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Often databases are erroneously perceived as obsolete tools used only to organize and store important information used to generate scheduled reports or extract data to illustrate on graphs.  With the e-commerce industry, however, raking in billions of dollars in annual profits, entrepreneurs with online ventures recognize the vast opportunities of utilizing web host databases.   Implementing web host databases allows online business owners to enhance website visibility, conveniently alter changes to dynamic website content, assist in personalizing interactive experiences, and maintain current customer information.

Selecting an Effective Database Package

Depending upon the web hosting provider and package you opt to purchase usually determines the available database server(s) that you will be granted access to in order to maintain your website.   For those opting to purchase a Linux web hosting package, usually MySQL is the primary database server;  although hinging on the web hosting service, PostgreSQL databases may also be available to use.

Windows web hosting is another option that also allows users to utilize MySQL databases in combination with web scripts as well as specific Microsoft database applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access.  It’s important to note that both of these applications are recommended for ASP and ASP.NET websites.  Depending on your database web hosting experience and desired expectations from your database should be the determining factors when deciding on the best database if you are managing a PHP or ASP supported website.

Microsoft Access is an affordable and easy to use desktop database application if you don’t anticipate your website to generate heavy traffic; however, for expanding websites with potential of heavy traffic flow, Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL Server may prove to be the best option.  It’s important to understand the size of your database is considered as resources being utilized.  So if your database is eating up disk space then a dedicated server may prove to be beneficial for your database hosting needs.

Advantages of Web Host Databases

There are numerous advantages of using a database to effectively and efficiently manage your website.  Perhaps the most obvious is the fact a database allows you to setup a central location where information is stored and then allows you to write your own scripts, if so desired.  Another “behind the scenes” advantage of databases is the fact it enhances visitor interaction by allowing you to develop forms to be added to your website, once visitors complete the information and submit the form then the information is processed and conveniently added to the database.  Other benefits include: the ability to setup password protected areas of your website, quickly add more personalized features, and offer visitors more current and exciting dynamic content.

Successful entrepreneurs doing business in the global e-commerce marketplace also realize the benefits of using databases to assist in their online ventures.  Databases are an essential tool that allows online business merchants to quickly access product information stored in a database to adjust prices on one or more items without the need to create a static webpage for each individual product.  Additionally, databases store customer information including contact information, purchase history, and preferred payment methods.  Last but certainly not least, databases are also vital in maintaining mailing lists as well as newsletter subscriptions.

The collective advantages make web hosting databases a vital tool necessary to be taken as a serious competitor in today’s fierce competition.   Keep in mind though that some database web hosting servers may exceed your budget, so before making a final decision shop around before committing to any contract!

Virsto Software, a storage solution creator for virtual computing, is reaching its first year launch anniversary of Virsto One, its flagship innovation. This was marked by hitting several customer and product highlights throughout this period. Since the production of Virsto One, the company came up with 3 new strategies, increased customer creation by signing up cloud service provider, joined Microsoft System Center Alliance (SCA) to expand partnership and integrate products giving support to multiple core SCA technologies, and became a Citrix Ready partner after completing tests.

Mark Davis, CEO of Virsto said,

“Because the runaway costs and challenges with storage in virtual environments are so widespread, we are seeing 100 percent quarter over quarter sales growth and already have many production customers around the world deploying Virsto to solve their storage performance problems.”

Storage Solution And Customer Driving

Virsto has continued to move forward to adopt more customers who include both new and repeat customers like Millard Lumber, System Solution Inc. (SSI), West Gastroenterology Medical group (West GI) and Sienna. The It departments are driven by a keen interest in driving customer adoption by making solutions available to these customers like extracting more usage of existing storage, get faster storage provision, and optimization of storage  for desktop virtualization.

Chris Routhe, information technology director for Millard Lumber said,

“By deploying Virsto One with Hyper-V, we were able to immediately cut our storage capacity consumption by over 65 percent while improving performance and cutting out hours of administrative time each week.”

Plixer International, Inc., an internationally recognized company for monitoring of net traffic and providing analysis tools, has released Scrutinizer NetFlow and Flow Analyzer version 8.5, which would enables user to manage network security systems with more flexibility.

Scrutinizer is software for network monitoring and control which works in a lot of detail with network utilization information for users and apps that account for highest traffic. Incorporating the NetFlow Technology by Cisco, a technology which is an IOS software feature now used widely in switches and routers), Scrutinizer can make use of traffic flow data so that it can be presented graphically for a concise, intuitive view.

The Scrutinizer 8.5 version has been enhanced to include reports on Cisco’s new Network Performance Monitoring for Medianets. Also a new Flow Analytics algorithm has been included for Cisco Performance Monitor reports which show VoIP features like jitter, packet loss and latency. The limitations of IP SLA have been circumvented in this new technology to provide companies a deeper look into the call quality of each VoIP connection and video stream.

Scrutinizer extensively supports Flexible NetFlow (The latest NetFlow version) so that it comprehensively implements Cisco Performance Monitor Reports.

The latest version of Scrutinizer also makes available Mailinizer Email Analyzer as a core feature. Mailinizer can be customized in detail to offer in-depth views of email server communications for Microsoft Exchange administrators.

Other features of Scrutinizer include styling and graphing with updating of the Google map engine.

