Web Hosting Blog

Windows Indexing service is a in Windows NT, Windows 2000 and other Windows NT family of operating systems that allows searching on corporate computer networks. The Indexing service is an operating system level service which maintains an index of most files on a computer and updates them without the need of intervention by the user.

Once the Indexing service is turned ON and has built its index it can be searched in three ways. The Indexing service is a base service of Microsoft Windows which extracts content from files and constructs an indexed catalog to facilitate efficient searching. Both text and property information from files on the local host and on remote and networked hosts can be extracted using the Indexing service.

The Indexing service extracts the content by filtering. The filter components that understand a file format such as multi language features. The IFilter interface is implemented as the filter component. The filter provide methods for reading a file to extract text and properties. The extracted information is merged by the Indexing service into catalogs of indexes for efficient searches. Indexing is the overall process of filtering, creating index entries and merging into catalogs. The process terminates after the final step of creation of catalogs which has the master index storing words and their locations.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP include basic facilities for querying the Indexing Service catalog and for managing the state and properties of Indexing Service.

Facilities include:

• The Indexing Service snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) provides the means to start, stop, and pause Indexing Service, and to administer many of its properties, such as those defining its catalogs.
• When Indexing Service is running, Start/Search/For Files or Folders uses the Indexing Service catalog.

Windows XP and Other Later Versions

Indexing Service 3.0 includes the following new features in Windows XP and later:

• Media property sets that enable you to query for media properties in queries that use the OLE DB Provide for Indexing Service. The media property sets include properties for audio, video, music, image, and digital rights management. For more information about media properties and property sets

There are few web hosting firms that do provide support for Windows Indexing service.

ColdFusion is a server scripting language which is used to create rich dynamic web pages. It is one of the highly preferred tools by developers. The most tricky part of hosting is to identify the customer that causes problems on the server, here in such a case coldfusion hosting debugs codes and helps customer in understanding why their code does not work.

ColdFusion hosting is mainly for developers building dynamic websites, it offers effortless enterprise data connectivity, it helps in organizing dynamic content, it has a suite of built-in applications. The ColdFusion suite consists of ColdFusion Server and ColdFusion Studio.

The ColdFusion Server is the application used for processing CFML code. CFML is an abbreviation of ColdFusion MarkUp Language. CFML is an extension of XML and HTML, hence it is powerful and simple to use language.

There aren’t much web hosting providers that support ColdFusion. ColdFusion is a server side technology. ColdFusion works well with Fireworks,Freehand,Flash and Dreamweaver.ColdFusion Hosting development group consists of a server and toolset designed for Web pages and designing databases. ColdFusion is helpful for developers and programmers for building systematic authoritative, content publishing systems and Web services.

Coldfusion has gained reputation as a swift application improvement system that merges server, browser and database technologies into Web applications. With the help of ColdFusion hosting web developers can rapidly deliver and develop the transaction intensive Web applications for business automation to e-Commerce. ColdFusion hosting is industry’s leading cross platform Web application server. It is useful for businesses which require complicated Internet applications and increased scalability. The ColdFusion application Server software has been tested on platforms such as Linux, Windows and Sun. Coldfusion hosting also helps to Build powerful web applications and web services.

Coldfusion hosting can be utilized in small and large businesses and for personal uses.

Magento is an Open Source feature rich E-commerce solution specially designed for E-commerce websites. Magento offers complete flexibility and control over the content, functionality and look of an online store.Since no two businesses are same, Magento was designed with the perception that every eCommerce implementation has to be unique. Magento has a modular architecture which puts the control back in the control of the online merchant and places no restriction on the flow of the business and the processes.

Many Web Hosting companies offer support for Magento hosting.

