FAQ
"What is web hosting?"
Web hosting is the service providing space and a connection to the internet for your web site. A web site needs to be online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, therefore a web server that has fast, permanent Internet connections is preferable. For stability and security, the web servers should be housed in a dedicated facility that provides physical protection, backup, and spare capacity in case of failure.
Non-virtual hosting
Non-Virtual web hosting is where you rent space on an existing server, and are given a sub domain. For example, www.hostingco.com/yoursite/. The main attraction for this type of hosting is cost, and this service is often offered as a free feature to a dial-up or broadband account through an ISP. This is not seen to be as professional as a virtual server or domain hosting however, as you do not have your own domain name: e.g. www.yoursite.com.
Virtual hosting
Virtual Hosting provides you or your organisation or company with a dedicated site on the internet accessible at www.yoursite.com. This service provides a personal, professional web presence. Having an organisational or company Domain Name allows you to move your site to another hosting service with minimal disruption.
"What do I look for in a hosting provider?"
Disk Space
Hosting providers provide a set amount of disk space with hosting packages. The minimum space you should consider is 20 MB. Depending on the applications you use, the amount of images, and the presence and size of databases you may require more space. Text uses relatively small space, while images, video, and databases can use a lot more.
At Mothership, our packages start from 500 MB web space.
Data Traffic
Bandwidth capacity
Most hosting providers connect to 'backbone' Internet providers via high capacity lines such as T1, T3, through to OC-48 or fibre. Speeds range from approximately 1.5 Mbit/s (T1) to 1 Gbit/s and more.
All Mothership servers are located in data centres with multiple fibre optic connections to several backbone providers, ensuring you receive excellent site access times and speed, along with redundancy. Our plans have generous data limits, and more is available on request.
Servers
All new accounts are set up on new Intel Xeon multiple core, multiple CPU servers. Each server has at minimum 4 Xeon CPU cores (a total of 8 Virtual CPUs) available for use by clients.
All servers have at minimum 16GB of ECC RAM.
This server hardware means there are large reserves of CPU and memory available for your site. This means a fast loading, responsive website, even with dynamic PHP scripting and MySQL databases.
Support
Healthy Customer Support is a key feature to look for with any hosting company. Web sites should be accessible at any time, and if this is not the case, the company should be readily accessible and able to fix any issues as soon as possible.
Does the company provide a contact form? An email address? A forum?
Here at Mothership we are contactable via telephone (landline, and mobile) email, and even text if you prefer. We provide a feedback form, which is posted to our email and support ticket system. We also have a forum to raise issues, and discuss other aspects of hosting, email, etc and associated products and technologies with Mothership staff, other Mothership clients, and members of the wider community.
Reliability and stability
Successful site hosting revolves around accessibility and stability ('uptime'). Uptime measures the availability of your server to visitors, and the aim is for continuous presence. Also of importance is the number of sites located on the same server. Too many sites on one server will cause 'bottlenecks' just as insufficient bandwidth will.
Mothership has the infrastructure to provide excellent uptime and server response times. Our client's sites are all hosted on Intel Xeon multiple core multiple CPU dedicated servers with monitoring of power systems, HVAC, network connectivity, fire control, and physical site access. We also have spare hardware and backup servers on hand so almost any problem can be fixed within minutes.
Each server is equipped with a RAID hard drive cluster. This means data is mirrored to other drives in the cluster, so a drive failing does not mean the loss of your site and related data.
Daily back ups are carried out to a back up server, and weekly and monthly back ups are held as well. At any point in time there is normally 5 copies of your website and data on 3 separate hard drives across 2 separate servers.
Firewalls are in place, and strict security policies applied to ensure the security of our online services. In 4 years of service we have never had a security compromise affect our servers.
"What can I expect to pay?"
Typically, you can expect to find a reasonable web host with multiple email accounts, cgi-bin access, and a T3/E3 connection for about $30 - 50+ dollars per month. There may also be set-up fees (though not with Mothership hosting). This cost is dependent on the features needed for your site(s) and may be slightly higher or lower. If you require additional features such as support for database software or a secure server, be prepared to spend more money for these features.
At Mothership, all our accounts include database and PHP and Perl scripting support for no extra cost.
Shop around before making a decision. Price, while important, should not be the sole decider of hosting provider. Examine the features offered; there can be substantial differences. Does the provider respond promptly to enquiries? This can be an sign of how seriously the provider views support. Look at the site to server ratio - are the servers overwhelmed, or does the provider supply plenty of hardware resources?