Jellifish Internet Services Ltd

Hosting Glossary

Access: Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft which combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software development tools. It is a member of the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Access can use data stored in Access/Jet, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or any ODBC-compliant data container. Skilled software developers and data architects use it to develop application software. Relatively unskilled programmers and non-programmer "power users" can use it to build simple applications. It supports some object-oriented techniques but falls short of being a fully object-oriented development tool.

Active Server Pages (ASP): is Microsoft's server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. It is marketed as an add-on to Internet Information Services (IIS). Programming ASP websites is made easier by various built-in objects.

ActiveX: is Microsoft technology used for developing reusable object oriented software components.

Apache: The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to simply as Apache, is a web server notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (currently known as Sun Java System Web Server), and has since evolved to rival other Unix-based web servers in terms of functionality and performance.

Application Service Provider: An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software or software as a service (SaaS).

Bandwidth: The amount of data that can be transmitted at a given moment to a server. The higher your bandwidth, the larger amount of traffic your site can handle at one time. In computer networking literature, digital bandwidth refers to data rate measured in bit/s, for example channel capacity (digital bandwidth capacity) or throughput (digital bandwidth consumption).

CGI: The Common Gateway Interface is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server.

The task of such an information server is to respond to requests (in the case of web servers, requests from client web browsers) by returning output. Each time a request is received, the server analyzes what the request asks for, and returns the appropriate output.

Cookie: HTTP cookies, sometimes known as web cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, tracking, and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts. The term "cookie" is derived from "magic cookie," a well-known concept in UNIX computing which inspired both the idea and the name of HTTP cookies.

Dedicated hosting: A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting where the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organisations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service.

Domain names: The term domain name has multiple related meanings:

A name that identifies a computer or computers on the internet. These names appear as a component of a Web site's URL, e.g. www.jellifish.co.uk. This type of domain name is also called a hostname.

The product that domain name registrars provide to their customers. These names are often called registered domain names.

Names used for other purposes in the Domain Name System (DNS), for example the special name which follows the @ sign in an email address, or the Top-level domain names like .com, or the names used by the Session Initiation Protocol (VoIP), or DomainKeys.

They are sometimes colloquially (and incorrectly) referred to by marketers as "web addresses".

Firewall: A firewall's basic task is to regulate the flow of traffic between computer networks of different trust levels. Typical examples are the Internet which is a zone with no trust and an internal network which is a zone of higher trust. A zone with an intermediate trust level, situated between the Internet and a trusted internal network, is often referred to as a "perimeter network" or Demilitarized zone (DMZ).

Flash: Adobe Flash, also known as Shockwave Flash or simply Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player, and to the Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program. Adobe Flash Professional is used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform (such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices). It features support for vector and raster graphics, a scripting language called ActionScript and bi-directional streaming of audio and video. There are also versions of the Flash Player for mobile phones and other non-PC devices.

FrontPage: Microsoft FrontPage (later full name Microsoft Office FrontPage) was a WYSIWYG ('What You See Is What You Get') HTML editor and web site administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems.

FTP: or File Transfer Protocol is used to transfer data from one computer to another over the Internet, or through a network.

HTML: an initialism of Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document — by denoting certain text as headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on — and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects.

HTTP: (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a communications protocol used to transfer or convey information on intranets and the World Wide Web. Its original purpose was to provide a way to publish and retrieve hypertext pages.

IIS: Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS, formerly called Internet Information Server) is a set of Internet-based services for servers using Microsoft Windows.

Intranet: An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity to securely share part of an organisation's information or operations with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the most visible service, the internal website.

IP: The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork.

IRC: Internet Relay Chat) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message and data transfers via Direct Client-to-Client.

ISDN: Short for Integrated Services Digital Network, is a circuit-switched telephone network system, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in better quality and higher data speeds than are available with analog. More broadly, ISDN is a set of protocols for establishing and breaking circuit switched connections, and for advanced call features for the user.

Load Balancing: In computer networking, load balancing is a technique (usually performed by load balancers) to spread work between two or more computers, network links, CPUs, hard drives, or other resources, in order to get optimal resource utilization, throughput, or response time. Using multiple components with load balancing, instead of a single component, may increase reliability through redundancy.

Managed hosting: A dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.

MIME: defines mechanisms for sending other kinds of information in e-mail, including text in languages other than English using character encodings other than ASCII as well as 8-bit binary content such as files containing images, sounds, movies, and computer programs.

Mirror sites: In computing, a mirror is a direct copy of a data set. On the Internet, a mirror site is an exact copy of another Internet site. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads. Mirroring is a type of file synchronization.

Name server: In computing, a name server (also called 'nameserver') consists of a program or computer server that implements a name-service protocol.

Newsgroup: A newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. The term is somewhat confusing, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web.

NOC: Network Operations Center a term in computer networking that defines one or more locations from which control is exercised over a computer or telecommunications network, or part thereof.

