So, You Want to Become a Host?

February 23, 2009

in Hosting Related, Reseller Hosting, Uncategorized

If you’re looking for information on how to become a host, the first question you’ll need to ask is what kind of host you want to be. If you’re looking to start your own web hosting company, you’ll need more information that this article will be able to provide. It can be done, but it requires a lot of commitment and specialized knowledge. If you have the technical knowledge, the biggest hurdle on your path will be getting the necessary Internet access. In order to maintain the overall stability of the Internet, there needs to be some oversight to guarantee that the available resources are used responsibly. Becoming a certified web hosting provider usually involves working your way up by paying for reseller accounts. A reseller account won’t make you a fully independent web host over night, but it’s a step in the right direction. Obviously, a certified hosting provider makes more money by selling their services directly to a client, but they also make more money the more clients they have, so is still beneficial to make it financially viable for resellers to operate.

There are, however, other ways to become a host, especially if you’re interests aren’t directly commercial. If you have a small business and you want to run a file server that can be accessed remotely to facilitate telecommuting or you want to maintain a small personal webpage cheaply, then you may consider maintaining your own web server.

You’ll have to do some research and figure out your specific needs to decide how to proceed, but generally speaking all you need is a physical server, small-scale sever software and Internet access. In terms of hardware, you may want to buy a specially designed server if you are expecting to use applications that require a lot of processing power. If your purposes are more modest you may even be able to re-purpose an old computer system.

When it comes to the software you need to use, this will depend greatly on the application you have in mind. If all you want to do is maintain a webpage, two of the most popular packages are Apache and IIS.

The next step is actually connecting your server to the Internet. In order to make your domains host reachable, you’ll need a static IP address. To be reachable by Internet surfers and search engines, you will need to be indexed by Domain Name System (DNS) servers that will match the IP address you use to the domain in question. It is possible to use different IP address and update the DNS entries each time there is a change, but this is obviously less efficient, requires more technical knowledge and, since DNS servers are not always update constantly, it can make it difficult for users to reach the webpages you are publishing.

One important thing to remember is that you’ll need an agreement with your Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs try to regulate the amount and type of traffic account holders use in order to maintain the integrity of their systems and the additional burden of hosting someone’s website can be problem. Many ISPs specifically prohibit their clients from running home servers using their connections. There are ways around this, but it isn’t recommended that you try and circumvent your agreement with your ISP. If you really want to become a host, even if that only means hosting a personal website, then you’ll need to find an ISP that allows home servers and can deliver the bandwidth and stability necessary to make the project worthwhile.

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Ships 02.23.09 at 5:37 pm

It is too hard to start own hosting company, because the investments will be high and you will not be sure that you can turn back your money. Also the hosting companies are decreasing prices every month and with this their income is decreasing too.
Affiliates is not so good method for becoming own host, in spite of 0 investments and good profits (but note that they can be better with other affiliates)
I think that the wave of newly built websites will stop soon because internet is now full with simple low rated websites with no content and almost no positive features. They are just flooding the net and decreasing the quality of the information got from there.

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