Website Hosting
What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is like Internet real estate. If you want to build a house, you need a place to build it and roads to get to it. Similarly, if you want to build a website, you need server space to store your files and bandwidth to access your site.
To put it simply, this means obtaining disk space and the required access and security configuration on a computer (known as a server) permanently connected to the Internet, that holds your website files and makes them available to the rest of the world.
One difference is that while a house has a permanent street address that can't travel with your house if you choose to move it, you can move your website around the planet and point the address (the domain name) to wherever the site is located.
Large organisations with an existing IT infrastructure may elect to host the server themselves, but most sites are hosted in "rented" space in ISPs or specific hosting companies.
Who do you use for hosting?
Webboy.net uses Crystaltech in Arizona, USA, for the majority of our web hosting. We are also partners with WebCentral in Australia if domestic hosting is required for Australian customers.
Why host overseas?
Bandwidth is extremely expensive in Australia. The cost to the Australian ISPs by the bandwidth providers (e.g. Telstra, UUNET, PSINET, etc.) is on-charged in the price you pay each month to host your site. If you go over the bandwidth limit for your account the costs will soar.
Bandwidth in the United States is very cheap. Subsequently, hosting costs are greatly reduced. Cheap hosting in the US gives far more functionality than most premium Australian products, usually at half the price or even less.
Will the user notice any difference?
The differences to most people are not significant. There are usually other issues that affect performance that will have the same effect whether the site is in the US or Australia. Webboy.net developers generally use 56k modems to dial up so we know exactly what challenges dial-up customers are facing. The benefits of US hosting far outweigh any slight performance differences.
What sort of plans do they offer?
Crystaltech offers a range of solutions, from a "Standard Value Plan" (10 email addresses, 100mb disk space, 5gb transfer per month) to fully dedicated servers. The "Shared Value Plan" (at USD$7.95) is comparable with WebCentral's "Economy 2002" account (10 email addresses, 20mb disk space and 500mb transfer per month) for AUD$38.00 per month.
A Crystaltech "Standard Intermediate Plan" is where the changes start to show. It offers 250 email addresses, 300mb disk space, 15gb transfer per month and includes either Microsoft Active Server Pages, ColdFusion 5 or ColdFusion MX application Server, all for USD$16.95. A similar WebCentral account would cost AUD$167.00 (Premier + ColdFusion + Extra disk space) but would still be limited to 1.5gb transfer and 40 email addresses.
Please note: Our hosting services are only used in conjunction with designing your site or application. We don't do web hosting as a stand-alone service.
Why don't I deal directly with Crystaltech?
Of course you can deal direct. That's why we are open about who we use, but we have a long-standing relationship with Crystaltech and know their system back to front. We know who to contact for fast response in the case of something going wrong (very rare) and we get a bulk discount (30%) so we can pass the savings on to you.
When we set up a hosting solution for our customers, we charge the set-up fees and 6 months in advance. After 6 months, we ask you to provide your credit card details and Crystaltech will bill your card directly on a monthly basis so that you benefit directly from our 30% discount.
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