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Email hosting is designed for businesses that cannot or simply do not want to spend their precious time and resources on setting up and managing an internal messaging infrastructure. This is very understandable because the continued maintenance and support can raise costs and also greatly increase the probability of virus infections, hardware and software problems. All of these issues could leave your business without email functionality for hours and possibly days.

There are many benefits to outsourcing your messaging needs to a professional hosting company. This article will go over some of the most significant.

Secure Webmail Access

Email hosting providers generally equip their mail servers with industry standard 128-bit encryption, which is active during the entire webmail session. This essentially means that any data sent to and from the server is encrypted from the moment you sign in, until the moment you sign out. With this proven security protocol, you can ensure that your sensitive messages will not be intercepted or compromised in any way.

Secure IMAP and POP Access

Businesses are increasingly opting for email hosting solutions because they enable secure access to desktop email clients through IMAP or POP. All email traffic is encrypted, including user names and passwords sent from the email client to the mail server for authentication. The best hosting providers support all the popular mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail. Some even offer support for Linux and BSD clients as well as PDAs and pocket PCs. Whether you prefer to manage your mail on or offline, an email hosting plan can ensure that is done in an efficient and secure manner.

Adequate Storage Space

When signing up a for an email hosting account, you typically get a robust amount of storage for each mailbox created. Some give you MB of storage, others give you GB per mailbox. All tend to provide you with more than enough to efficiently store tens of thousands of messages. A more flexible solution will allow you to easily upgrade as your storage needs increase.

Spam and Virus Filtering

A quality email hosting solution blocks potentially harmful mail before it even enters the network. Anti-virus scanners are usually integrated into the host’s SMTP gateways while spam is dealt with in numerous ways. A company that truly wants to help keep spam out your life will employ filtering methods such as blacklisting, whitelisting and greylisting, and allow you to make configurations that automatically sends it to a quarantine folder instead of your inbox.

Shared Address Book

The Address Book is a very useful feature in many email clients as it provides the user with a convenient way to store contact data for easy retrieval and use. Most email hosts offer both a private and shared address book, along with access to public network directory services. In many cases, the shared address book can be used with any mail client that supports LDAP directory services.

Email is such a prevalent method of communication that it can easily get out of hand over time. If you are no longer able to control your messaging infrastructure from within, it might be time to consider email hosting.

Source: http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/07/30/the-benefits-of-email-hosting/

In-House hosting or outsource services; If you have to ask yourself this question, going with a web hosting service is likely the best option.  However, before making the final decision, you should determine what resources you have available and where you need to focus your energy to meet your goals.  Whatever road you take, each will require careful planning in order to come out with successful results.  Let’s go over these two forms of hosting to help you better determine which option is right for your needs.

Benefits of Outsourced Hosting

Outsourcing your internet hosting processes to a third-party company is a wise move whether you run an online business or simple personal site.  The minor drawback is that you will be forced to give up some flexibility.  For example, you are essentially locked into the hosting provider’s system, technologies and policies.  However, web hosting services are far less restrictive than they were years ago.  In fact, there are several companies that allow you to have a great deal of control and flexibility with your own server.  Many of today’s web hosts provide you with administrative control over your entire domain.  This typically includes the ability to add and modify database entries, set up email accounts and manage user permissions all without the aid of the network administrator.  If a particular host cannot provide you with these standard luxuries, they aren’t even worth dealing with.

The advantage of outsourcing to a professional web hosting service is that you can usually count on more reliability, a greater level of availability and cost savings right from the jump.  The burden of servers and other network hardware do not fall on your shoulders.   If the operating system and web server require updates or security patches, you can sleep well by knowing IT experts are on top of the matter.  When choosing to run these operations internally, you are opening up an entirely new world of responsibility and complexity.

Disadvantages of In-House Hosting

Successfully hosting your IT operations in-house is possible, but it does come with its fair share of disadvantages.  There are a number of costly and complex factors you need to consider, including the following:

- Server platform for web server and database applications

- Efficient disk space allocation

- Bandwidth limits

- Network connectivity

- Data Backups

- Security

- Environmental Issues

- Day-to-day Maintenance

The above are elements most smaller businesses simply cannot afford or maintain internally.  If this sounds like your situation, then an in-house hosting solution is most likely out the question.

Conclusion

With the wide variety of solutions on the market, professional web hosting services are ideal for whatever you plan to accomplish online irrespective to the size of your website or business.  While the price varies greatly among the type of service and company you choose, this option is far more cost effective than trying to host these complex technologies on your own.  On the other hand, if you have the space, manpower, financial resources and the need for the utmost control, an in-house set up could turn to be the best solution.

Source: http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/07/29/should-i-opt-for-in-house-hosting-or-an-outsourced-service/

Choosing an e-commerce hosting plan can be extremely difficult for two reasons.  One is because there are so many options available to you.  The second is all the confusing terminology and technical jargon a hosting provider will throw at you.  This article will aim to clear up some of that confusion.

Affiliate Program – An affiliate program refers to a revenue sharing program where webmasters can earn commission by generating leads, traffic or sales of a web hosting service.  If you feel that have signed up with a respectable hosting provider, you may be interested in their affiliate program to earn some extra cash.

ASP - Active Server Pages is a technology that allows developers to create dynamic, database-driven websites.  The web server processes the ASP code and then translates it into HTML for your visitors to view.

Auto Responder – An auto responder is an automated program that can be configured to acknowledge the receipt of an email, and automatically sends a reply to the sender.  This is an effective tool for keeping base with clients when you’re away from the desk or on vacation.

Backbone - A backbone refers to a single high-speed line or a series of connections that enable a pathway to a network such as the internet.  The more backbones or the higher the capacity, the higher level of availability your site will enjoy.

CGI Scripts - Common Gateway Interface scripts are small programs installed into a web server.  They are designed to perform specific tasks and enable functionality that a simple HTML document cannot.

Control Panel – A control panel is a software package that allows hosting providers and customers to simplify various web server tasks.  This type of application gives you the ability to easily maintain your mailboxes, files, manage domains and more even if you have little to no experience.

Dedicated Server – Also called dedicated hosting, a dedicated server describes a situation where you lease service from a hosting provider and get the entire server to yourself.  This in contrast to shared hosting, which hence, calls for you to share the server with other customers.

IP Address – An IP address is a unique numerical code used to specify hosts (computers) and networks.  Every machine connected to the internet has its own IP address.

Reseller Hosting – Reseller hosting is a type of hosting where a customer purchases service from a provider and then sells hosting package to customers of their own.  This has become a popular and affordable way for entrepreneurs and small businesses to profit from the web hosting market.

Shared Hosting - Shared hosting refers to a hosting arrangement where multiple websites are stored on a single server.  This is the most affordable and common type of web hosting there is.

Web Host – The web host is the company who provides you with the e-commerce hosting solution.  They run computers known as severs that have dedicated lines to the internet.  The purpose of a web host is to serve your pages to internet users and assure its availability.

Source: http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/06/19/common-e-commerce-hosting-terminology/