Below is the continuation of the previous article: Frequently Used Terms in Web Hosting Industry : Part 1

MS SQL
It is a database management system which is a Microsoft product. MS SQL databases are offered only with Windows Web Hosting packages.

MySQL
MySQL is a database server.It is most commonly used with PHP.MySQL can be availed with Linux Web Hosting packages as well as Windows Hosting packages.

Perl
Perl is preferred and renowned scripting or programming language.It is considered to be one of the most powerful languages used for scripting. It is most commonly used for CGI scripts. With Perl building and testing of programs get simplified.

PHP
PHP is an Open source, server side HTML embedded scripting language that is typically used for creating dynamic web pages. Since it is released under Open source GNU, it is freely downloadable. Web masters prefer to use it on Linux/Unix Servers.

POP3: Post Office Protocol
It is a type of protocol that  is used for receiving E-mails. When using an E-mail client to retrieve email messages, the client communicates with the mail server via POP3.

Primary DNS : Primary Domain Name Server
It is the Primary domain name server for the customer domains. These are the DNS IP numbers often preceeded as ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com.

Root Server
Its a machine thats loaded with softwares and data that is required to locate the name servers which contain authoritative data for the top level domains.

SMTP : Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
This is main protocol that is used to send  and receive e-mails over the Internet.

SSL : Secure Socket Layer
It is a protocol designed to enable encrypted and authenticated communications across the World Wide Web.SSL is usually used for secure communication between web browser and the servers. The URL that starts with “https” indicates that the website is secured with SSL.SSL Certificates are installed on the domains of websites that involve online transactions.

TCP/IP
TCP/IP is a protocol that defines the Internet. It indicates how data can be transmitted between hosts. It is most widely used standard of communication. This set of communication protocols to connect to host servers over the Internet.

Telnet
It is a program that is used to login from and Internet site to the other. It is actually a protocol used to access machines placed at remote remote locations. You can connect to any server over the Internet that has telnet server.

TLD : Top Level Domains
It is the suffix of the domain name for example .co., .org , .gov, .net etc. It is the highest level in the hierarchy of doman extensions.

Tomcat
Tomcat is a Java based web server software created to run Java Server Pages (JSP) in the web applications.

Unix
Unix is an operating system that is used on business class computers often known as servers. It is a similar operating system to DOS and MacOS. It is one of the most common operating systems used on servers.

Virtual Server
A virtual server is nothing but a web server that shares its resources with multiple users hosted on a single physical server. In this, users get to experience dedicated server like environment.You are provided with complete admin access of the server.As a matter of fact, a VPS Hosting package is one of the most preferred type of web hosting solution.

Web Server
A web server is nothing but a computer that delivers web pages.It is important that the server is connected to the World Wide Web inorder to deliver webpages upon request.

Web Site Traffic
Website traffic refers to the volume of visitors visiting a website. The tool that measures the traffic is referred as the website traffic reporting tool.

XML : eXtensible Markup Language.
XML is a programming language which allows designers to create their own tags to indicate specific information. W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is a widely used standard which facilitates the interchange of data across computer applications. It is similar to the language used for Web pages HTML.

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Today more and more people are becoming aware of the hazards of insufficient online security measures. Its time to become smart and start taking online security seriously. The first step towards this is to have a padlock icon and the prefix ‘https’ in the address bar, to ensure the safety of your online information. It is a common trend these days that visitors tend to go back if your website isn’t secured by an SSL certificate.

An SSL Certificate, also abbreviated as Secure Socket Layer, is a digital certificate which authenticates the identity of a Website. It also encrypts the information before sending it to the server. An SSL Certificate acts as an online digital passport that contains the credentials of the online business. When an Internet user tries to send confidential information over the internet to the server, the users browser accesses the server’s digital certificate and establishes a secure connection.

Below is the information that is contained in the SSL Certificate:

a) Name of the owner of the SSL Certificate

b) Serial Number and the Expiry date of the Certificate

c) Copy of the certificate owners public key

d) Digital Signature of the Certificate issuing authority

Working of an SSL Certificate:

An SSL certificate is useful to have safe, secure and easy online shopping experience. It is important that the website in which you enter your confidential details such as the credit card information, personal data and your E-mail address is secured from intrusions and attacks. This necessity is fulfilled by an SSL Certificate. It ensures a safe connection between the browser and the Web Server. With the use of an SSL certificate, the information shared between the two is first and only then sent across. The process of encryption takes place in the background and does not interfere with the users activity, this is known as the SSL Handshake process. The easily visible indicator of a secure website is the ‘padlock’ icon and the ‘https://’ in the prefix of the domain name URL.

Incase, a user sends personal or confidential information over an insecure channel, the built in security of the browser triggers a warning to the user and notifies him/er that the website isn’t secure and the information can be intercepted by any third person. If a user on your website who has made up the mind of purchasing any of your product sees such a windows popping up, s/he is bound to leave the site immediately and your sales would get affected.

There are various SSL Certificates available in the market. You may choose any of them based on the requirement of your website. Most of the Web Hosting service providers offer the service of SSL Certificates. Below are the options of SSL Certificates.

A) Wild Card SSL Certificate : You secure unlimited servers with one SSL Certificate, it means you can secure unlimited number of sub domains with a single SSL Certificate. It offers strong 256 bit encryption, a Site Seal and a Web Seal.

B) Extended Validation Certificates: This type of SSL Certificate is proven to offer top most level of security and online assurance.

C) Multiple Domain Certificates: It provides the most flexible class of SSL Certificates by securing multiple domain names with one certificate.

Different web hosting service providers offer SSL Certificates at different prices. You get a Dedicated IP address with the Certificate.

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Hosting an E-commerce website is fairly simple. There are multiple benefits of choosing an eCommerce web hosting solution offered by web hosting providers. They offer robust, reliable, relatively inexpensive hosting packages. Along with the web hosting package you can avail a combination of different shopping cart technologies, integration of payment gateways, easy installation scripts and most importantly the anytime support.

It might be confusing for some people to choose an appropriate web hosting service provider due to the lack of basic knowledge of web hosting. You may go through the following link to understand the basics of hosting.

While choosing a eCommerce web hosting service provider, it is important to check for certain aspects. It’s a common trend that we avoid to choose a host that makes us do most of the stuff by ourselves. We usually want things that are pre-existing and easily available. Hence, while choosing an eCommerce host, you must check if they offer easy installations (one click installation is more preferred). They should offer a wizard that can take you through the installation process, else it can prove to be a frustrating task.

They must offer choice of eCommerce templates, preferably customizable templates are of preference. A reputed web hosting provider would never say, that they do not offer or allow customized templates.

They must allow you to build a catalog of your own. You should be enabled to export or import your pre-existing data as it would be a hard time for you if you have to manually keep typing the content each time you switch hosts.

Your task does not end here. Once, you are done with building your store, the crucial task of marketing follows. Some hosting providers offer these services as well. It is important that the hosting provider offers an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate as well for online security.

PayPal, GoogleCheckout, 2Checkout, Moneybookers etc are some of the most secure online payment gateways. You can integrate any of these with your website. A web hosting provider should provider multiple payment gateways.

It is necessary that the web hosting provider offers service, post sales support alongwith web hosting. Today, newer eCommerce technologies are being introduced, the web host must be competent enough to meet those requirements and offer.

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