OC: Optical Carrier levels describe a range of digital signals that can be carried on SONET fibre optic network. The number in the Optical Carrier level is directly proportional to the data rate of the bitstream carried by the digital signal.

Packet switching: is a communications paradigm in which packets (discrete blocks of data) are routed between nodes over data links shared with other traffic. In each network node, packets are queued or buffered, resulting in variable delay.

POP: In computing, local e-mail clients use the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3), an application-layer Internet standard protocol, to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. Many subscribers to individual Internet service provider e-mail accounts access their e-mail with client software that uses POP3.

Propagation The process where name servers throughout the Internet add new domains and remove expired ones from their records. This process can be a lengthy, which is why connecting to a new domain name can often take several days.

RAID: Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks is the most common and original definition of RAID. Other definitions of RAID include "Redundant Array of Independent Drives" and "Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives". RAID is an umbrella term for computer data storage schemes that divide and replicate data among multiple hard disk drives. RAID's various designs balance or accentuate two key design goals: increased data reliability and increased I/O (input/output) performance.

Scalability: The ability of a piece of software or hardware to grow as necessary.

Shared hosting: A shared web hosting service or virtual hosting service refers to a web hosting service where many websites reside on one web server connected to the Internet. Each site "sits" on its own partition, or section/place on the server to keep it separate from other sites. This is generally the most economical option for hosting as many people share the overall cost of server maintenance.

SMTP: (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a relatively simple, text-based protocol, in which one or more recipients of a message are specified (and in most cases verified to exist) along with the message text and possibly other encoded objects. The message is then transferred to a remote server using a procedure of queries and responses between the client and server.

SQL: (Structured Query Language) is a computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems, database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management.

SSL: (Secure Sockets Layer), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.

Subdomain: is a domain that is part of a larger domain. Subdomains are commonly used by organisations that wish to assign a unique name to a particular department, function, or service related to the organisation. For example, a university might assign "cs" to the computer science department, such that a number of hosts could be used inside that subdomain.

Telnet: (TELecommunication NETwork) is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area network (LAN) connections.

TCP: The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite. TCP provides reliable, in-order delivery of a stream of bytes, making it suitable for applications like file transfer and e-mail.

TLD: A Top-Level Domain, sometimes referred to as a top-level domain name (TLDN), is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is com (or COM, as domain names are not case-sensitive).

UNIX: operating systems are widely used in both servers and workstations. The Unix environment and the client-server program model were essential elements in the development of the Internet and the reshaping of computing as centered in networks rather than in individual computers.

USENET: is a global, decentralized, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.

Virtual host: Name based virtual hosts use multiple host names for the same webserver IP address.

Virtualization: In computing, virtualization is a broad term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. One useful definition is "a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources".

Virtual Private Server: (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers 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.

WHOIS: is a TCP-based query/response protocol which is widely used for querying a database in order to determine the owner of a domain name, an IP address, or an autonomous system number on the Internet.

XML: (Extensible Markup Language) is a general-purpose markup language. It is classified as an extensible language because it allows its users to define their own tags. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data across different information systems, particularly via the Internet

Below are some examples of different types of internet hosting services available throughout the internet.

Free web hosting service: is free, (sometimes) advertisement-supported web hosting, and is often limited when compared to paid hosting.

Shared web hosting service: one's Web site is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few to hundreds or thousands. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. A shared website may be hosted with a reseller.

Reseller web hosting: allows clients to become web hosts themselves. Resellers could function, for individual domains, under any combination of these listed types of hosting, depending on who they are affiliated with as a provider. Resellers' accounts may vary tremendously in size: they may have their own virtual dedicated server to a colocated server.

Virtual Dedicated Server: dividing a server into virtual servers, where each user feels like they're on their own dedicated server, but they're actually sharing a server with many other users. The users may have root access to their own virtual space. This is also known as a virtual private server or VPS.

Dedicated hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server and gains full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, the user typically does not own the server. Another type of Dedicated hosting is Self-Managed or Unmanaged. This is usually the least expensive for Dedicated plans. The user has full administrative access to the box, which means the client is responsible for the security and maintenance of his own dedicated box.

Managed hosting service: the user gets his or her own Web server but is not allowed full control over it (root access for Linux/administrator access for Windows); however, they are allowed to manage their data via FTP or other remote management tools. The user is disallowed full control so that the provider can guarantee quality of service by not allowing the user to modify the server or potentially create configuration problems. The user typically does not own the server. The server is leased to the client.

Colocation web hosting service: similar to the dedicated web hosting service, but the user owns the colo server; the hosting company provides physical space that the server takes up and takes care of the server. This is the most powerful and expensive type of the web hosting service. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client's machine, providing only the electrical, Internet access, and storage facilities for the server. In most cases for colo, the client would have his own administrator visit the data center on site to do any hardware upgrades or changes.

Clustered hosting: having multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource utilization.

Grid hosting: this form of distributed hosting is when a server cluster acts like a grid and is composed of multiple nodes.