You started your e-commerce business with an inexpensive shared web hosting service. Now that your business has begun expanding, you’ve come to realise that there’s a limit to the quality of service shared hosting can offer, but you are unsure about the best next step to take. Do you stay with your shared hosting package or upgrade to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) package?

Your decision on this matter isn’t something that should be taken with levity, especially because the hosting service you settle on can make the difference between your online business growing into a monumental success or fizzling out like a lost cause.

Below are a few reasons to break up with your shared hosting provider so that you can start a new relationship with a VPS hosting provider that offers a brighter future.

Shared hosting

Most of the companies currently offering shared hosting services tend to make lofty promises; they’ll assure you that they can provide unlimited resources for your website, as well as offer a platform capable of running several programs which are installable with a single click. All these promises will come alongside low prices for shared hosting or even a free hosting service. However, no matter how tempting the offer, it doesn’t change the fact that when your e-commerce site starts to receive significant Internet traffic, the shortcomings of shared hosting will become blindingly evident.

Shared Web hosting can only be considered appropriate for an e-commerce site in one of the following situations:

·   Shared hosting is used to test run a prototype of your e-commerce site before the opening of the original one.

·   You are opening a niche website with an already familiar name that’s trusted by established customers who won’t mind slow-loading page speeds.

Sharing an SSL certificate

A fair number of shared hosting providers reduce their costs of operation to be able to offer you hosting services at lowest prices by providing a shared SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. 

SSL is necessary for creating a secure connection between servers and clients. If you’re sharing an SSL certificate with other websites, the security purpose of the protocol is defeated. Not only that, customers on an e-commerce site are less likely to have confidence in your business if they see any warning signs concerning the integrity of your website’s SSL certificate such as when an SSL certificate doesn’t match a site’s domain name.

Virtual private server

Every business tries to ensure its profitability by cutting costs and reducing expenses. So it’s understandable why you might opt for shared hosting due to its cheap nature — but the limited resources that come with shared hosting don’t bode well for your business’s prosperity.

Thus, be sure only to use a hosting provider that can support your business into the future and offer all the scalability you need; don’t run the risk of having to interrupt your business services midstream to change to a better server. Dedicated hosting, or colocation, are excellent hosting services you could opt for, but they cost more than most upcoming businesses can afford. Fortunately, VPS can offer all the benefits you need at a fair and affordable price.

How does VPS work?

VPS operates by splitting a physical server into several virtual servers. The splitting, or partitioning, of the server, is accomplished with virtualisation software. The amount of resources your website will have access to when hosted on a VPS is dependent on the hardware setup you purchase. The separated virtual partition allotted solely to your site will provide a specified amount of RAM, bandwidth, disk space, CPU, and so on.

Advantages of VPS

· Activities of websites hosted on VPS are isolated from neighbouring website activities

When a neighbouring website on the VPS is experiencing a surge in traffic or experiencing problems, your website on the same server will not be affected. The only scenario in which your site will suffer a fault on the server is if the virtual machine itself crashes.

· Website loading speed is guaranteed

Regardless of how much activity your adjacent websites have on the server, or whatever else is happening on the machine, the speed of your site is guaranteed. If your hosting service states that two CPUs have been allotted to your site, nothing will change this arrangement during the duration of your service. The same thing applies to the amount of RAM allocated to your website on a VPS, which will remain unchanged regardless of the activities of other websites on the server machine. These arrangements are unlike shared hosting where the activities of other websites can negatively affect your site’s loading speeds, or eat into the server resources allotted to you.

· Stability is more or less assured

The instability and inconsistencies that are inherent in shared hosting services don’t occur on VPS. These hiccups are absent thanks to the virtualisation software on a VPS which dedicatedly shares resources among users and guarantees your e-commerce site gets all the resources it needs when it needs it. Also, VPS hosting promises efficient backup and data recovery from all your platforms and devices so that your business can run efficiently. There’s a virtual demo of what an unstable data backup looks like at https://cloud-backup.umbrellar.nz.

· Guaranteed memory space

Shared hosting companies who claim that they can provide unlimited disk space are often running a con. What you’ll likely get from such an arrangement is limited disk space which is shared too thinly among too many users. This predicament doesn’t happen with VPS hosting as the agreed upon amount of disk space that you have paid for is reserved exclusively for the use of your website. Whether the disk space is actively used or unused by your site, it is reserved exclusively for your usage.

With these advantages, VPS is unquestionably the way to go if you are serious about running an e-commerce website and are looking to do so in a cost-effective manner. Shared hosting might be cheaper, but it can’t provide the sort of security, reliability, and resources a VPS plan can offer.

James Cummings is a business psychologist and serial entrepreneur.

http://www.techradar.com/news/for-start-up-e-commerce-sites-virtual-private-servers-beat-shared-hosting

We open up too many apps on Android like we open up too many tabs on Chrome, and there was a handy solution: the ‘Clear All’ button that closes all of open apps.

This button is sorely missing from the Android P beta, which introduces a new interface to the home and recent buttons. It gives you can an overview of all open apps when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

That’s all well and good, but this new multitasking UI is missing the ‘Close All’ button that was introduced in Android Nougat and so many people rely on. They took notice and, as you do these days, took to Twitter.

