How to know if a hosting is good?
Hosting, translated as “hosting”, is the service that maintains the files that make up your site —images, texts, database, etc.— inside a computer so that they can be accessed from the Internet. Fortunately, we have already made a detailed explanation of what what is hosting, and, for this reason, in this note we are going to focus on its most pragmatic aspect, that is, what really matters when deciding on a contract: what makes a hosting provider better or worse?
Like any computer machines specially manufactured to offer hosting already have specialized hosting capabilities from their hardware. Does this mean that a common PC is not good for hosting? Yes, let's say that in theory it works, but we also assure you that the service that a standard PC can offer will have no possible comparison with a real hosting computer. We can illustrate it like this: there are computers prepared to run video games, others are perfected to run software for architecture, photography and design, others are optimized to compose music, and still others are adjusted for video editing... and then we have the group that it concerns us on this note: the computers to offer the best hosting possible.
Are computers prepared to offer hosting faster?
The answer is: they are already fast, but they are faster particularly in the web context, handling with ease infinite number of simultaneous connections and different sites on their hard drives. They won't be able to run last Call of Duty because they are not prepared to run 3D and surround sound, but they can handle everything from bank and airline sites to e-shops and showrooms of products and services, including audio and video streaming, and even powerful applications that work online.
Is the hardware, then, the most important thing in hosting?
Yes but, at the same time, no; It is more important in the speed of a site the way in which that computer is optimized, it is programmed and its resources are managed and squeezed. It is worth giving this example: hosting optimized for WordPress is not the same as hosting optimized for streaming, and we are going to clarify this shortly because it is the most radical topic in the web context.
Nothing minor, let's not forget that a Hosting service is, precisely, a serviceAnd here human factors intervene. Is it useful for us to hire a hosting company that promises to be very good, but whose technical support is mediocre or null? We think there is no need to answer that.
And yet another aspect: a computer may be fast, but if it is not duly protected from SPAM, viruses, data theft and the dreaded DDoS attacks, the chances of your site running into serious trouble are high, and increasingly likely.
the best hardware
As we said, the best Hardware for a hosting service that stands out should be powerful, and to summarize it in broad strokes, it has to do with the number and speed of cores, the amount and speed of RAM and the data speed of your hard drives. For example, in servers it is common to find Intel Xeon processorstm, and, within this line, Intel offers processors ranging from 4 cores to 16. Clearly, 16 cores is much better than 4, right? Also, the minimum RAM on quality hosting starts at 32GB, but can reach a whopping 128GB of RAM. Yes, the size of a hard drive, but RAM.
Then there is the need to have fast disks, one of the great funnels of every computer ever and to be. In this sense, the difference is cut in two with an ax: vendors with solid-state drives (SSD), or without (old HDD). At Duplika, today all hard drives are SSDs, which makes us the only 100% SSD Hosting service in Argentina (you can measure the importance of this here).
The meat around the bone: software
suits think of hardware as the skeleton that supports a hosting, while the software, that is, its operating system, and any program that runs on it in order to offer any type of service (firewall, mail, antivirus, compression, administration, protocols, etc.) is the meat and sinews of it. To understand this important distinction, we have segmented the information into several points that encompass non-hardware issues.
LiteSpeed: speed like never before
Within the dimension that responds to the speed of the software, without the full speed of the hardware, we find the download of data. In other words, how much information must be transferred, and in what time, to a mobile phone or a desktop computer for a website to finish rendering? How can these data, texts, applications, video and images —in addition to java code and CSS— be optimized so that your site is light and loads in the shortest possible time? The truth is that there are several "domestic" solutions to achieve this (let's call them free components, as long as our site runs under WordPress or a similar platform), but to reach a significant level of speed, very technical knowledge must be handled, in addition not to corrupt the data transfer to the user by touching something wrong. Nevertheless, the cutting edge of site optimization and compression goes hand in hand with LiteSpeed and the new HTTP/3 protocol.
Why should my server have LiteSpeed?