Below are the different features of Magento:

1. Analitics and Reporting
2. Product Browsing
3. Catalog Browsing
4. Catalog Management
5. Maintenance of Customer Accounts
6. Customer Service
7. Order Management
8. Payment
9. Shipping
10. Checkout
11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
12. International Support
13. Site Management
14. Marketing Tools and Promotion

Recently Magento 1.2 was released. This version includes various issue resolutions for Magento 1.1.x versions. It also includes few highly requested added features such as:

a) Added layer navigation to the site search result page with control on the characteristic level to exclude or include attributes used on the search result pages.

b) Additional support for fixed taxes on the product level.

c) It includes an added Layered Navigation cache for improved performance of large catalogs, though currently in beta but soon to be released for production usage.

d) It provides support for Downloadable/Digital Products.

e) It includes improved site search for the utilization of MySQL full text search.

f) It has an upgraded Zend Framework to the latest stable version 1.7.2.

E-commerce web hosting is the type of web hosting which a business uses in order to sell products directly from their websites. Typically an E-commerce web hosts offer SSL certificates. SSL certificates are important for the protection of the private data and identity of potential customers. Business web hosting supports different variety of shopping carts for example: Cube Cart, Zen Cart, OsCommerce Shopping cart etc. Payment can be accepted online in many different ways. Usually Ecommerce sites support merchant accounts and Google checkout.

For carrying out such online trade, it is essential to have an account with a web hosting company which supports online shopping and has the latest trends and technology. The web hosting firm should have the capability of matching the plan ti the actual needs. Depending on the budget, many different packages offered by web hosting companies.

E-commerce is growing with a rapid pace hence E-commerce hosting companies have designed their plan to meet specific needs of the customers. There are few things that should be taken into consideration before choosing a web hosting company which are as follows:

1. Internet Speed: One needs to make sure that the E-commerce web-site is hosted on a fast data center.
2. Security: The environment in which the site is hosted must be extremely secure.
3. Support: The web hosting service provider must provide 24×7x365 days service.
4. Data Back-Ups: One needs to be aware of the schedule of data back-ups done by the web hosting company.
5. PHP/ CGI Perl Support: The support for this should be included by the web host.
6. Secure Socket Layer (SSL): E-commerce web-sites involve financial transactions, hence the web hosting provider should support SSL secure servers encryption.
7. Support For Database: Database support such as MySQL must be provided should be offered by the web hosts.
8. Server Uptime: The E-commerce business depends on the uptime as customers might visit anytime to the website and purchase the products offered by you. It is very important to make sure that the host provides atleast 99.99% uptime.
9. Unique IP Address: One should atleast ask the web hosts to provide minimum 2 unique IP addresses for the website to be hosted.
10. Automation: For the E-commerce web-site to be successful, one need access to powerful tools which automate various critical processes/tasks.

The E-commerce web-site should be designed in such a way that the visitor should be comfortable in searching the products or services offered by you. The web-site must have a Shopping Cart software or application without which an E-commerce web-site is incomplete. Flexibility is another major thing while choosing a web host. The web host must be capable of supporting the changing requirements of the web-site. Proper selection of payment gateways is important.

cPanel 11 and Plesk 9 are the latest control panels available for the web hosting service providers. These panels enable them to provide their web hosting services to their clients. With the help of these control panels provided by the hosting firms, clients can manage different tasks involved in the web hosting accounts, these panels simplifies the tasks for the support staff as clients are able to carry out majority of the tasks themselves. There are many different tasks that can be simplified with the use of these control panels, it involves the management of web services, E-mail, DNS and Database on both half’s i.e. client and administrator. Normally most of the web hosting service providers provide control panel access as a standard feature for the web hosting accounts. These control panels are simple to use, a person with no knowledge of web hosting too can operate it and hence this is one of the major reasons why these control panels have gained popularity in the web hosting industry.

Until now cPanel is compatible with Linux Servers only. Which means cPanel can be provided by web hosting firms only to the clients that choose Linux Servers for hosting their web sites. Which is not the case with Plesk, Plesk control panel is compatible with Linux as well as with Windows web hosting platforms. Plesk is majorly used by web hosts due to its stability.

cPanel and Plesk have their own advantages when used by customers and administrators of Web hosting services. Usually Plesk is provided with Windows Web Hosting service and cPanel with Linux Web Hosting solutions.

Below one can find the advantages of Plesk control panel.

>> Windows Support : Plesk works on Windows Web hosting service allowing web hosting service providers to provide Windows based web hosting packages to the customers. Customers ASP and ASP.NET websites can only work on Windows servers, so Windows Web Hosting service needs to be opted. Customers usually prefer Plesk with Windows Web Hosting.

