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Domain
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Search
for your domain name, is it available? Domain name
registration only £20. |
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Hosting
Packages |
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View
all our hosting packages and compare our features with other companies
and you will see we come out top every time. |
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About
Web Hosting |
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Things
you need to know about web hosting and questions
you should ask when looking for a web host. |
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Hosting
FAQ
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Want
answers now? Review our FAQ |
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Web
Toolbox |
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Selection
of some of the best tools on the web for
webmasters. |
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Business
Directory |
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Looking
for the address or telephone number of an Irish
company? Search Ireland's leading on-line business
directory
Anything Irish. |
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Things
you should Know
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Before Anything Irish Ltd. started
Irish
Host Masters, they had to rely on other web hosts
to house their
clients websites.
We've learned a lot
because of that, and
thus we'll now teach
you the things you
should look for in a
web host before
making your final
choice.
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Server's
Power:
A
server's performance
is just the
beginning. Besides
bandwidth and
connectivity, server
power is one of the
main elements to be considered when
choosing a web host.
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Myth
and hype:
Many web hosting
companies claim that
their servers are
better because they
are either Sun
servers or Windows
NT certified. Don't
be fooled by this.
Sun servers are
great, but a
€8,000
Intel based server
performs just as
good as a €20,000
Sun server. A
€3,000 Sun CPU
performs just
equally as two
Pentium IIIs (which
cost about €200
each as of January
2000). As for
Windows NT, no one
serious (or smart)
enough would use it
for web hosting.
Windows NT is great
as an application
server, but for web
hosting, it is too
expensive, it's
performance is low
when compared to
UNIX, and it's
unstable. UNIX/Linux
can do far more web
serving than NT on
the same hardware
for a LOT less money
(Microsoft IIS
licenses per server
amount to thousands
of pounds). And no,
you don't have to
learn UNIX to use a
hosting account
running on Linux.
The truth:
Serving a page is a
task that consumes
very little power
(less than 0.001%
CPU power for a
fraction of a
second).
Ask and
beware:
Always ask a web
host what kind of
servers they are
using. Make sure
they have powerful
servers for two
reasons: power, and
the fact that to
have such powerful
servers, the hosting
company must be
financially stable.
But beware of
hosting companies
that spend too much
money on server
"names"
they really don't
need. Also, some web
hosts with less
powerful servers
will claim they
don't need more
because web hosting
is not CPU
intensive. Don't
listen to that! A
powerful server will
deliver your pages
faster than a less
powerful one,
whether it is CGI or
a static page.
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RAM:
A
server's CPU power
is not much without
proper RAM. A web
host with only 32 MB
RAM on it's server
is of little or no
use. All our
servers run 256MB or
more up to a max of
3GB Ram.
Fact:
when a page in your
website is accessed
for the first time,
it is accessed from
the server's hard
drives and delivered
to the browser that
requested it. The
next time someone
else requests the
same page, it will
not be read from the
hard drives, but
from the server's
RAM. The page was
copied to cache RAM
the first time it
was accessed. The
more RAM the server
has, the faster a
site's files can be
accessed.
Myth
and hype:
some web hosts will
claim that they
don't need so much
RAM because they
have
ultra-super-fast
SCSI drives. No
matter how fast a
hard drive is, it
can't beat the speed
of RAM. Most web
hosts usually stuff
thousands of
websites on a server
with 256MB or 512MBs
of RAM and then
customers start
complaining their
website's
responsiveness is
going down. Why? No
matter how fast the
drive is, it will
slow down when
trying to respond to
thousands of file
requests (pages,
images, etc) per
second. Our servers
have a maximum of
500 clients web
sites on them, and
any high bandwidth
users are transferred
to their own dedicated
server.
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Connection:
Ok,
so they have a
powerful server
right? What about
that server's
connection to the
Internet?
Irish
Host Masters
servers are on a
network that is
connected to the
Internet through
155Mbit fibre optic
link, and this is
directly connected
to the Internet's
backbone.
Myth and
hype: Some
web hosts claim they
have an entire T1
(15GB of data a day)
or DS3 (45 times a
T1) available to
them, and that they
are not using it at
full capacity so
they have plenty of
it available. But,
what happens if that
single line goes
down? Your site will
go down and become
inaccessible. And
believe us, this
kind of event
happens every single
day around the
world. Also, small
communication lines
like T1s usually do
not come from major
Internet providers
(UUNet, MCI, Sprint
and others) but from
smaller providers
that buy from a
bigger provider that
buys from an even
bigger provider,
resulting in more
"jump
points" (known
as hops) between a
visitor and your
site. The more hops
between your site
and the Internet,
the slower your site
will respond.
Ask and
beware:
Always ask what type
of connection a web
host has, how much
of it are they
using, how many of
them they have and
who provides them.
Hi-quality bandwidth
is a must if you
want your website to
be accessible at
fast speeds from
everywhere in the
world.
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