ZNet India Blog

Also known as “Terms and Acceptable Usage Policy” your Service Level Agreement, SLA is probably the most important piece of text you will need to read. And read you will have to; the entire text. Once you have familiarized yourself with this SLA you can start to skim through and look out for the details you feel are most important to you as you search for other hosting companies.

An SLA basically tells you what services you will be paying for, what rights you do and do not have. You are agreeing to pay for your web hosting and for what is in the SLA and nothing else. In this document or text, the web host provider is letting you know in print, what you will have to agree to if you wish to use their services. But remember, that it also tells you, what rights you have. If the web host provider does not live up to the SLA, you now have a right to use this agreement to your advantage.

Web sites and web pages are very powerful marketing tools to appeal and encourage the client to act or buy the service that company is offering. Web pages can contain images, Flash, colors, even sounds and music. A web page can even be interpreted as one big advertisement to the buyer. This is why the SLA of a company, or in this case, a web host provider is so important. It is straight to the point and to quite a number of people simply find it boring. Many times the SLA is written in small text, is very long and to some people confusing or complicated. You may notice some SLA’s are almost hidden or at the bottom of a page in small text or only available on the order form.

Is there a reason why this is so?

To have your SLA on the first page would look very odd and highly unusual. There are many reasons why some companies choose to have their SLA located where they are and written the way they are. Some do it simply so they do not confuse the buyer. Some are so they do not scare the buyer so he or she thinks that what they are “getting into”, is way out of their league. Unfortunately, some companies “hide” these service agreements because it reveals too much about the company and what you are really purchasing. Remember the colorful and bedazzling web pages? Well these SLA’s are just the opposite. They get straight to the point. It’s like opening the hood of a car and looking at the engine to see exactly how it works.

If you do not find an SLA anywhere on the website and have looked on just about all the web pages, then simply move on to another provider. This must be present on all web host providers selling services, even if they are free. You can always ask for their SLA, but this is not advisable if it comes in the form of an email as there is no way for both parties to revert to a static SLA.

This is also another important matter. The web host provider can always change their SLA if need be, but find out if you will be notified of the change and how much time you will have to adapt to these changes. It is not good agreeing to their terms and then having them change it later on to something you did not agree to. You may wish to make a copy of their SLA page and save it on to your computer’s hard disk. You may also find it much easier to read their SLA by copying and pasting the text into Notepad and reading it from there. There is actually no need to read the small print on the web page itself, just copy and paste.

Another “tactic” for some web host providers is to provide their SLA on the order form. This is where you are just about to enter your credit card details and pay for your web hosting that they inform you of their SLA. A check mark is needed beside the agreement which usually has a link to the small text. 9 times out of 10, buyers can’t be bothered to read this long complicated text and just get on with getting their web hosting. A mistake done all too often. Roughly 70% of all customers read their SLA after they have purchased a web hosting account.

Let’s discuss what the SLA can contain. You can always “verify” if what the web pages say are true, as well as get the finer details in the SLA. For a while, a few years back, the most heated discussions involved unlimited bandwidth and web space. To cut a long story short, unlimited bandwidth or web space is simply and always will be an outright lie. There is no such thing; again, read the SLA.

30 day money back guarantee.

The phrase sounds simple enough but there are still just a few things to think about. Can you receive a refund on the 30th day? Or do you need to give them 7 days warning that you wish for a refund. Is it truly a “30 day guarantee”? Does it regard all types of payments, check, money order credit card etc. Is it mentioned in the SLA? Remember, you are basically buying the services within the SLA.
Up time guarantee.

Another very important feature to look closer at is their up time guarantee. Again, web pages can look wonderful, but the business takes place within the text of the SLA. You may even want to compare how these uptime guarantees are calculated by other web host providers. Do you need proof in order to tell the web host provider that your site was down more than x many hours a month so the web host provider can give you a refund? Or is it more complicated, where your site needs to be down for x many hours in a row? In other words, down 2 hours on Monday, 3 on Tuesday, and 1 hour on Sunday but not 6 hours in a row, therefore not receiving a refund? Or if their uptime guarantee does not involve third party software crashes, server maintenance, internet congestion etc. What does the uptime guarantee cover? Not, what does the uptime guarantee not cover. It is extremely unlikely for any web host provider to offer a 100% uptime guarantee, without some exceptions.

