Much of what we do in the third decade of the 2000s passes through or runs directly in the cloud. For the end user this would be like magic if it wasn't already fully internalized, but these things are managed in storage disks, databases and all kinds of technology that make it possible. One of the best-known uses involves something as simple as hosting a web page, for which you will first have to hire a hosting.
"Hosting" is translated into Spanish as "lodging", "hospedaje" or directly not translated, because Anglicism is also used to refer to a service that provides us with space in the cloud. Many times we can read it together with the initials of the Virtual Private Server, but is it possible to find a hosting or cheap vps? The answer is yes, to the point that there are free ones, but these are not the best option if we want to make professional use of the service.
What to assess before hiring a hosting
In a world as connected as the current one, in which we can make video calls with someone at the antipodes and that the connection is the same as if we made it with our neighbor, one may think that it does not matter where the servers are hosted. Look, no, this is not so, and there are even large companies that have buildings in both hemispheres, prioritizing one over the other depending on the proximity or even the temperature at that time of year. This detail should make us understand that we have to consider choosing a hosting that works well, for us and for those who are going to access whatever we offer from it.
It is also important that the company responds. That is to say, the price is something that must always be taken into account, but it is useless for something to be cheap if later we are going to have a problem and we are not going to be able to contact the technical service to solve it for us. If we are in Spain, we have to make sure that the company offers 24×7 technical support (24 hours a day, seven days a week), and that when we pick up the phone, the person who answers the other end speaks to us in Spanish. We can master more than one language, but there is nothing like being spoken to in our mother tongue.
Continuing with the area, and with the example of Spain, the servers must be here. Why? Well, as many users interested in open source software already know, there are different projects that offer different "mirrors" for downloading, for example, an ISO image of a Linux distribution. The best option to download is usually the one closest to us, as long as everything is under the same conditions. In addition, they must offer us a Spanish IP, with which some communications will have a better behavior.
NOTE: : I have used that as an example, and readers from other countries should substitute that "Spain" for your country of residence.
The type of discs, crucial
And I am not referring to the brand, but to the quality of being critical or decisive. In the same way that we put Linux on a computer with a hard drive in poor condition and it works as a ballast, in the same way that the same equipment works better with a new hard drive or, better yet, an SSD, hosting or projects that we host in them can work better or worse depending on the type of disk they use. If the company provides that type of information, we must completely discard HDD disks; It is already obsolete technology and I would dare to say that it is unacceptable today.
It is true that most hostings offer their space on SSD drives, but not all are the same. There are the NVMe, an interface designed to optimize the performance of SSD drives to offer higher data transfer speeds. Additionally, it is a low-level interface specification that allows devices to act as a single memory storage unit, thereby increasing scalability and flexibility. From this somewhat technical explanation, I would recommend that you stay with the fact that they are basically like a SSN 2.0: simply better than the first ones when they appeared on the market.
"Excuse me, can I test the hosting before hiring?"
Although there are services that offer the possibility of contracting your hosting and paying each month, the most normal thing is that it is from year to year. Even if we choose to hire a month, it can be a lot of time and money lost if we are not satisfied with what it offers and how it works. For this reason, it would seem like a good idea. opt for something we can try before we buy. Isn't that something that companies like Netflix or Spotify do or have done? They do it for a reason: confident that they offer a good service, they let us try it; and we, if we see that we like it, we hire.
The same may be applicable to hosting services. If they trust that their service is good, they can let us test it for €0. It can be a month, it can be three... whatever, but in order not to waste time and money we should be able to test what we are going to buy. And one more thing, one of those free hosting services is not the same as a paid one, and I say this because we must make sure the test is full service. More than anything, because what is free usually has certain restrictions, but they will make sure that it works "full" in the trial period (they should).
Integrated security
I'm not going to do it, but I could tell you a story that I saw live in which malicious code was inserted into a web page, in its cache, that redirected to a spam page. It was funny and worrying at the same time, funny because it was surreal and worrying because we didn't know how it could have happened. Well, I do have an answer as to how it could have happened: the contracted hosting did not have the best security tools.
This is something that we also have to ask when we consider hiring a hosting, and that we do not worry that they take us for heavy. The answer that should leave us alone would mention something like anti hacking services to prevent malware attacks. If we add this to what we mentioned above about the company responding quickly to problems, we can rest easy.
Scalability…
Scalability is not something that has to do with going up, or at least not with how most know it. Scalability is the correct way of saying that something can be extended. For example, to process a large amount of data it is necessary to work with powerful equipment, and there are two types of scaling: vertical is what makes the same equipment more powerful, and this type of scaling would include expanding its RAM memory, put an SSD if we had a hard drive or change the GPU; Horizontal scaling is where multiple teams come together to get the job done faster together.
When we start a project, it is best to start from the bottom, from the most basic plan. Recently, a chat based on the famous ChatGPT has expanded its project so that the large number of queries would not overwhelm it, and this would not be possible if its service was not scalable. That is the idea: we hire the minimum that we think we are going to need, but we must be able to make a call and have our resources expanded practically instantly.
…and flexibility
On the other hand, they must also offer us flexible plans, so that we can choose what best suits our needs without going too far or falling short and change plans depending on whether we need more or less at a given time. All this can be applied to storage, traffic and even, why not, the time that we are going to contract something else and if we can go back when we ask for it. This should be the case for any serious company that offers IaaS, ie Infrastructure as a Service, so we shouldn't settle for less.
Flexibility should be maximum, reaching allow us to jump to a VPS if we needed it. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a dedicated virtual server that can be used to host web pages and applications, services, or any other software. They are servers that are separated from those of other projects, that is, they work only for our project, and the environment is isolated. A VPS offers greater security, control and performance. It would be the logical evolution of hosting for those who want the best service. Therefore, there is no such complete scalability without the ability to level up to Virtual Private Server.
Conclusions
For anyone who is thinking of hiring a hosting service for any type of project, it is very important to contract what a serious and responsible company offers us that responds 24×7, whose hardware is up to date, which allows us to test the service before to contract, that include security and offer us the possibility of changing plans when necessary. If we find all that, our project, if it is good, will be able to go ahead with guarantees.