meet that needs. Due to the great versatility, Linux has become a platform for many new technologies that become widely used in hosting industry.

To sum up, if you do not need support for some unique Microsoft products to set up unique features for your website like a searchable database or a chat facility, then Linux hosting servers will perform beautifully and flawlessly without doubt. Finally, it all depends on what you need rather than on the merits and demerits of the server. Except for website requirements, for many people the major factor in choosing a web hosting plan is usually the cost.

Tags: linux, Server, webhosting, Website, windows

Nowadays, it is quite common for anybody to have his own business online. And as we all know the first necessary step is to pick out a reliable web server for your website. You should pay special attention to the reliability of the web hosting service. Following I will explain why.

The importance of reliability
Professional web master should know the fact that reliability is the key to the success of a website, especially one that deal with online business transactions or other mission-critical functions. Actually, whether your website is hosted on a reliable server or not can directly affect your website visitors. Imagine, how pity it would be if a visitor come to your website for only one time and never come back again because your website is down while he is looking for something he needs. Your website should be attractive enough for he to become your frequent visitor, unfortunately, you give up the chance if you invest your money on poor hosting provider. Well, if you do not want to have frequent website failures, data loss and sale loss, then the easiest way is to go for a reliable web hosting solution.

Some aspects of web hosting reliability
As you have noticed that an unreliable web server will drive away your visitors, then you will need some attributes to judge whether a particular hosting is of high quality or not. Then those following parameters are for your reference: customer support level, server configuration restrictions, web site speed and hardware reliability. If all of these are satisfying you, then you will be able to have a good sleep over the nights.

A.Customer support level
On the hosting marketplace, most of hosting providers claim that they are able to offer excellent customer support. However, not all the companies are in that position. From my personal point of view, it is not wise to believe in web hosting reviews nowadays, as most of them are paid by hosting company and will not give you a true picture about the real level of a particular company. However, you can acquire it by asking some pre-sales questions. By asking these questions, you can not only get the answer to anything you want to know, additionally, you will be able to understand the level of quality customer support that is provided by the technical support staff. By asking questions about their power supply, the specifications of their servers, information about network connection and data center, you should know whether they are responsive and professional enough.

B.Hardware Reliability
A good hosting provider will never sacrifice hardware quality for profits because they should know that low quality hardware will be equal to suicide themselves. Therefore, they will be willing to invest a fair amount of money in hardware and keep the server up to date regularly. Generally speaking, they will need some scheduled downtime for hardware replacements and maintenance. It is a smart idea to know some information about scheduled maintenance before you sign up. Base on my own experience, you can judge whether a particular hosting company is a larger company with their own data center or a pretty small company who simply lease servers from the large company and resell it to you via checking out the hardware they have.

C.Server Configuration Restrictions
I put this in the third place because most inexperienced webmasters will not need much server configuration options, however, some experienced webmaster would like to have more control over your website. You are strongly recommended to pick out one from a couple of most popular control panel, CPanel and Plesk so that you will be able to perform most configuration changes and run your website successfully. You will be allowed to do following task within Cpanel and Plesk:
•Manage email account and set up webmail client
•Manage file with built-in file manager
•Analysis website traffic with stats software, like, AWStats
•Manage domain and subdomain
•Manage your MySQL database
•PHPMyAdmin web manager
•More…

D.Server response time
You must have this kind of online experience: clicking on a particular search result and waiting for several seconds, you are still not accessing the website then you turn to the next option. These days, web users expect more and more from internet so if your website can not provide instant accessibility, they will not be coming back to your site again. Well, we can say that your website speed will directly affect your website traffic, your earning ability and finally you potential revenue. In fact, your server response time is the key factor to your website speed. When a visitor clicks on a link to your site, firstly, the address of the site is required to be looked up in the DNS records, and then it will be able to know the location of your server. Next, the request is sent to your server. Therefore, your server must responsive enough and handle the request in a quick way. To ensure this you should make sure that the CPU (which determines the “start-to-load” speed) of your server is not overloaded. In addition, you should make sure that you are offered with enough resource so that the loading speed of your website will not be affected due to limited bandwidth or other resource.

Obtain a reliable web hosting solution
If a hosting company cannot provide you with a reliable service, it can be very difficult for you to success online. 99.9% uptime guarantee has become industry standard, therefore you should never try one with a lower percentage uptime promise. Some companies are offering alternative infrastructures to enhance server reliability. Your web host should be your partner that helps you succeed with a website or online business rather than simply a supplier.