What files are permitted?

There are more than just .html, .gif and .jpg files on the Internet. Apart from those files, what other files are you allowed to upload? Do they include any multimedia files; mp3 or movie files? Are you allowed to upload software files? and etc.
How is the bandwidth and disk space quota handled?
If you go over your quota, how is it handled. Are you automatically charged the extra fee? And if so, how much? Is your account suspended until you pay the extra charges or pay for the next hosting account? Or, are you notified about the “problem” and asked to pay the extra charges or upgrade to the next hosting plan within a certain number of days?

Domain names

If you have registered a domain name with a registrar you should not encounter any problems. If you are registering a domain name through your web host provider, make sure you retain all rights to the domain name. This is especially true if you are given a free or a very inexpensive domain name with your account. Some web host providers will register the domain name for you, but in their name, which means you do not own it. In some cases, if you wish to move to another web host provider you will have to purchase the domain from them at a much higher cost.

Miscellaneous categories

A few other categories to study are server resources, background running programs, mass mailing and other technical areas like Cron Jobs, telnet or SSH etc. Some of these topics mentioned in the SLA may sound rather strict or stringent but it is actually very common to read these same restrictions on almost all web host providers. This is, as mentioned earlier, to inform you of your rights and most importantly in this case, to protect the customer from harming or congesting the server for the company’s other clients. You do not want someone slowing down the server which you are using so your web pages load slowly or not at all. So you can actually be more reassured that if this happens, action will be taken, thus an advantage to you and not necessarily a hindrance. (This mainly refers to all virtual hosting accounts.)

If you are uncertain about a certain part of an SLA, you should always ask the web host provider. Never assume something is adequate unless you are sure and have checked. Always think ahead. Will I need this or that in the future? What happens if my website grows much bigger? What if I need to upload x type of files from now on? What if the third party company or software I work with needs this or that enabled? Should I have read the whole SLA? Never assume your web host provider will have or offer what you wish. Find out, and if you are not sure, ask! – ZNetIndia.com

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) server certificates are essential for any organization that wishes to accept payments or to collect sensitive information via their website. An SSL digital certificate will protect visitors and promote trust in your website.

How do SSL certificates work?

An SSL certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a browser points to a secured domain, an SSL handshake authenticates the server and the client and establishes an encryption method and a unique session key. The user can then begin a secure session that guarantees message privacy and message integrity.

Verisign – the most trusted mark on the Internet

ZNetIndia has partnered with Verisign to provide the highest level of secure SSL digital certificate available. Verisign is the leading global provider of SSL certificates, and the most trusted mark on the internet. By using only Server-Gated Cryptography (SGC encryption), we can enable 128-bit or 256-bit SSL encryption, the most powerful SSL encryption available.
SSL certificate options

ZNetIndia offers two levels of certificate, both of which come with the option of Extended Validation SSL certificates (EV SSL certificates). With an EV certificate in place, the browser address bar turns green providing a very visible reassurance to the visitor that your website has the highest level of authentication.
Secure Site

• An SSL digital certificate backed by the industry’s most rigorous authentication methodology and our intelligent infrastructure
• VeriSign Secured Seal
• Upgrade to Extended Validation SSL certificates for competitive advantage and customer confidence with the green address bar securing the highest level of trust on your website
Secure Site Pro
• True 128-bit SSL digital certificates for securing sensitive information during online transactions
• VeriSign Secured Seal
• Upgrade to Extended Validation SSL certificates for competitive advantage and customer confidence with the green address bar securing the highest level of trust on your website

If you would like to find out more about how SSL server certificates can improve sales on your website, Please get in touch with one of our consultants to discuss your SSL certificate requirements further @ ZNetIndia.com

Multiple Domain Hosting is like web hosting business on a shoe-string budget. The first step is to get yourself a multiple domain name hosting account.

For example, if you take out an account that allows up to 6 websites (or domains), you can use one of the domains for development of your own site; and, still have 5 domain names to allocate to your clients sites.

All you need to do is pay your regular fee to your web host; then, you can charge your clients what ever you like.

It is preferable to have full administrative control over your client’s web sites. Make sure that, not only does your web host provide you with a control panel that includes full administrative facilities to easily manage your multiple account, but that your host provides your clients with their own control panel too.

