Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
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Providing Internet Services I have received more requests for instruction on setting up Internet services such as World Wide Web servers and FTP sites than almost any other subject. You don't need a network to provide these kinds of services, but knowing how to set up a network does help when it comes to configuring an Internet connection. Hence, for the next few columns, we'll look at how you can set up your own Web server, FTP server, and several other Internet services for your customer's use. There is an important distinction between offering server services and using a client. When you log into your ISP and surf the World Wide Web, you are a client accessing other servers. When you actually provide the Web material yourself, you are the server. Why bother providing these kinds of services? The phenomenal growth of the Web over the last five years has led to an almost automatic assumption that any business has a Web site and customers will seek one out without even trying to be sure one exists. Everyone in the computer business, from motherboard suppliers to mail-order houses, has a Web page. Some are very simple, but most are not. If you offer some sort of service to end users or to other vendors as a supplier, then you probably should seriously consider having your own Web site. What's involved in setting up a Web site? You've probably heard horror stories about companies spending tens of thousands of dollars on Web designers and ISPs for Web services. These stories are true, in that you can spend almost any amount for a Web page design service and for a place to offer your Web site to the world. In truth, though, most of our Web pages do not need the fancy Web designers and high-volume servers that these companies are purchasing. Most Web pages are accessed only lightly, unless you happen to be a very large company (in which case, most of this discussion is moot). What you need in order to set up a Web site is simple: you need a machine that has a connection to the Internet, a registered domain name, and a set of Web pages that offer your material to the world. The trickiest part of the process is the connection to the Internet. There are three ways to do this: your own server, Web hosting from an ISP, or a subsidized ISP site. The approach you use is decided by two factors: cost and volume. Cost is obvious: how much are you willing to spend to provide your customers with a Web site? Volume is a measure of how many people visit your Web site. Visits are measured by "hits". Every time someone downloads your Web home page, that's a hit. The more hits you have, the busier your server. Doing the Web site yourself means you arrange with an ISP to provide a 24 hour connection from your server to the ISP. Any user accessing your Web pages does so through your telephone connection. The advantage to doing it yourself is you have total control over your site, server, and its contents. The disadvantage is you must maintain the connection to the ISP all day and all night. Also important is the speed of the connection. If you have a complex Web page and receive many hits, customers may get frustrated waiting for your telephone connection to serve the information fast enough. Frustrated customers leave slow Web sites and visit others, which can be detrimental to your business (and also leaves a bad impression). If you decide to do it yourself, a standard V.34 modem is likely not good enough. You will probably have to arrange a faster connection to your ISP, such as ISDN, T1, or one of the newer phone-line technologies. Web hosting involves contracting with an ISP to put your Web pages on one of their servers. The advantage is that you don't have to maintain a telephone line, or worry about throughput issues. The ISP, if they are doing their job properly, will have fast access to the Internet and your Web pages can be loaded quickly by customers. When you want to make changes to your Web page, most hosting systems allow you to dial in to the server and transfer the new pages, which take effect immediately. The disadvantage of Web hosting is that it tends to be expensive, and you have no direct control over the server. Still, the latter is often an advantage for those who don't want to get involved in the daily maintenance of a Web site. The last option, a subsidized site, is catching on quickly in the US. Essentially, it's the same as Web hosting except you get the Web services for free. The primary disadvantages are that you don't have your own domain name but piggyback on the hosting company's name, and every visitor is bombarded with advertising from other companies when they want to see your Web pages. These services are provided free because the companies make money selling the adverts that are on almost every Web page a customer looks at. You may be selling hard drives and there could be an ad for a competitor at the top of your Web page! Costs for the services depend a lot on the ISP you use. If you want to do it yourself, you need a telephone line all the time to your ISP, and a contract with the ISP. If you choose Web hosting, you usually pay a monthly fee for the service depending on the volume. Most ISPs charge between $500 and $1,000 a month for a typical Web hosting service with low volume. Can you set up your own phone line and server for less than that? In most cases, yes. And that's where we start in the next column. |
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