Android VP of Engineering responded to one of these tweets, noting that the ‘Clear All’ button shall return, responding with, “Coming to a Beta near you soon”.

Coming to a Beta near you soon 😀 pic.twitter.com/NTqMaeBkPkMay 11, 2018

What it does and doesn’t do

The ‘Clear Button’ is important, but it doesn’t actually speed up your phone. That’s a myth that has so many people fruitlessly clearing away apps to save battery life (and burning screen time doing it).

Instead, the button acts as a way to declutter the number of apps you have open. Having a simple method of pushing reset on the app windows hovering about in the recent menu is indeed handy.

Even if it doesn’t do what a lot of people think (speed up your phone), it still has a function in 2018, and it feels as if even Google knows this now following Google IO feedback.

http://www.techradar.com/news/android-p-will-indeed-have-a-clear-all-button

If Vodafone is able to complete the €18.4 billion acquisition of Liberty Global’s cable networks in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, it will be the most significant development in the European telecoms landscape for some time.

It’s no secret that Vodafone has struggled and been left frustrated by intense competition, economic pressures and stricter regulation in the European market over the past few years.

This contrasted with strong performances in the US, where it held 45 per cent of Verizon Wireless, and in emerging markets, which made it easy to speculate whether Vodafone was falling out of love with its homeland.

But a £19 billion ‘Project Spring’ investment programme for its mobile infrastructure, the acquisition and construction of fixed networks across Europe and the sale of its US interests, mean Vodafone is a different company in 2018. And now its entering the next stage.

Strenghtened

“The proposed deal will significantly strengthen Vodafone’s operations in key strategic markets,” said Gary Barton, an analyst with GlobalData. “Germany is its largest national market and the company has long since highlighted that Eastern Europe represents an important area for growth.

“If the transaction is completed, Vodafone will be able to offer fixed and mobile network services in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, increasing its ability to serve local consumer and enterprise customers and making it a valuable potential network partner for enterprises looking towards Eastern Europe.”

Vodafone is pinning its hopes on converged networks, and if the deal is completed than its ‘Next Generation Network’ will reach 110 million properties across the continent, including 54 million on its own infrastructure.

“There is a business evolution and clearly convergence is maturing,” said Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao. “Over time, the logic of putting together mobile and fixed assets becomes stronger. We’ve seen it in the UK with BT and EE and in the Netherlands with Vodafone and Ziggo.”

Converged future

Coupled with mobile networks in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the UK and other countries across Europe and you have a European telecoms giant with the scale to compete with US and Asian giants – and this could have huge implications on the race for 5G.

The fragmented nature of the European telecoms market is one of the reasons that the US, Japan, South Korea and China are leading the way when it comes to 5G. But an enlarged group with the fixed and mobile capabilities of Vodafone can invest more in R&D and roll out services to more people more rapidly.

The proposed deal would also allow for cost savings, and allow Vodafone to cross-sell services to the two customer bases – making its balance sheet that much better.

“We have delivered synergies in Spain, and the Netherlands, so we’re confident about [Germany and central Europe],” said Colao.

UK future

But what about the UK? BT also sees its future in convergence now that it has EE, but Vodafone lacks its own fixed infrastructure in its backyard. When Vodafone sold its stake in Verizon Wireless there was a suggestion that some of the proceeds could go towards buying Liberty Global in its entirety. That is far more unlikely now, and it could be argued that the possibility of Vodafone buying Virgin Media alone has decreased too.

Vodafone has agreed a deal to use CityFibre’s FTTP infrastructure in the UK once it’s completed, while Virgin Media is migrating its mobile users to a ‘thick’ MVNO on EE’s network. On the face of it, it appears as though both parties are too far along separate paths.

However CityFibre only plans to reach one million premises by 2021, and the overall scope of the project is limited five million, mainly in urban areas. Acquiring Virgin Media would give Vodafone immediate access to 15 million homes and businesses in more areas of the UK.

Colao refused to rule out such a move but said the UK wasn’t on the table at present. Analysts are confident that an acquisition or even a joint-venture might take place in the future.

“When Vodafone and Liberty Global confirmed M&A talks in February, it was made clear that negotiations involved only continental assets, ruling out overlapping operations in the UK and Ireland,” said IHS Markit. “Nevertheless, IHS Markit expects both Vodafone and Virgin Media to continue exploring strategic options in the UK.

“Vodafone still lacks the scale needed to be a converged operator in the UK, whereas Virgin Media requires mobile assets to execute a more comprehensive fixed-mobile convergence strategy, as Liberty Global focuses on scaling its operations in selected markets.”

EU regulators will have their say on the deal and Vodafone expects it to be passed – no matter how much it might upset Deutsche Telekom. If it does, Vodafone would become arguably the continent’s most influential telco and Project Spring would have given way to summer.

Want to find out more about 5G? Check out our dedicated 5G hub!    

http://www.techradar.com/news/vodafones-liberty-global-acquisitions-are-a-big-deal-for-european-telecoms