In short, hosting multiple domain, is a system where web designers can buy a single “Plan” and sub-divide their storage space into multiple accounts…. one for each website they develop.

This significantly decreases the costs to the web designers, putting more money in their pockets when they sell the hosting service to their clients.

Courtesy ZNetindia.com

Now that you are familiar with both the advantages and disadvantages of purchasing a reseller hosting package, it’s time to put everything together before making your decision. By taking this extra time now to make sure this type of hosting plan is right for you, you can save a lot of time and expense in the future.

Do I Want to Sell Extra Space on My Server? If you are purchasing a reseller plan just to make sure that you have enough space on your site, you may find that you need to sell this extra space to help cover the monthly fees. If you don’t plan to sell this space, you may be better served by purchasing a dedicated server or dedicated hosting plan to get the space you need.

Do I Really Need This Much Space? While the amount of space and data transfer limits make reselling plans very attractive to many site owners, it is important to make sure that this is something that is truly necessary to justify the extra expense.

Do you really need 5000 megs of disk space? If you plan on running a simple site, or you don’t plan to host a lot of data on your server, the obvious answer is no. Many people feel that they need to purchase a lot of space, without realizing that their site many not really need quite that much additional disk space.

If you currently have a website, you can use your current disk space usage to calculate how much space you really need and how quickly your site grew in this area. If you are completely new to hosting, it can be more difficult to judge just how much space you really need. A general disk space guideline for a business or informational site is around 250 to 500 megs, depending on the amount of data you will need to have on your server. Keep in mind that customer databases can quickly grow, so you don’t want to under buy either.

Can I Provide Customer Service if I do Resell Space? This is something that will need to be considered in depth before making your decision. If you plan on reselling space on your account, you simply must provide customer service and technical support for these customers. This can quickly eat up the majority of your time, especially if you are not intending on starting your own hosting company, so make sure that you are fully aware of all of the implications that come with selling space before you get in too deep with your customers.

These are just some of the more important considerations you will need to make before actually purchasing any server space. Each company and site owner will have different needs and different areas of concern. Take the time now to plan out what you plan to do with your site now and in the future, and you will be able to rest easy knowing that you have made a well educated and well planned decision.

courtesy ZNetIndia.com

You must have seen many attractive advertisements or banner from many web hosting services provider providing your excellent resources for very cheap rates. be warm such advertisements are just for attracting new customers, you may have to face problems in terms of service or financial matters.

You should choose a web host after doing your homework so that you can get best for your investment. Choosing web host is not as easy as it may seem. You should avoid few mistakes which most webmaster do while choosing web hosting service provider.

We host with free Web Space : Always avoid web host who claim to offer you free web space, as you wont get anything for free surely they would be getting something back from you. Most web host who are offering you free hosting space will put different advertisements on your website which may affect your web business, these ads can appear anywhere within your website. All such free web space hosting service provider will generate revenue through your website by placing ads.

There are many host who offers you very cheap hosting plans but they prevent you from adding your required applications, such as to add order forms, statistics, or creating multiple email accounts, hosting add on domains etc…These are necessary tools for most webmaster. They may charge you extra for getting such services. Thus you should choose a host who will offer you total freedom for your hosting account.

Few host just try to attract customers by offering them cheap hosting plans and they just grab your money and once they get handful of customers they just disappear without any information. So you should always check for reliability of your preferred web host, try to get all details like how long they are in hosting business, their client base, any awards they have got recently etc.

courtesy znetindia.com

cPanel and WHM are used together and are often confused. The definitions and differences are simple enough:

cPanel

cPanel (control panel) is a simple web interface used to manage individual domains or websites (e.g., http://yourwebsite.com). cPanel has a variety of features, including managing email accounts and other options, logs, security settings, domain management, databases, software (such as CGI, PHP, and Perl), and advanced settings, such as Apache configuration and MIME type settings.
One of the most compelling features of cPanel is that a user can manage tasks without requiring the assistance of their hosting provider.

WHM

WHM (Web Host Manager) is a web interface used to manage reseller services and for administrators to manage the site.
Administrators have root-level access in WHM, which allows the administrator to perform advanced functions such as installing or upgrading server software and setting up MX entries. Administrators can add features via pre-built applications or even custom-built applications.

