Tech Support and Shared Servers
Some individuals and businesses who choose to purchase dedicated servers soon find themselves way over their heads with little tech support available. This is because dedicated servers are a product designed for programmers and extremely knowledgeable users. Shared hosting, also called shared server and virtual hosting, is designed to offer the most important features on which websites depend while allowing end-users to forgo the technical aspects of actually setting up and configuring a server.
Shared hosting is usually administered via a very simplified control panel on the web host's site. These tools break down complex tasks into plain English and usually bundle the many different software changes required to enable new services so that they can be executed by simply changing an option. From the user's standpoint, complex programming tasks are accomplished behind the scenes and do not require advanced knowledge to perform.
Actually setting up a web server from scratch is a very complex task. It requires knowledge of operating systems, installing technology such as databases and file-uploading directories and security. While the Internet used by most surfers is user-friendly and intuitive, the backbone technologies that power it are complex and ever changing. Part of the technical support offered by most shared hosting programs comes in the form of having the server pre-installed with all the needed software. This usually reduces the process of getting a site live and online to simply uploading the files to the appropriate directories. Shared hosting is excellent for the casual user.
