The question is “what is hosting?” Well, are you free for the next hour or two?
Hosting is one of those topics that starts out as a simple question where you’d expect a quick answer but then it quickly turns into an crazy discussion the more you talk about it.
Simply stated, every web page on the Internet is 'hosted' somewhere.
Let me explain that a little further. Lets first establish that every web page is nothing more than a collection of files of text or scripts, images files, audio files, and nowadays, video files. These files are created and stored on a computer somewhere in the world. It could be the C drive of you computer, for example. At this stage of the process, the web page is not available on the Internet yet as it is not possible for other computers to access your computer to find those files and few them on their monitors. At least, if you have proper security on your computer they should be.Let me back up a minute. When you make the decision to connect your computer to the Internet, your computer will be assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be zero to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address. These numbers identify the location of your computer just as your house and street numbers identify your location so your mail will be properly routed to you. Your computer is now accessible to anyone who knows your IP and your passwords and has the correct software to access your computer. If you computer is turned on, these people could access your files. So our example computer of 1.160.10.240 will send data to an from another computer, say at address 1.185.25.365.
Every time you surf the net, your computer at for example 1.160.10.240 is connecting to another computer somewhere with the files to that site stored on it. The day you browse through 50 sites you’ve connected to 50 different computer addresses in probably 50 different cities around the world. If you think of the telephone network of one phone connecting to another phone number elsewhere, you would get a pretty clear picture of how the Internet connects as well. Just as the phones only connect when the second phone is picked up, you connect on the Internet when your computer links to another computer that is turned on.
If you have a powerful enough machine and the right software, you can host your own website - and the websites of your family and friends, for that matter. Actually, I did that a several years in the 90’s. I had a server computer that I kept connected to the interned 24/7. I then gave my select group of client the IP address of that server so they could access the files and information I put on that server. That server was available to anyone who had the software to connect to it, but they would need to actually get past all the security stops to access the information. It was like my own mini worldwide web. However, most of us do not want the world on our computers, nor do we want to be bothered with the maintenance and security issues of blocking unauthorized access.
That’s where hosting comes in. A person or company decides to become a host and offers the service of not only storing your web page files on their computer or server, but they will also make it possible for computers world wide to be able to find the files to your website that are stored on that server. The companies providing the space on the Internet are called Web Hosts or Web Hosting companies. As your hosting company they will secure your files on a web “server” which is a computer that is permanently connected to the Internet, thus making your files available 24/7 to the rest of the world.
While these concepts may seem intimidating (Host my own website? You're kidding right? ), it is not too hard to envision a day not too many years away when most of us will indeed host our own sites - or, rather, our personal computers will do that with a surprising minimum of fuss required on our part. In fact, there is software already available the enables you to do just that. And the software is easy to use. Nowadays, you can even host your own radio web blog on your own computer. And as technology advances, hosting becomes simpler all the time.
