What is Ecommerce Hosting?
A Home Business Article Contributed by Sharon Hill
Defining Ecommerce Hosting
If you have a web site, or you're thinking about setting one up, you probably already know you need someone to host your ecommerce project. But what does that really mean? Essentially, the company that you choose to host your ecommerce site is responsible for providing the server that allows it to appear on the Web. Actually you could have your very own server but hardly anyone does - it's far too technically complicated, time consuming and expensive to not let someone else do it for you.
If you understand what a web server is and how it works, you'll understand why you need an ecommerce host and what that host is providing for you.
Defining an Ecommerce Hosting Server
At it's most basic, the server is the computer that does the ecommerce hosting - it's in charge of delivering pages and sites you ask to see when you're surfing online. If, for instance, you turn on your computer, click on Netscape or Internet Express for example, you'll get to your default home page. The computer that got you to that page, and the computer that brings you to the next URL you type in, is your server.
It takes the message from you that you want to view that site and sends it back to you to see. URL, by the way, means Uniform Resource Locator - it's the address for a web site. Each URL actually has a numeric address but who's going to remember, for instance, 843 24 3879? It's much more user friendly to name it monster.com and let the http process convert it.
The Details of How Ecommerce Hosting Servers Do Their Job
Your eCommerce Hosting Server takes that URL you are seeking and divides it up into three distinct parts: the protocol (the http - or Hypertext Transfer Protocol - part of the web address) ; the server name (www.whateveritscalled.com), and the file name (web-server.htm). The server talks to a name server to convert this file name into an IP (internet protocol) address for you. This connects the address to the file server. The browser then connects to the server as well.
The browser then gives the server the order to find the web address - in this case www.whateveritscalled.com/web-server.htm . and send it back to the browser. The server finds the HTML text for the page, sends it to the browser, and the browser reads it and sends it to your computer. Voila, your server has done its ecommerce hosting job, and you have a web page in front of you!
So, if, after all this information about how ecommerce hosting servers work and how important they are to you, you still want to have your very own server, let's look at the bottom line. Servers start under $1000, but not far - and max out at somewhere around $83,000. (The Hewlett Packard LC2000 retails for $83, 560; The Sun A11-140 and A11-140 each retail at $65.) It just depends, of course, on how extensive a group of computers it needs to accommodate.
