Frequently Used Terms in Web Hosting Industry : Part 1

Most of us use some terms in our day-to-day business, but are unaware of its full forms and abbreviation.One has to hunt for knowing the meaning and full form of a particular term, therefore below is a list of some most frequently used terms and phrases in Web Hosting.

.ASP or ASP : Active Server Pages
ASP is a term which is commonly used for application service provider. It is mostly used as a application for hosting. Its basically a Microsoft technology that enables HTML pages to be dynamic and interactive with the use of embedded scripts. Almost any internet browser can work with web pages developed using ASP, as its scripts are run on the server.

Backbone
A backbone usually refers to the high speed internet line and the connections that form a network.There are several internet backbone providers, who play an important role in the web hosting business.

Bandwidth
A bandwidth is the amount of data that you can send through the webserver. A bandwidth is measured in bites per second (bps). Bandwidth is also referred as an alternative term to Data Transfer.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
A CGI is a program which is capable of translating data from a web server and then display the same piece of data on a web page or an email. CGI involves the transfer of data between a server and a CGI program (also referred as a Script). This enables HTML pages to interact with other programming applications. These scripts help in making the web pages more interactive. Page counters, forms, guest books, random text/images and other features can be driven by CGI scripts. Some servers have pre-installed/pre-defined CGI scripts, meaning that the scripts are already installed on the server for you to use on your site. Some servers allow user-defined or custom CGI scripts, which means the site owner creates his/her own CGI script and runs this custom made script on the web site.

CGI Bin Access
It is the provision to the customers to write custom programs for manipulating data on their Website/s.

Co-location
Co-location or co-located servers means that the servers owned by a particular group is physically placed in the data center of another company or organisation that offers internet connectivity and bandwidth. To sum it up, in simple terms the hardware is owned by you and the things necessary to get the server online is provided by the co-location service provider.

ColdFusion
ColdFusion is an application that simplifies database queries by allowing a simpler programming language to carry out the functions between the user’s browser, the database and the server.

Control Panel
Control Panel is a tool that helps you to manage different aspects of your hosted Website/s.You can carry out some of the critical functions such as account and server management with lot of ease with the use of a control panel.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS is used for the purpose of adding more functionality to simple HTML pages.

Data Center
Data Center is the most important aspect of any website.A Data Center is the house to web servers on which your websites are placed.It is powered with high speed, redundant supply of power, bandwidth and can have multiple connections of major Internet backbones.

DNS : Domain Name Servers
The DNS Server maintains a database of host names and IP addresses.It is responsible for translating the domain name into IP addresses.

DNS ‘A’ Records
An A record is an abbreviation for Address Record.It contains the maps of domain name/sub-domain to an IP Address.

DNS ‘MX’ Records
MX is an abbreviation of Mail Exchange hence the name MX Records means Mail Exchange Record. It is used to define the email server/s that are willing to accept mails for a domain.

Domain Name
Domain name is nothing but the name of your website, it is a unique name which identifies you from other similar websites.

Domain Extensions
Domain extentions are nothing but the suffix that we use in our website domain name after the dot.For Example: www.abc.com, www.abc.co.in, www.abc.co.uk etc. here .com,.co.in and .co.uk are referred as the Domain Extensions.

E-Commerce
eCommerce or Electronic Commerce is described for websites that involve buying and selling of goods,products and services over the Internet.

FP Extensions : Frontpage Extentions
It refers to the Microsoft Front Page server extensions. We can see at most places its mentioned FP2K, it means that the server supports MS Frontpage 2k.

FTP : File Transfer Protocol
FTP is secure method of transferring data to and from web servers.Some of the very common FTP programs that most of us must be aware are CuteFTP,WS_FTP,File Zilla etc.

Hosting Service Provider
Hosting is a service provided for hosting your website on the server.The enterprize or organisation that offers such servers and technical support is known as the Web Hosting Service Provider.

HTML : Hyper Text Mark-Up Language
It is a coded format of language that is used for creating hyper text files for the Internet.

HTTP : Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
It is the protocol that is responsible for moving hhyper text files across the Internet.A HTTP client program such as the web browser is required at one end and an HTTP Server program ie.the web server on the other end. It is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web.

IMAP : Internet Message Access Protocol
IMAP is a standard protocol that is used for accessing emails from a local server.This protocol is responsible for retrieving e-mail messages from an e-mail server. Some versions allow users to search e-mails for certain keywords.

IP Address : Internet Protocol Address

It is a unique number that is used to specify hosts and networks.It is used to identify machines connected over the Internet. It consists of 4 parts such as 111.222.333.123. Each and every machine that is connected to the Internet has a distinct IP address.

ISP : Internet Service Provider

An ISP provider is the one that offers access to the Internet. The services provided by them act as a bridge between your local computer and your server.

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