With so much technical jargon surrounding web hosting, it can be difficult to know what all the various terms mean. The following are some of the most common web hosting phrases used and a brief explanation of their meaning:
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred over the internet from your website to the person visiting your site. The more people visiting your website, the more bandwidth your website requires. dande1st don’t put any caps on the amount of bandwidth that your website needs.
Storage
You can think of storage as the physical space where your website is held. Just like your home computer’s hard drive can fill up when more files are placed on it, so too will your hosting account fill up the more you add to it.
Tip: Be wary of hosting companies who promote “Unlimited Storage” plans as these are generally too good to be true. Often there will be an acceptable usage clause that if exceeded, could see your hosting account shut down.
Database
Your database is where all the dynamic content of your website is stored and is essentially a number of tables made up of rows and columns which hold information.
For example, when you write a blog post, that content is stored in the database to be served up anytime someone requests that page. Along with your website’s content, databases often store login details, form enquiries, and visitors comments.
CPU
Just as your home computer has CPU Core’s (usually 2 to 4), the server where your website is housed will have dozens of CPU’s. A CPU is essentially the brains of the server and executes programs and runs scripts.
The larger the CPU’s capacity, the more information your server can process at any one time. dande1st provides hosting plans that allocated different numbers of CPU cores to your service, with 100% CPU allowance representing 1 CPU core, 200% CPU allowance representing 2 CPU cores and so on.
Memory
In hosting terms, Memory is the amount of temporary data that a server can hold when running multiple processes at once. The more processes that are being run concurrently means the more ram your website will need to run. If you have a high traffic website, opting for a plan with more ram will ensure your website is running optimally around the clock.
Web Server
A web server is a program that uses HTTP to serve files that are requested from your server to the person requesting them. When a browser sends a request, the server searches for the files and sends them back to the browser over HTTP.
Operating System
All computers need an operating system to run their software and your hosting hardware is no different. The operating system interacts with the underlying hardware and allows other programs to run on top of it.