Hosting a Web Portal - a buyer guide

Portals are usually setup to attract a lot of traffic. A portal is essentially an application driven website with several hundred pages. Therefore, you require a large disk space, high bandwidth, database and script running support. The two popular platforms used for developing portals are LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and ASP.Net with MS SQL server database. Depending upon whether your portal applications are developed for LAMP or on an ASP.Net platform, you will need to opt for a linux or windows server hosting respectively.

You can opt for a shared unlimited hosting package or better still go for a VPS or dedicated hosting. Below is a checklist of features you will require:

• Linux hosting with PHP and MySQL database support, OR Windows hosting with ASP, .Net and MS-SQL database support.
• Preferably an unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth plan.
• Support for sending emails through scripts.
• Chron or task scheduler feature to enable you to automate periodic tasks.
• Decent allocation of CPU and memory resources.
• Dedicated IP and SSL would be a good optional extra.
• An advanced statistics software which can provide you detailed statics about your website traffic.
• Control Panel access to enable you to manage databases, email accounts, cron tasks, sub domains, etc.
• FTP Access to allow you to upload your website files directly using any standard ftp client.
• 24x7 technical support to ensure that server issues are resolved quickly.

Never fall for a cheap hosting service

Opting for a cheap hosting service would prove disastrous and expensive. It is not worth saving a few hundred rupees if it subjects your business reputation to risk. Frequent server outages result in lost business and bad reputation, eventually driving away customers. This is the price you pay when you opt for a cheap hosting service.