Resellers can manage domains for their users; for example, generate an instance of cPanel for a newly registered domain, install Frontpage extensions, etc. Resellers can also control the hosting plan on a domain-by-domain, or subscriber-by-subscriber, basis.

Differences

cPanel is used to administer one website where WHM is used to administer multiple websites and the hosting server itself. Users that register a domain will use cPanel to manage various aspects of their site. Resellers and web hosting companies will use WHM to administer multiple domains (create, modify, delete, etc.), but not to manage individual settings for each domain.

Working together

cPanel and WHM, taken together, form a powerful combination for managing your web hosting environment. The graphical interface provides a very simple yet flexible way to administer a system without requiring experience and knowledge of a UNIX or Linux command line interface.

Visit ZNetIndia for Right Linux or Windows Hosting Plan

Dedicated Server Hosting Helps Your Business Grow

You don’t have to employ or have IT support team to monitor your server for you. We do have all the resources in house to monitor and ensure your server is always live and up 24/7. You can relax and just concentrate on your business and marketing and have our team to manage and monitor your server for you. With Dedicated Hosting, you don’t have to share any resources, or downtime with other website which will ensure highest up time for your server. We offer 99.9 % up time guarantee for all our dedicated server offer.
Managed Dedicated Servers by Managed Hosting Professionals.

We also do offer Managed dedicated server for those that need dedicated server but don’t want to be bothered with the server maintenance, and configuration. With just small extra fee per month. We will help you to manage your dedicated server. Daily task such as Backup server, Update patches, anti virus and etc is all done by our team. You don’t need to have an IT knowledge to run your server.

The Technology Behind Your Dedicated Solution

We do have the latest OS installed and latest control panel software support. Just write to us if you have any custom configuration that you need to be on the server before the configuration. We will handle all for you to ensure that your server is always ahead of the technology. We eat and drink with technology everyday and we want to assure that you also get the latest trends and technology on the market.

Why Use Dedicated Server

Benefits of Dedicated Servers – The shared web hosting is an inexpensive entry point for low traffic websites, running within the setup constraints of the standard accounts. As some sites expand, the shared hosting accounts become limiting. Some of the advantages of having a dedicated server are enumerated below

• Performance

You are not sharing the system resources such as processor power, memory and disk space with other sites on the same server.

• Reliability

You do not run the risk of the server being slowed down, swamped with traffic, or crashed by another site on a shared server.

• Security

As nobody else has access to the server you can be sure of having a much greater degree of security.

• Custom Configuration

If you need to install special software or configure the server to your own particular needs then often a dedicated server is the solution.

• Custom Firewall

Run your own custom firewall to enforce your own access control policy.

• Your own IP address

Most shared hosting sites share a single IP address, with site traffic directed by the server examining ‘host headers’. In contrast your dedicated server has its own unique IP address.

• Upgrade Path

More memory, disk space or extra processors can be added as the need arises.

• SLAs

Service Level Agreement.

Check out ZNetIndia.com Dedicated hosting Plans.

If you have a small business and are considering starting a web page, there are many things to consider. There are many companies out there that offer plans for web hosting for small businesses. Cost is just one of many factors in choosing a web hosting plan.

• Step 1

SSL. What type of service are you providing on your web site? If your small business handles any private information, you need to purchase a plan that offers SSL, secure server login, in order to protect your clients private information. Remember that credit cards are private data so if you are hosting an ecommerce site, it is imperative that you purchase SSL.

• Step 2

Here are a few things that most all plans include. Be sure to consider their usefulness for your application so that you are not paying for undesired services. In many cases, you will find out that they are exactly what is advertised—free.
• Unlimited e-mail accounts.
• Unlimited Data Storage
• Unlimited Data Transfer
• Unlimited Databases (My SQL, PostgreSQL)

• Step 3

Data Transfer Rate is important. How many people will be on your site at a time? You can only transfer so much data at once so if too many people are on the site you will have slow load times. Be sure to purchase a higher data transfer rate than you actually need to accommodate for growth of the site.

• Step 4

Many find a dedicated IP address and remote desktop access to be a valuable asset when setting up web hosting for their small business. This allows them to access all of their files from any location.