Also, how is it different from a WPRocket, for example, or a Total Cache? A possible answer, simple but exclusive is: LiteSpeed works on the server side, from its very heart (as long as said server has LiteSpeed Web Server installed). LiteSpeed is a global, professional and highly fast solution that allows you to obtain previously impossible GooglePageSpeed scores; this was another powerful response. But to better understand LiteSpeed we have prepared a separate note.
Yes, Duplika is equipped with LiteSpeed to really make your site fly high.
You can find a comparison between LiteSpeed and WP Super Cache (a widely used tool) here.
HTTP/3 : the latest generation
We also mention the HTTP/3 protocol. What is HTTP/3, and why should my hosting have it? A protocol can be understood as the language that both the server and a web browser must necessarily share in order to exchange data. The information that makes up a site is transmitted, then, through this language or protocol, being that HTTP means HyperTextTransferProtocol (the “hyper-text” transfer protocol, better understood as “website”).
HTTP/3, in addition to being more secure, has many connectivity advantages, but we are going to summarize them in two. The first is that this new generation of the protocol redefines the limits of the network layers based on a UDP protocol (User Datagram Protocol) of a low level even lower compared to HTTP/2 (low level implies code at the processor level), redefining the “handshakes” (links between two computers, the server and the terminal, eg: your mobile) so that the loss of a data does not affect the transfer of the rest, traveling in parallel channels. This greatly speeds up the speed at which a site downloads, as long as the site is hosted on a server with HTTP/3 support, of course.
The second big improvement of HTTP/3 is that data is encrypted by default through the encryption protocol TLS 1.3 (which replaces the “old” SSL). In other words, as long as servers adopt http/3, there will no longer be any data transmitted as plain text; everything travels shielded, encrypted, in a mandatory way. This means an additional level of security for your site, your data and that of your users.
Duplika already offers HTTP/3 support in all its plans.
Security via Software
Fast, very fast, relatively fast or slow, a hosting computer without proper security is today the same as a swimmer trying to take a bath as God brought him into the world in a river full of piranhas. This is not an exageration. The so-called DDoS attacks (not counting the growing artificial intelligence applied to SPAM, viruses and sensitive data usurpation methods) have grown exponentially throughout the planet. One would think: why should they attack me? My page is a compendium of Christmas recipes and happy Christmas carols. Excellent, but unfortunately it doesn't work with that logic.
The problem is that DDoS attacks are capable of destroying an entire datacenter, leaving it offline for hours and even days. This results in thousands of sites (including, unfortunately, yours) being raided. For this, at Duplika we have invested in specific protection software against DDoS attacks for all hosting plans. It should be noted that, due to the cost of these systems, few web hosting companies decide to invest in this protection, with the resulting continuous risk: a server is on all day, all year, and, in turn, the "piranhas" They don't stop patrolling wanting to take a bite and ruin our lives. To the evil of the web community, this is a terrible truth.
monitoring software
Another dimension that makes best hosting has to do with its monitoring. If a hosting computer were a private neighborhood, monitoring it can be thought of as sentinels constantly guarding against intruders. Following the example, security would lie in how many guards there are, what training they have and what equipment they have. This, in terms of hosting, translates into one or more of the following skills: 24 hour proactive monitoring, smart firewall multi-layer, and powerful control features. In case you had doubts, At Duplika we have these security measures in all our plans (among many other complementary) in addition to the powerful agent Immunify360.
In particular, Imunify360 is another one of our smart systems; monitors server logs all the time for suspicious events (for example, connection attempts with incorrect passwords, or out-of-protocol access requests) to block offending IPs and prevent a spate of fraudulent logins.
In addition to permanent monitoring, a firewall is the required protection system, and, in fact, servers have been using it for 25 years. In all this time, his intelligence improved to astral levels, and the security systems in his engineering became more expert and intuitive. Let's remember: a firewall is the system that establishes the determining rules about what information can enter and leave a computer connected to the Internet. It is as basic as it is crucial, and is driven by pre-programmed rules. But at Duplika we also have a multi-level firewall with intelligent behavior; this means that, from certain malicious access attempts, our system progressively learn how to proactively avoid them.