International customers have shown recognition for the advantages of Scrutinizer for analyzing network traffic. Presently organizations like AT&T, Jaguar land River, the State of Oregon and the United Stated Department of Defense have started utilizing the benefits of Scrutinizer’s advanced NetFlow reporting capabilities.

Product Manager at Plixer, Michael Patterson said,

We take customer feedback very seriously because our customers are knowledgeable IT experts…..If a feature is requested and makes sense, we will incorporate it.

For the intermediate or experienced webmaster, web server performance takes precedence over the affordability and cheapness of a web hosting plan. Web hosting providers use several techniques and applications to constantly monitor the performance of their web servers and to ensure a quality experience for their customers. One of the ways web hosting providers ensure top-notch performance for each of their customers is by utilizing load balancing technology, which evenly distributes server resources amongst a network of web servers in a systematic and calculated fashion, while also performing various other tasks. The following information explains load-balancing and how it affects web hosting performance.

What Does Load Balancing Technology Do?

With the inconsistent nature of the Internet, it is nearly impossible to predict traffic levels and the amount of specific server requests for each Web server on a daily basis. Load balancing technology allows the web hosting provider to reroute inbound Internet protocol traffic and distribute it evenly across their network of servers, to ensure that no servers are overloaded with traffic or disk space requirements. Load balancing technology has been enhanced and expanded upon, and is the core concept that led to the development of cloud hosting, one of the most popular recently developed web hosting types. With load-balancing applications installed on a network of servers, if one server does not have the necessary resources to accommodate a specific request, the request is forwarded to the next server in the network instantly. Although this slightly slows down the page load times, it also completely eliminates the possibility of server downtime when used with adequately sized server networks.

How Does the Load-Balancing Process Work?

The load-balancing process is relatively elementary in terms of technological complexity. When a web surfer performs an action on a website, they are actually issuing a request to a web server. Usually, without load-balancing technology this request would go straight to a single server, which may or may not be overloaded at the time. With a load-balancing networking application installed on the server, the request is routed through the load balancer and then to an appropriate Web server on the network which has been determined to have adequate server resources to accommodate the request. Thus, load-balancing applications effectively guarantee uptime by allowing the web hosting service to continue even when server failure or server maintenance is taking place. This concept can be expanded and used in worldwide server networks with Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) technology.

Various Load Balancing Methods

Web hosting providers use various load-balancing techniques, with the three main methods being the Perceptive, Fastest Response Time, and Weighted Round Robin methods. The Perceptive method predicts server capabilities based on historical and current data logs, while the Fastest Response Time message chooses a server based on how fast their current response time is. Both of these methods can be used when every server on the network has similar hardware specifications. However if the servers have different hardware specifications, the Weighted Round Robin method would be used, which assigns requests to specific servers in rotation according to predefined weights or likelihood percentages, which are determined based on how capable each server currently is according to manually monitored server reports.

ASP (Active Server Pages) is a powerful technology from Microsoft, which lets users develop and implement unique interactive web pages and dynamic web applications using the power of server-side scripting. With Active Server Pages technology installed on your Web server, your website can provide a robust interactive experience to its visitors, such as highly responsive forms, on-site search engines, community forums, user interfaces, surveys, polls, e-mail clients and so much more. ASP hosting is actually a type of Windows hosting, as ASP software is only compatible with Microsoft technology, which is also the case with every other server-side Microsoft software. Thus, if you want to utilize the extensive benefits of the ASP development platform, you will need access to a Windows hosting plan or an overall ASP hosting plan which includes the Windows operating system.

ASP Compatibility and Flexibility

In the past, developers had to worry about which web browser a website visitor was using, as it may not be compatible with the web pages that they spent hours to develop. Now, with the advent of ASP Web hosting, developers can be sure that their web pages are appearing exactly the same every time, regardless of which browser the visitor is using. In basic terms, when a website visitor visits a page that has the .asp extension, a request is sent to the server and then interpreted by the server-side ASP software, after which the necessary interactive web page is returned and displayed within the visitors web browser. Thus, the web hosting provider must have servers that support ASP technology, otherwise all ASP scripts will be useless for your websites.

What to Look for in an ASP Hosting Provider

Unfortunately, ASP scripts cannot be run with any web hosting services, as the Web server itself has to be equipped with the ASP technology in order to interpret web pages that are developed using the ASP programming language. When searching for an ASP hosting provider, it is imperative to ensure that the company provides actual ASP support. Never assume that simply because they provide support for the majority of popular web-based scripts, from PHP to Perl, that they automatically also support ASP. Fortunately, finding out whether a web hosting provider offers complete support for ASP technology is fairly simple, and can be done performed easily by checking the Frequently Asked Questions section of their site. Thankfully, most Windows hosting providers automatically include software such as Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS) or Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), which are necessary to interpret web pages developed using the ASP programming language.

Using ASP Technology with Non-Windows Web Hosting Plans

Although ASP is intended by Microsoft to be used with Windows server technology, there is a workaround – if you are currently using a web hosting plan that allows you to change the software configuration of your server, you can utilize a third-party software known as Chili!Soft ASP which allows you to use ASP scripts on all distributions of Linux, Solaris, and AIX. It is important to note that shared web hosting plans do not typically allow you to change the software configuration of the server, so you may need to purchase a VPS, dedicated, or cloud hosting plan to utilize this software.