An Exploration of Hosting Control Panels
Of all the competitive industries today, the web hosting service is one of the most keenly fought and consumers have witnessed web hosting firms engage in a battle to win customers. This has led many to provide a variety of different hosting plans at a pleasant price in order to stand out from their peers. Another way that companies can differentiate themselves is by the performance they offer. There are many different aspects that a web host can offer and these can include offering to build a site for their customer or giving them a domain name free of charge. These issues and the price itself can sway a customers decision but the most important factor is the control panel. This means it is imperative for a web host to offer the correct service for a customers website needs. This service ensures that a web hosting firm is able to observe every aspect of a website and it does so through the software that makes up the control panel. Whether it is to open FTP accounts, provide an email server or offer statistical analysis of what is occurring on the website, the control panel enables it all. There are a number of control panels available and what one is right for you depend on many things, including what platform you operate on. There are control panels that only work on Windows, some which work on Linux and others that work on both.
The Windows Platform and the Control Panels for it.
Some of the web hosting control panels is only available for the Windows platform. Windows only control panels include Hosting Accelerator and Helm. They are both good but Helm is a very popular control panel for Windows only users only and a lot of this is due to the features it offers, which are very consumer friendly. A key component of Helms popularity is the way it handles billing information as it provides features that most control panels do not offer. One which does is H-Sphere but Helm is extremely easy to operate in addition to having a strong interface.
Benefits of using Helm:
* Managing your server needs: Helm has the ability to facilitate an unlimited amount of servers, users and domains whilst being able to swiftly increase or decrease the number of servers. Helm has a high level if integration and can be used alongside SmarterMail, MailEnable, Merak and Mdaemon. Amongst the other programs it can be used aside include Imail, Mail Servers, hMailServer, Serv-U FTP, Microsoft FT, MySQL Server, Gene6 FTP Server andMicrosoft SQL Server, amongst others. If that was not enough, Helm is able to support Perl,ASP.Net, ColdFusion and PHP ASP.
* Cost of the service: Helm offer a great deal of freedom with regards their billing process as customers can either use the Helm one or take advantage of the billing system from any other external party. This freedom is also extended to allowing the customer to operate in the currency of their choosing and how they want to distribute or view the invoices. Customers are able to choose between HTML and plain text format.
* Customer Management: This web hosting control panel also creates hosting plans for resellers as well as specifies the various resource limits including the amount of data transfer, domains, email accounts and disk-space.
What control panels are suitable for Linux Platform:
A client has a choice of a few web hosting control panels when it comes to the Linux platform and these include DirectAdmin, cPanel and Interworx. There is no doubt that the low cost of hosting and the convenience of its control panel are factors in people choosing DirectAdmin. Another choice for many consumers is Interworx as they provide many additional features including a simple to use interface. Yet cPanel is the most popular control panel for the Linux control panels and it has the ability to serve over ten different styles of Linux. This consumer preference is also shared by companies who provide a web hosting service and this is mainly down to the low cost of its service. There are also a number of other services provided by cPanel that are attractive to customers and these include deploy applications, customer account provisions, having the ability to transfer a number of accounts between servers and many other useful services including secure servers.
Features and advantages of cPanel:
* Statistics of how the website is performing: With the amount of statistical tools and facilities offered by cPanel it is possible for any website owner to correctly analyze and calculate the traffic that is on their site. Not every hosting provider offers this service as many view it as a drain in their resources and would prefer not to offer the service to customers. If this an important aspect for a website owner, it is in their interest to ensure their choice of web host actually offers the service.
* Managing the email process: Many website owners are keen to have the power to generate or destroy email accounts and the cPanel control panel allows this facility. There is also a facility based in Webmail which offers every client the opportunity to access their emails online. There are further facilities offered by cPanel with regards to email, one of which is the ability to instruct a forwarder to move an email account to another. There is also the ability to generate auto-responders that will provide an automated response to customers.
* File Manager and FTP: FTP access is required to upload files and cPanel is capable of offering this facility and this is one of the most important features a website should be offering to its clients. Another thing that cPanel allows is for new FTP accounts to be registered so other people can have access the website. The power to restrict and specify access rights regarding certain files or folders will always remain with the website owner and the hosting company. Not everyone is happy with using an FTP package to load their files to a website and they can use the cPanel File Manager instead. This will grant the user to ability to unzip files, place files upon their server and be able to duplicate or erase any files.
Control panels for websites based on both Linux and Windows:
There are certain web hosting control panels, which work for both Linux and Window based websites. The Ensim, H-Sphere and Plesk are the most common examples of such control panels. The H-Sphere offers several features that range from key functionalities to complete automation. However, it is the Plesk which is the most popular control panel for Linux and Windows platforms. Most of the web hosting companies that serve both Linux and Windows hosting customers opt for Plesk. Its interface looks quite like the Windows XP and is an expensive option as it serves both the platforms.
Features and advantages of Plesk:
* Having shared hosting: Plesk is able to provide an identical various-platform design that allows any user to take control of their shared hosting landscape. This facility can also be undertaken on a self-administration basis. No matter the technical level of the website owner, they will find they are able to take full control of setting up, creating and fully managing their accounts.
* Having dedicated hosting: Of course, some clients want to do more for themselves and this is where the technologically smart clients can do their own work. The Plesk control panels offers the RPM installation which makes the Dedicated Hosting providers able to set a challenge for any skilled tech owners. This is done by the use of tools such as XML-API and 3rd party applications which are not available anywhere else.
