Most small or startup companies consider web hosting as a cost-effective solution for their IT requirements, even if they are an internet-based company themselves. For these companies, focusing their attention and their resources on their core competency is essential for survival. Medium and large companies often use the same strategy. They realize they really do not have to maintain their own web servers any more than they need to do their own payroll. A third party company can do these functions less expensively and more effectively, leaving these companies to concentrate on their products.
Once a company decides to take advantage of web hosting, they have several options. Some companies, without the resources or the interest in researching the options often choose the basic hosting package. Some of these companies, particularly those that do not require a large space for their website or a high bandwidth for their information, do very well with the basic package. However, as soon as space or bandwidth requirements exceed the product offering, then more costs are involved. The situation is not unlike choosing your cell phone plan according to the number of monthly minutes. In addition, choosing the basic plan and upgrading as need is not unlike choosing the basic cell phone plan, and upgrading when you suddenly get a horrendous monthly bill.
Many companies like to head off unforeseen problems in the future by taking a more proactive approach to choosing a web hosting service. Fortunately, designing the rough requirements for a service is not too difficult. Start by determining the size of your website. Your designer can give you some good estimates. Expect larger sites when videos or other large data items are present. Continue by estimating the monthly-expected visitors to your site. Continue by classifying these visitors according to purpose. Create special groups for those that download videos or perform other high-bandwidth activities. Combine these numbers to get an estimate for your bandwidth requirements. This will give you some reasonable starting values to specify your service.
At this point, using an IT expert, either one of your employees or a contractor, determine any special requirements for your website. Does it use a specialized database or have some other requirement to install software not common to websites? If so, you may be required to consider an advanced solution for isolating your website, either a VPS setup, or a full-blown dedicated server.
If you are designing your IT structure, be sure to consider web hosting to offload your website requirements to a hosting company. Choose your web hosting plan through an analysis of your company’s online dynamic. Contact 24shells!
