Web Hosting Glossary - Common Hosting Terms

Apache - A very popular open source web hosting software, available for numerous platforms.

Bandwidth - The amount of data traffic that can or is transported from one computer to another.

BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Domain is an implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS) protocol.

Co-lo - Co-location, refers to an agreement that sees a client owned server hosted in an ISP's data center.

Daemon - An application or utility that runs in the background on the server.

DNS - Domain name system, turns domain names in to IP addresses.

Domain name - An alpha-numeric combination that can be used instead of IP addresses.

Enom - An ICAAN registered domain name registrar.

Fantastico - An integrated application that allows web hosting clients to automatically install popular scripts.

FrontPage - A Microsoft web development application.

FTP - File transfer protocol, allows users to transfer files from one computer to another.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language is a simple markup language used to design web pages.

HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol allows the transfer to web files over the Internet, viewable in a browser.

ISP - Internet Service Provider.

Linux - An open source version of the UNIX operating system that has gained popularity as a web hosting platform.

Managed Hosting - A web hosting service where the provider supports the daily upkeep of the server, including activities like updates and patches.

MySQL - An open source application of a SQL server that is quite popular with numerous web hosts.

NameServer - Converts domain names into appropriate IP addresses and vice versa.

NOC - Network Operations Center.

Overselling - When a web host sells more space, bandwidth or CPU cycles than they have at their disposal, with the belief that the customers won't actually use them all.

PERL - Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, is a programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs for web use.

PHP - An open-source, server-side scripting language used to create dynamic web pages.

phpMyAdmin - A web based application to manage MySQL databases.

RedHat - A commercial Linux distribution, popular amongst web hosts.

Reseller - A webhost who resells web space off of a shared server with other resellers.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

Squirrelmail - A web based e-mail program.

SSL - Secure Socket Layer is a protocol that transmits data in an encrypted form.

Terabyte - 1024 Gigbytes worth of storage or bandwidth.

TLD - Top Level Domain, like .com, .ca, .org

VLAN - Virtual Local Area Network.

VPS - Virtual Private Server is a software based private server hosted in a shared environment.

Whois - A universal database maintained by registries and registrars with domain contact information.

WWW - World Wide Web.