Best Choice of ASP Windows Hosting

By Jay Newman

if your dynamic websites was created using the ASP.NET language you will require ASP web hosting. ASP web hosting should ideally be based on the Microsoft Windows Server operating system (Windows 2003 Server) which ASP.NET was designed to run on.

Most ASP web hosting providers will provide you with a control panel to fully manage your ASP web hosting, running on Windows servers. Popular Windows based control panels at the moment are Parallels Plesk control panel and Helm which both allow you to manage all aspects of your ASP.NET based web applications.

Both Plesk and Helm allow you with access to the installed version of Microsoft SQL Server, ensuring full integration between your ASP.NET applications and MS-SQL. You will be able to create and delete your remotely hosted databases, create users, set passwords and define permissions and security settings.

Like standard web hosting your host will provide you with FTP access to your ASP Web Hosting account to allow you to upload your web data. Popular software such as the Microsoft Visual Web Developer have a built FTP in upload function, whereby you enter your FTP settings and upload.

Every web hosting account allows access via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to allow files to be uploaded to their web space. Its also possible to upload files using the Control Panel's built in File Manager, which has an "Explorer" like interface allowing your browse, drag and drop files from your desktop to server.

"Classic" ASP and ASP.NET should really only run on Microsoft Windows Server operating systems. Some hosts do offer "ASP Hosting" running on Linux servers, using using the Sun Chilisoft ASP Environment. If you have developed your scripts in a Microsoft environment you may find it more reliable and less frustrating to host them on Microsoft servers as there are a few subtle differences between Linux and Windows hosts (such as file and case sensitivity).

ASP hosting was originally a "niche market" with relatively few specialists, but has increased in popularity, partly due to ready developed packages and greater awareness and competition . Backwards compatibility was maintained by Microsoft, so older asp applications should work on servers running the newer scripting environment.

You should only choose a Windows based ASP web hosting package if your scripts or applications required ASP and ASP.NET. If your web site only needs static html pages, or perhaps open source scripting technologies such as PHP, Perl or Python then a standard Linux shared hosting package should suffice.

Your choice of Windows Web Hosting because is not down to your choice of home operating system! If all your web site is mainly built of static html pages, then you would be wasting your money on an ASP Web Hosting package.

About the Author:

If you are choosing web hosting online, make sure you check out Jay Newman's web hosting review site. Jay is also a advisor at a popular cheap web hosting provider