Backup Software
At this point, we all surely know what a backup is for: it is a backup of our precious files. They save us if an error occurs in the system, in a hard disk or in the database, but it is also useful when we make a change that generates an incompatibility, we install a plugin that corrupts the normal development of our system, and we take care of your skin in thousands of other cases where something could go wrong. In fact, sometimes an innocent action, such as updating our WordPress version or some component, could generate an error that takes our site offline (or “broken”).
A hosting that prides itself on being professional must offer its client tools to produce backups, in addition to generating clones of all the data automatically.
At Duplika we have the cPanel patent, which, among an infinity of user benefits, also allows you to manage your own backups on a daily basis, or when needed (for example, before making a critical modification).
Again, cPanel is an investment that few hosting providers choose to make.
One of the benefits of having our own site is that we will have emails of the type @miEmpresa.com (and if you do not have them in your hosting plan, ask your provider why they did not offer it to you).
Having our own emails is wonderful, and for normal companies it is not a luxury, but rather something absolutely necessary and indispensable. Both external and internal communication of a company or e-shop is handled with its own emails, and behind those own emails there is specific software that controls communications so that no email is lost, and, on the other hand, they reach their destination as quickly as possible.
In this context it is also critical to maintain protection software on many levels: spam, fake emails (phishing), emails with viruses and trojans, and mass emails are problems to deal with every day. Among other security measures, At Duplika we maintain the protection of email accounts with AntiSpam filters located on a dedicated server that controls the emails of all our plans. In this way we have absolute control within a single environment, specially optimized for sending and receiving emails monitored by an intelligent system called MailChannels.
Why is MailChannels so great, and why does Duplika use it?
Because it combines an email delivery service with SPAM filtering that allows outsource email delivery to dedicated fraud and attack detection experts. MailChannels stands for cutting-edge cloud-based infrastructure that provides reliability, scalability, and real-time security.
The human dimension of the best hosting: the attention of its support
A server can be fast and secure, but the situations of each site are often unique, as are the motivations and goals of its owners. For this reason, web contexts, that is, the ecosystems that allow a site to remain online, offering its particular features, are likely to present specific problems, specific to each client.
For this reason, a "human" hosting provider is needed, that is, a an ally to help you carry out your business, goal or dream, removing "technical sticks" from the wheels, clarifying doubts, resolving conflicts and, above all, advising you so that you do not lose money, visits or the trust of your users.
Although Duplika strives every day to be better, investing in hardware, software and technology, it is also true (and nothing less) that we really care about making our customers happy as best we can, attentive to their obstacles, specific needs and every detail we can provide to achieve safer and faster sites.
In addition, we will recommend the best hosting plan according to the real requirements of your site, with the ability to scale as needed. A boat is not good enough to reach the top of a mountain, nor a plane to advance under water, and Duplika incorporates this maxim into his healthy business philosophy.
Duplika has been hosting for more than 15 years. And one more thing: they take care of their own owners and original founders.
WordPress
We couldn't finish this report without mentioning you, dear WordPress. The truth is that this content development platform is today the most used to create sites around the world, and a hosting provider should have specific plans for WordPress given its widespread use.
WordPress is, of course, a software application, and relies on PHP and MySql to manage its database. Free, and with permanent global development, this CMS (by Content Management System) is the current framework of more than 60 million web pages. This figure makes it likely that your site today is made with WordPress, or that your future site uses it to see the light of the web. This being the case, the best thing you can do is hire a specialized provider.
Duplika knows WordPress; the note you are reading, and everything else on our site, is powered by WordPress. As expected, Duplika takes WordPress very seriously., and so it developed a specialized plan for sites that take advantage of it. Among the advantages of hardware optimization, security and speed, Duplika offers specialized support, automatic updates, and always helps you to speed up your site even more.
Problems with your WordPress? We are here to help you.
conclusion
We wanted to present you with a very up-to-date overview of the world of web hosting, cutting-edge technologies and the most modern security systems. If you have a site in mind, a project to carry out, a business to generate, remember that your hosting provider must be an ally, a guide and an expert who can advise you to avoid obstacles and conflicts.
We believe to be the company you are looking for.
In case of doubts or specific queries, do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to give wings to your goals.
Success in your endeavors, and thanks for reading.
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