Tags: customer support, hardware reliability, high quality, Online business, Server, web hosting reliability

SoftLayer will perform a required power maintenance at 2am PDT on 3/17/2010, which will affect HostEase’s server on them server103.hostease.com.

So we post this notice to inform you about the maintenance for the attached servers on HostEase. During this maintenance window the server will be powered down for a period of about 20 minutes.

Again, this maintenance will be starting at 2am PDT on 3/17/2010 and will affect the power of server103.hostease.com. And the server will be available as soon as possible.
Any further assistance please contact us through

Telephone: (302) 353-4678
Email: support@hostease.com
Submit a ticket at support.hostease.com

HostEase Technical Department
March.16th, 2010

Tags: maintenacne, Server

Before getting a web host, you should be familiar with some basic concepts of web hosting. Here I’ll give a brief introduction of some fundamental concepts to make the beginners understand easily.

1. Server, Virtual host, VPS, web disk space
A server is a computer which is equipped with a set of necessary applications that provide web service. Generally speaking, there is no essential difference between a server and a computer, in some circumstances there are even servers that run not as smoothly as computers we use.

Virtual hosting is a method that host more than one domain names (websites) on the same server. Websites on the same server are independent from each other in a certain sense. Both virtual hosting and dedicated server can meet the needs of web masters, while the low price of virtual hosting gives it a big advantage over dedicated servers.

VPS, Virtual Private Server (also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS), is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers such that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted. This is a hosting solution with performance higher than virtual hosting and price lower than dedicated server.

Web space, also known as disk space, is the holding space for your digital data, which may include server, virtual hosting and VPS mentioned above. Beginners usually pay a lot of attention on the volume of web space, while in face there are many other important factors they should take into consideration.

2. Dedicated IP address, Shared IP address (IP sharing)
Dedicated IP address and Shared IP address is a pair of corresponding concepts. In dedicated IP hosting, each virtual host has a different IP address. And in shared IP address hosting, all virtual hosts on the same server share a same IP address. The primary reason for a site to use a dedicated IP is to be able to use its own SSL certificate rather than a shared certificate.

3. Windows, Linux, Unix
When you come across the terms such as Windows hosting and Linux hosting, you should realize that these terms are used to describe the operating system of the server, which has nothing to do with the operating system used by your own computer.

The choice of the operating system on the web host depends on the requirement of your website application. Generally, PHP websites prefer Linux hosting, and Windows hosting are more suitable for websites designed with ASP, ASP.net.

4. IIS, Apache, MySQL, MSSQL, ACCESS
IIS and Apache are both popular web servers. MySQL, MSSQL and ACCESS refer to three kinds of database.

5. Concurrent Connection
This is a most concerned factor, which can also confuse lots of users.

The configuration of a web host can affect the max concurrent connection; however it can’t limit the online users within an exact number. The max concurrent connection is affected by several factors, such as the server, the web application you use, and the property of the visitors.

IIS connections can limit the max concurrent connection, while concurrent connection is more likely to be affected by the CPU limitation.

Page View (PV) and hits reflect the server load more precisely, and are more informative than concurrent connections. PV and hits are related to web applications.

With these basic concepts, you can start looking for a web host now.

Tags: IP, linux, Server, unix, Virtual host, VPS, web disk space, webhosting, windows

The aspects related to the performance of virtual hosting

I.The speed and stability of server
As a kind of network service, the most important of virtual hosting is the stability of system. Stability masters the online percentage of virtual hosting and concerns the success of a website directly.

The performance of virtual hosting depends on the configuration of server and some other factors, such as operating system used and software. Bandwidth is the guarantee of speed, so the speed of server depends on bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the bandwidth connect virtual host to each server, many service providers often only give the amount of bandwidth connected into the machine room when promoting, but they do not specify the available bandwidth for each server. As a consumer, you should be careful.

Ⅱ.The load balancing of server
Web hosting technology makes it possible to create multiple sites on a single physical server. Obviously, this makes the fee of enterprises building website decreased, but according to experience, the performance of server will decrease significantly when the sites on virtual host exceed a certain number (200). If the sites support database query service, the decrement of performance will be more significant. Some large-scale virtual host of the world, even limit the imposition of restrictions on the number of users in 100 or less on each server.

