What is a Hosting Control Panel?
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The environment of web hosting is extremely competitive at the moment and these conditions have created an environment where firms are aggressively competing on price to offer numerous hosting plans at an attractive cost. If firms can’t compete on price they are forced to stand out in other ways. There are a number of different ways a firm can make a strong offering to consumers and these include building the site, providing a domain name at no extra charge and the overall fee. However, the major element for many consumers is the Control Panel. Therefore, the website that you have and what you want for it will play a huge role in determining which web host is best for you. The way that a web host maintains control to organize a customers site is through the software they provide and this comes in the shape of the Control Panel. Every single action and activity that is undertaken on a website is maintained through the Control Panel. These actions can include anything ranging from creating FTP accounts, operating the email server for the client or compiling statistical data. No matter what operating platform you use, be it Windows or Linux there will be a Control Panel for your specific platform or one that can cater for both.
The Windows Platform and the Control Panels for it.
There are certain web hosting control panels that work only for Windows platform. Hosting Accelerator and Helm are the typical examples of Windows only web hosting control panel. However, Helm is one of the most popular Windows only web hosting control panel due to its several customer friendly features. One of the most outstanding features of Helm is the billing information as most all the normally used control panels do not posses billing information within the control panel. The only exception is the H-sphere. Moreover, Helm is also very convenient to operate as well as has a very good standard interface.
Key benefits of using Helm:
* Managing your server: Helm can interact in many ways with your server and can operate with unlimited servers and domains. It is also possible for users to add or remove servers with the minimum of fuss. There are many servers that Helm has compatibility with and these include, MailEnable, SmarterMail, Merak and Imail. In addition to these servers, Helm also works with MDaemon, Mail Servers and hMailServer in addition to Serv-U FTP, Microsoft FTP, Gene6 FTP Server, MySQL Server, and Microsoft SQL Server etc. Helm is also capable of supporting ColdFusion, ASP, ASP,NET, PHP and Perl.
* The ability to manage billing: A hosting company will have the choice of using the internal billing system provided by Helm or any billing system offered by an external partner. the customer can have their bill created in the currency the like and they have the option to provide these invoices in plain text format and HTML format.
* Managing customers: An additional feature of the control panel provided via web hosting is that it allows hosting plans to be created for resellers. In addition to this, there is the ability to quantify how different resource limits are being filled with respect to transferring data, the use of domains, emails and the amount of disk-space that is on offer.
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 Direct Admin, 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 Direct Admin. 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:
* Statistical analysis of a website: If a user would like to know how much traffic they receive, cPanel can provide them with a full range of statistical facilities to obtain these figures. Many web host providers do not offer this facility as statistical programs take up a whole host of resources. If having statistical information is vital for your site, be sure to ask any potential web host that they provide the service.
* Email Management: This particular web hosting control panel provides an email management facility that allows the website owner to create as well as delete email accounts. They provide Webmail facility that enables their clients to read mail online. The cPanel further offers other email related facilities such as setting up forwarders in order to forward one email account to another, setting up simple auto-responders in order to send a computerized reply back to the sender in case there is an enquiry email.
* FTP and File Manager: The cPanel offers FTP access to a website so as to upload files. It is an extremely essential feature for managing a website. Moreover, if the website owner needs the cPanel also allows to register new FTP accounts in order to enable other people to access the website. However, it is the website owner and the hosting company that have the right to restrict and specify others access to specific folders. The one who are the not that comfortable with FTP package to upload files can use the File Manager available in the cPanel. The File Manager allows the user to unzip files, upload files on the server, as well as copy and delete files.
What control panels are suitable for the Linux and Windows Platform? :
As well as the dedicated control panels for each platform, there are some control panels that will work on both. Some of the more common web hosts that operate this facility are Ensim, H-Sphere and Plesk. H-Sphere is able to offer its client many different features that run the full spectrum from complete automation to providing key functionalities. Plesk has turned out to be the control panel for Linux and Windows that has turned out to be the most popular. This means that the majority of companies who offer a web hosting service for Windows and Linux will provide Plesk. Many people have remarked that the Plesk interface looks similar to Windows XP and as you might expect, as it serves both platforms, it can be an expensive service.
Key benefits of using Plesk:
* The ability to have shared hosting: A huge benefit of Plesk is that offers facilities like self administration and a design that is identical for multi-platforms which makes it an ideal service to manage an environment of shared hosting. This can be undertaken even by people with no technical skills at all as Plesk aids the setup, creation and managing accounts process.
* Having dedicated hosting: Of course, some clients want to do more for them and this is where the technologically smart clients can do their own work. The Plesk control panel 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.
Article is published with permission from a leading provider of comprehensive reviews of web hosting companies. Visit http://www.webhostingmadness.com for more information about and exclusive deals on web hosting.
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