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Chapter 6: Hosting

Hosting is the process of making your web presence available to the world via a server connected to the Internet. Your host is the company that serves your site, via a web server, making it available 24/7 to the world.

Email hosting is the process of making your email addresses available to the world much the same way. Email is sent to your email host where it remains until you retrieve it.

You may host your site internally, with your Internet Service Provider, with a Virtual Web Host or with the firm that developed your web presence.

Your website and your email are usually hosted in the same place, though they don't necessarily have to be handled that way. The most common way for web hosting and email hosting to be split, in our experience, is for very large clients (such as hospitals) to handle their own email. As long as the marketing department has input in such situations, we're all in favor of a large company's IT department handling their own mail. (See the chapter on Communications regarding the type of input we like to see the marketing have on email.)

In its simplest form, hosting is provided via what is called a "shell account," basically a shell within which to park your site. We recommend a more pro-active approach to hosting, detailed in the considerations below.

Additional content covered in the print edition of WebForging includes a paragraph to a page or more on each of the following:

• Hosting Supplier Alternatives
  • Self-Hosting
  • Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
  • Virtual Hosts
  • Web Developers
• Hosting Requisites
  • Redundancy
  • Backups
  • Uninterruptable Power Supply
  • Security
  • Disaster Recover Plans
  • Basic Services
  • Value-Added Services