• Step 5

Often small businesses do not have a ton of content for their site. You may be selling one or two products or services. In order to give reputability to the site, you need to add more content. This can be done by setting up a blog, forum, photo gallery or some sort of social networking tool. These types of services are often sold with the small business web hosting package as bonuses.

• Step 6

Who is going to build the site? This is the last thing to consider. If you have some experience building web pages, you can usually get packages of scripts with your small business web hosting package which will allow you to easily piece together a site. If you do not have experience, you can often get a discount on the programming through the web hosting company if the entire site and the hosting are purchased at the same time.

Before you purchase an ecommerce hosting plan, there are many things that you will need to consider in advance. The points below are necessary decisions that will need to be made to ensure that you get not only the best deal, but the best site for your business.

Is Your Database Supported? This is an area that many business owners neglect when selecting a hosting company. You may not be familiar with all of the jargon that goes with website packages, so it is important to check with your web development staff, if you aren’t handling this yourself, to make sure that your current database will be compatible with your prospective hosting plan.

Are There Enough Features Included? Since ecommerce plans cost more than regular hosting plans, you will need to make sure that you will not have to spend more money above and beyond your monthly hosting charges. The ecommerce hosting market is competitive and it is important to shop around before selecting a host to make sure that you are getting the features you need at a price you can afford. You should, at the very least, have a host that provides a shopping cart, SSL certificate, mailing list software and unlimited databases. This way, you can be sure that all of your needs will be met without having to find and pay extra for additional applications.

Will I Have Enough Disk Space? This is an area that many people underestimate. If you plan on having a shopping cart, customer database and a large product catalog on your site, you will need to make sure that you will have adequate disk space to handle these files. Many companies penalize you if you go over your limit and you can actually end up paying more for additional disk space than you would if you purchased a plan that offers a larger amount. It is best to err on the side of caution and get extra disk space than to run low and end up paying more later.

Will I Have Enough Bandwidth? Bandwidth is one of the costliest aspects of owning a website. Popular stores may need quite a lot of data transfer and there is nothing worse than having your site suspended for going over its bandwidth limit. It gives an unprofessional appearance to your store and can cost much more money if you are penalized for exceeding your limits. While simple ecommerce sites may not need a terabyte of data transfer per month, you should make sure that you have at least 10 gigs of allotted transfer in your monthly plan to avoid any future problems.

Will I Have Enough Email Addresses? If your company has more than 30 employees, or you plan to organize your incoming email with several email addresses, you will need to make sure that your ecommerce plan offers more than enough email addresses. These can cost as extra per email account if you run out of your allotment, which can quickly add up over time.

These are the most important points to consider while you are shopping for your hosting plan. You will need to weigh what is important for your individual company in addition to these points to make sure that you are getting a hosting plan that can grow with your business and not hold you back. visit ZNetIndia for a comprehensive ecommerce hosting solution plan.

Technical Support – Rating: A+

One of the places that ZNetIndia Hosting really excels at is the level of support they offer with their dedicated servers. The other dedicated server providers we reviewed typically only offer email support and many providers actually charge extra fees for anything beyond simple reboots. ZNetIndia offers a semi-managed level of support and will help with virtually any issue. We also like the fact that ZNetIndia Hosting offers phone and chat support. If we were to have an critical issue we’d want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a real live person.

Included Features – Rating: A+

Another thing that puts ZNetIndia Hosting at the top of our list is the fact that they include cPanel and pre-install it. Many dedicated server companies don’t include a control panel which means you have to purchase a license yourself which can cost up to an additional $40 per month. Some companies that we looked at will include a control panel license but require you to install it yourself. This can take as much as a couple of days to accomplish. ZNetIndia Hosting’s dedicated servers are ready to go right out of the gate.

Options – Rating: A+

ZNetIndia Hosting doesn’t offer Windows based servers so if your website is built in .NET or ASP you’ll have to look elsewhere. But for Linux based dedicated hosting they do offer options when you sign up. They can provision your server with whichever version of 4.x or 5.x of PHP and MYSQL you need. They also include most PHP modules as a standard and offer some additional modules either for free or for a small fee depending on the module you’re looking for.

Price – Rating: A+

Other dedicated server hosts may list a lower advertised price but be careful. That price usually doesn’t include a control panel or much support. Once you factor in those additional fees ZNetIndia Hosting’s prices are very competitive.