Ⅲ. Strong technical support
We can compare enterprise/individual established website using virtual host on server to your child who lives in someone else’s house, although there have no starvation and chilliness, you still worry about him. So as the provider of virtual host, we should fully understand the mindset of users, meanwhile; support them with timely emergency response and related technical solution and services. What’s more, the construction and maintenance of site on virtual host should be based on solid technical foundation and extraordinary sense of responsibility, as well as related value-added services. In fact, there is huge challenge to supply virtual hosting service on technical support. According to introduction of experts in this area, in addition to master a variety of operating systems and related operating systems management, optimization ,the providers must have not only the developing capabilities of system level and application-level on these operating systems (such as a variety of web servers, mail servers, DNS servers, load balancing, etc..), but also the WAN, LAN and other network management capabilities, as well as the capability of database processing in management-level configuration of computer hardware. If a virtual hosting provider does not own the professional technical team to supply technical support as described above, then they can only provide poor service and will not be able to guarantee stability.

Virtual web hosting is a very nice solution for small to medium- size websites. There are many different packages from different web hosting companies. HostEase for instance, offers three plans to our customers: Blog Plan, Basic Plan and Business Plan.

Tags: Server, technical support, virtual web hosting

There are three kinds of name server in DNS: local name server, authoritative name server and top-level name server. When an application in a host needs the resource record of a domain name, it sends the query to its local name server firstly. If the domain being sought is under its jurisdiction, it directly returns the resource record. If no information about the requested domain is available, the local name server will send a query to the top-level name server. The top-level name server has addresses of all its second-level domains’ name server. Finally, the authoritative name server or local name server of the domain being sought will give the resource record.

Here is a specific example. All the steps are listed in the figure below. A host named cs.mit.edu wants to know the IP address of the host named www.hostease.com. First, the host named cs.mit.edu sends a query to its local name server, marked as dns.mit.edu (step 1). If the local name server doesn’t have any recourse record of this domain, it may send a query to the top-level name server for com, marked as dns.com （step 2）.Maybe this name server doesn’t know the address of www.hostease.com. But it must know all of its second-level domains’ name server. So it forwards the request to the name server for hostease.com, marked as dns.hostease.com (step 3), which must have the authoritative resource record. Finally, the resource record requested goes back to the host named cs.mit.edu according to the reverse order(from step 4 to step 6). This is the course of domain address resolution.

Tags: DNS, Domain Name, Server

The popularity of the Internet has been of deep penetration into every aspect of our lives. The boom of the Internet brings up online games, search engines, e-commerce, IDC, etc, which makes our life more comfortable. I really can not imagine what our lives and work would be without Internet.

The great increase of the number of small enterprises and the development of the e-commerce makes people realize the benefit of site promotion on the Internet. Then people all want to get a maximum publicity through their websites. Some of them choose buying shared hosting or renting a server to manage the sites, while some companies opt to buy a server directly. As we are talking about shared hosting and server, we have to say something on the stability and security of the server which were considered to be the most important.

As we all know, website is a perfect promotional platform. In addition to its own characteristics site and product features, the stability and security of the server are also the key on a website’s survival and development. The first impression of a website is very important to save customers because a bad impression would hardly to be changed. Also, a website which was in a long-term instability would have a negative impact on the company’s business. Only a website on a stable server can continue the running, and bring the company a further promotion.

The server’s stability is the most basic requirement for any website, especially for e-commerce sites. But why are problems always happen? There are several reasons below,

1.Information incomplete. Incomplete signal received or unstable signal propagation are the reasons may cause Information incomplete.

2.Information blocked. It comes from limitative bandwidth, and the maximum limit on service response requests at the same time.

3.Environment of the datacenter. Such as ventilation conditions, fire conditions and air conditioning, etc. These external factors are also likely to affect the stability of the server. HostEase is cooperating with SoftLayer on the datacenter in Dallas and Seattle, so the configuration and the environment could be very trusted.

4.Hackers’ attack. There are more and more hackers right now, so the servers should be equipped with a high-performance firewall and antivirus software.

5.Hardware failure. Such as hard disk failure and network card failure, etc. So we should have backup of the files.

6.Safety management failures. Such as fire, hardware damage caused by artificial factors.

7.Force majeure. Such as war, earthquake and flood, etc.

In general, hosting company will be able to have their duty removed only when the loss of the customer was caused by force majeure. But once the claim for loss happens, the amount is always quite large. So, before you are about to hosting and renting the servers, make sure you have examined all aspects of the server quality.

Tags: hostease, Server, server downtime