>> Windows Service Support : As Plesk can be used on Windows based servers it has the capability to integrate to integrate with multiple Windows based programs. It has an advanced feature support for some Windows programs such as Microsoft SQL Server which can be managed by Plesk 9.0 by server administrators and clients with their own databases which makes it an ideal control panel solution for Windows.

>> Cross Platform Compatibility : From a system administrator’s point of view,  one may find it more beneficial having a single control panel on all the servers. Mastering a single control panel is much simpler than mastering two. As a customer one may find it easy since it means that one should be able to get the same sort of features from both Linux as well as from Windows web hosting solutions.

Though Plesk seems to be perfect for Windows web hosting packages, it can also be used for Linux packages.

cPanel is a preferred control panel for Linux web hosting services. Benefits of cPanel are as follows.

>> More Features of Linux : cPanel encompasses more features for Linux web hosting solutions than Plesk control panel. cPanel can be used in combination with different add-ons such as Fantastico script installer and CFS firewall to provide customers a wide range of services which can be used from their web hosting accounts control panel, such features can’t be used on Plesk Linux Web Hosting servers.

>> Reseller Support : Apart from Plesk 9.0 version, other versions does not provide support for reseller web hosting accounts whereas cPanel offers good support for resellers. cPanel is available with the Web Host Manager (WHM) panel which allows resellers to control all different aspects of their reseller accounts including the configuring of their own packages and the setting up of client web hosting accounts.

>> Faster Loading : cPanel’s internal pages load more faster than those of Plesk and certain tasks are carried out quicker than they would be with the Plesk control panel. cPanel does not rely on external databases in much cases, this is one of the reasons of the smooth functioning. cPanel has proven to be more reliable than Plesk on Linux.

To sum it up, both the control panels cPanel and Plesk provide web hosting service provider firms a reliable control panel service but come with their own advantages and disadvantages. But, Plesk for Windows and cPanel for Linux is the perfect solution offered by web hosting firms.

These steps would help users to migrate data and objects from Plesk’s version 7.5 and 8 to version 9. In web hosting these steps are applicable to both Linux as well as Windows.

Plesk is one of the control panels used to manage activities of a server. To learn more about Plesk check Benefits of Plesk . Web Hosting providers provide customers with either Plesk, cPanel etc. for the purpose server management.

The Plesk Migration Manager is not available with Parallels Plesk Panel Beta, Plesk 9 release and the first patch 9.0.1. But it is possible to manually migrate Parallels Plesk Panel version 8.x using Plesk Backup Manager.

It is possible to migrate Plesk panel as a separate domain and clients or as a whole.

Follow the below procedure for the same:

A] Server Migration

1. Log onto a secure server and create a complete back up of Plesk using pleskbackup:

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup all BACKUP.FILE

2. Now copy the dump to the destination server using Parallel Plesk panel version 9 and convert the back-up to version 9 with pre9-backup-convert.

/usr/local/psa/bin/pre9-backup-convert -v convert -d /var/lib/psa/dumps/ BACKUP.FILE

Here /var/lib/psa/dumps is the Back-up directory on the destination Plesk panel 9.

This creates number of backup XML files and subdirectories with data under /var/lib/psa/dumps/

3. Log in to Plesk as administrator and change to the server backup repository

HOME >>> BACK-UP MANAGER >>> SERVER REPOSITORY

There is a list of back up files in the server repository.

4. Select the back-up name to enter Back up details page.

5. Select the necessary restoration options and Click restore to initiate the process of restoration.

B] Clients Migration

1. Log onto the source server and take a backup of clients that need to be migrated or complete server back-up :

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup clients CLIENT.LOGIN BACKUP.FILE

OR

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup all BACKUP.FILE

2. Now Copy the dump to destination Plesk panel 9 and convert to version 9 with pre9-backup-convert.

/usr/local/psa/bin/pre9-backup-convert -v convert -d /var/lib/psa/dumps/ BACKUP.FILE

This creates number of back-up XML files and the sub-directories with data under /var/lib/psa/dumps/.

