Wednesday, September 16, 2009

E-mail hosting service

An email hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs email servers.

Email hosting services usually offer premium email at a cost as opposed to advertising supported free email or free webmail. Email hosting services thus differ from typical end-user email providers such as webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding email users and Small and Mid Size (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own email hosting service. Email hosting providers allow for premium email services along with custom configurations and large number of accounts. In addition, hosting providers manage user's own domain name, including any email authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce in order to convey the meaning that using a specific domain name identifies and qualifies email senders.

Most email hosting providers offer advanced premium email solutions hosted on dedicated custom email platforms. The technology and offerings of different email hosting providers can therefore vary with different needs. Email offered by most webhosting companies is usually more basic standardized POP3 based email and webmail based on open source webmail applications like Horde or Squirrelmail. Almost all webhosting providers offer standard basic email while not all email hosting providers offer webhosting.

DNS hosting service

A DNS hosting service is a service that runs Domain Name System servers. Most, but not all, domain name registrars include DNS hosting service with registration. Free DNS hosting services also exist. Many third-party DNS hosting services provide Dynamic DNS.

DNS hosting service is better when the provider has multiple servers in various geographic locations that minimize latency for clients around the world.

DNS can also be self-hosted by running DNS software on generic Internet hosting services.

Dedicated game server

Most games use a dedicated server application. This program collects data from players and distributes it to other players. This is more efficient and effective than a peer-to-peer arrangement, but it requires a separate computer to host the server application. The additional computer is a server.

Network bandwidth, in particularly upstream bandwidth is often one of the major limitations in hosting game servers. Home broadband Internet connections rarely provide the necessary upstream bandwidth to host dedicated game servers with more than 4-10 clients.

In the past, this is how the majority of game servers were hosted. This was the only option. The player would buy the game, and most households only had one computer, so the player would use this one machine host his or her server and play the game on, often simultaneously. The stress on the computer was enormous, and game performance was proportionately poor. Even if the bandwidth on the newest broadband Internet services could keep up with the load, the computer itself was still behind in computing the data needed. Process data for 3D graphics, game physics, sorting and distributing network data to the other players on one computer, places considerable demands on servers.

Game server hosting

Game server providers (GSPs) are companies that lease game servers. Gaming clans will often lease one or more servers for their chosen game, with members of the clan contributing to the server rental fees. Game server providers often offer Web tools to control and configure the game servers; most allow those that rent or lease to modify the games being leased.

Game server

A game server is a remotely or locally run server used by game clients to play multiplayer video games. Most video games played over the Internet operate via a connection to a game server.

Remote backup service

A remote, online, or managed backup service is a service that provides users with an online system for backing up and storing computer files. Managed backup providers are companies that provide this type of service.

Online backup systems are typically built around a client software program that runs on a schedule, typically once a day. This program collects, compresses, encrypts, and transfers the data to the remote backup service provider's servers. Other types of product are also available in the market, such as remote continuous data protection (CDP).

Providers of this type of service frequently target specific market segments. High-end LAN-based backup systems may offer services such as near-realtime transaction-level replication or open file backups. Consumer online backup companies frequently have beta software offerings and/or free-trial backup services.

File hosting service

A file hosting service, online file storage service, or online media center is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host static content, typically large files that are not web pages. Typically they allow web and FTP access. They can be optimized for serving many users (as is implied by the term "hosting") or be optimized for single-user storage (as is implied by the term "storage"). Related services are video sharing, virtual storage and remote backup.