Understanding the terminology of Web hosting is important for setting up a good web site

With new technologies come new vocabularies, and the language of Web hosting is no exception. There are certain terms and features of Web hosting that you must understand before you can select the right Web		Verio Web Hosting Services
hosting plan for your online business. Most of the terms are very straightforward and some of them, like bits and bytes, you should already be familiar with.

• Bit (or BInary digiT)
• Byte (or 8 bits)
• Disk space (a lot of bytes)
• Bandwidth (the pipe to your Web site)
• Kilobits per second (Kbps)
• Megabits per second (Mbps)
• Gigabits per second (Gbps)
• Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Scripts
• Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl)
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• Post Office Protocol (POP)

Bit (or BInary digiT)

Every computer uses an instruction set that is composed of a series of "bits" or "on-off" signals that are usually represented by a "1" or a "0." A bit can be thought of a single instruction that tells a computer processor whether it is "on" or "off." Think off this like the relationship between a light bulb and a light switch -- when the switch is up, the light is on, and when it is down, the light is off. A computer language combines a series of "bits" into "bytes" and provides an instruction set that tells a computer processor what to do.

Byte (or 8 bits)

A byte is composed of 8 bits or "on-off" signals. You can think of a byte as being the computer representation for a letter, like "A," a number like "7," or an instruction to multiply two numbers, like "3 * 6." For the purposes of creating a Web site, the number of bytes will measure the size of your site in terms of disk space. For instance, if your Web hosting plan allows you to publish a 2 MB (Megabytes or million bytes) Web site, then essentially it can be made up of 2 million characters or instructions.

Disk space (a lot of bytes)

In the world of Web publishing, this term normally refers to the amount of disk space that is provided by your Web hosting service. No matter whether you publish your Web site using a free service like Max Pages, or a paid service like Verio, the amount of disk space you get on their server will be limited to a certain amount of bytes (like Megabytes or MB). Obviously, the more space you get, the larger your site can be. The amount of space you will need depends on the number of pages in your Web, and more importantly, on the number and size of your graphic images. If your site is going to have a lot of graphic images, then you will need a hosting service that gives you a lot of disk space.

Disk space normally ranges from a few Megabytes (MB) to hundreds of MBs. For instance, if you use the AOL Personal Publisher for your Web site, then you will get 2 MB of disk space per screen name. If you go with a robust hosting plan from Verio, then you can get up to 100MB of disk space on their servers. Although it is difficult to determine exactly how much space you will need, keep in mind that you can get about 100,000 words on a single floppy disk, or 1.44MB.

Bandwidth (the pipe to your Web site)

Bandwidth is the measure of bits that a connection to the Internet can carry in a certain amount of time. Think of bandwidth as being similar to the size of a water pipe. The larger the water pipe, the more water it can carry in a specific period of time. Common measurements for bandwidth are bits per second (bps) and megabits per second (Mbps). Sometimes bandwidth can also be measured in bytes per second. For instance, you might see a bandwidth measurement in megabytes (million bytes) per second, that would be abbreviated MBps. The only distinction being that the "B" is capitalized to represent "Byte," as opposed to "bit."

Bandwidth is important for a Web hosting service because it determines the amount of traffic, or visitors, that can be handled simultaneously. For instance, if your Web host only has a few small pipes connected to the Internet (like a couple of DS3s), then the amount of traffic that it can handle will be much less than a Web host that has a lot of larger pipes (like a few OC48 systems).

Kilobits per second (Kbps)

Kilobits per second is a measure you should be familiar with if you have a dial-up connection to the Internet. For instance, when you purchased your modem, you might have noticed that it was rated at a maximum data transfer rate of 56Kbps (or 56,000 bits per second). This data transfer rate determines how fast you can upload and download information on the Internet.

Sometimes data transfer rates are measured in Kilobytes per second, or KBps. This is a much higher transfer rate, since every byte consists of 8 bits. Normally, however, data transfer rates are measured using the decimal designations of K (kilo or thousand), M (mega or million), and G (giga or billion). Disk space, or storage devices, on the other hand, measure capacity by using powers-of-2, which is 1,024 bytes in the case of Kilobytes (KB).

Megabits per second (Mbps)

Megabits per second is a common measurement for the data transfer rate, or throughput, of a connection to the Internet. Sometimes data transfer rates are referred to as bandwidth for a particular connection, or "pipe." Obviously, the higher the data transfer rate, or bandwidth, the more information that can be transmitted simultaneously.

Gigabits per second (Gbps)

Currently, Gigabits per second is the fastest measure bandwidth, and is most commonly associated with high speed networks, such as Ethernet. A Gigabit equals 1 billion bits, or 1,000,000,000 bits.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Scripts

CGI, or Common Gateway Interface, specifies how information is transferred between a server on the World Wide Web and a computer program. If a Web host provides CGI capability, then it will be able to "talk" to any computer program that conforms to the CGI specification.

It is important that you select a Web host with CGI capabilities, since online forms are normally processed using this specification. For instance, if you put a "customer feedback form" on your Web site, then you will need CGI capability to access the data from your Web host once the form has been completed and submitted by one of your customers.

Practical Extraction and Report Language (Perl)

Perl is a very popular text programming language developed by Larry Wall that is often used for writing CGI scripts.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

If you are going to process credit cards online, or obtain other confidential information from your customers, then you will want to ensure them that this information can be transmitted securely over the Internet. One way to do this is to make sure that your Web host supports the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL was developed by Netscape and is a protocol for transmitting encrypted documents over the Internet.

SSL establishes a secure connection been your customer's computer and your Web host's server, so that all information transmitted over the connection is secure. The Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers can use SSL when communicating with a Web host that also supports the protocol. Part of the SSL protocol dictates that Web pages begin with https:// rather than http://.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a protocol that is used to send files over the Internet. If you are going to develop your Web site using an off-the-shelf software package like Microsoft FrontPage, then in order to publish your site on your Web host you will need FTP. In this instance, FTP is used to transmit the files you create with Microsoft FrontPage on your PC over the Internet to your Web host.

Post Office Protocol (POP)

Not to be confused with the other POP, which the telecommunications industry uses for Point-of-Presence, Post Office Protocol defines how e-mail is retrieved from an e-mail server. There are two version of this protocol: the newer POP3 which does not require SMTP to send messages; and the older POP2, which does require SMTP to send message.