3. Now log in to Plesk as an administrator and create new client with the same login of migrated client.
4.Now access local backup repository of the new client.

Clients >>> Client Name >>> Back Manager.

As the login of the new created client coincides with login of the client from the dump, the converted back up should be shown in repository.

5.Click the back-up name to enter Back-up details page.
6.As per requirement select the restoration options and hit Restore to initiate the restoration process.

C] Domain Migration

1. Login to the source server and create back up of the domain that needs to be migrated or the the entire server back-up with pleskbackup:

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup domains DOMAIN.NAME BACKUP.FILE

OR

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup all BACKUP.FILE

2. Copy the dump to destination Plesk panel 9 and convert the back up to version 9 with pre9-backup-convert.

/usr/local/psa/bin/pre9-backup-convert -v convert -d /var/lib/psa/dumps/ BACKUP.FILE

This creates the number of backup XML files and subdirectories with data under /var/lib/psa/dumps.

3. Login to Plesk panel as an administrator and create new domain that coincides with name of the migrated domain from backup

4. Access local backup repository of the domain

Domains >>> Domain.name >>> Backup Manager.

As the new domain coincides with domain from the backup the converted backup should be shown in the repository.

5. Click the back-up name to enter Back-Up Details page.

6. Select the required restoration options and click Restore to initiate the restoration process.

The migration of objects from Parallels Plesk panel version 7.5 one should first convert the back-up to version with the utility back-up convert. After successfully doing so one may convert the backup to version 9 with pre9backup-convert and then restore it through BackUp Manager in the control panel.

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter edition offers large scale virtualization to small to large server systems with workloads which require highest levels of availability, scalability and reliability. Memory and processing requirements of large scale, critical applications like ERP, databases, server consolidations, custom and line of business applications are well supported by Windows 2008 Datacenter Edition. Datacenter edition is a good option for virtual workloads as unlimited virtualization licensing is coupled with scalability.

Windows Server 2008 is one of the most preferred server’s by Web Hosting firms.

Main scenarios of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition :

A] Windows Server 2008 with SQL Server and Exchange Server

1. E-mails are considered to be critical applications as downtime affects productivity. Implementation of high availability solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server becomes very important in such cases. Scalability too is important as it enables users to provide more mailboxes or else to increase the size of the mailbox with lesser server footprint.
2. Customers make use of Microsoft SQL Server for database applications where high availability and scalability are important.

B] High Availability

Windows  Server 2008 Datacenter edition helps in keeping vital server workloads available to customers, partners and employees around the world and around the clock using

1. Geographically scattered clustering which spans network subnets
2. Dynamic hardware partitioning which supports Hot/Add Replace Memory and  Hot Add/Replace Processor.
3. Failover clustering which supports upto 16 nodes
4. Flawless real time operating system memory backup

C] Identity and Security Management

This new authentication architecture in Windows Server 2008 datacenter delivers advanced identity and access management features which help in maintaining employee productivity, parallely enhancing security of the IT operations

1. Better management of certificates and smart card enrollment with Advanced Certificate Management Services (ADCS)
2. Federated access to internal resources for external users through Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).

D] Large Scale Virtualization

Server virtualization technology allows to optimize the resources and realize significant infrastructure and management cost saving. It offers an ideal platform for enterprise scale virtualization:

1. Quick migration couples the failover clustering of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter edition with Windows Server 2008 Hyper V for moving virtualized server workloads from one host server to another with minimum disruption. It maintains the availability of virtualized servers in the event of both planned and unplanned downtime
2. Its license include unlimited virtualization rights  providing customers to use rights to run an unlimited number of virtualized instances of Windows Server on processors licensed with Windows Server 2008 datacenter without purchasing any additional licenses

E] Increased Scalability

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter easily scales to adapt to the increased needs of data warehousing and transaction processing .

1. Supports upto 2 tera bytes of RAM (64 Gb on 32 bit system)
2. Authentication and authorization for unlimited number of network connection requests
3. Support for upto 64 processors i.e. 32 processors on 32-bit systems
4. Supports unlimited Virtual Private Network connections (VPN).