In just a few years the Web has exploded and now consists of millions of sites. Accompanying this boom are thousands of companies that host these sites. But the technologies behind the sites are still immature and stories like that in Timeline 1 (see below) are not uncommon.

The scenario in Timeline 1 is true; the names have been removed to protect the innocent (me) from a lawsuit. I have many other horror stories and not just from this particular hosting company. Every host I've worked with has had problems to various degrees. Having your site go down is bad for any company, but for a Web-based company it can be a death sentence. People quickly lose confidence in a site with technical problems, and a million other companies are just a click away.

Types of Hosting
In an ideal situation you could host your Web site yourself. Unfortunately the cost can be prohibitive. You need to have a high-speed Internet connection, powerful server, and the expertise to maintain the equipment. Most small businesses don't have the resources to maintain their own server, which is where hosting comes in. Several types of hosting are available, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages.

Nonvirtual Hosting
This is the cheapest form of hosting available and often comes with an ISP account or is available free from several places on the Web. In this type of hosting you have a subdirectory under someone else's domain name (i.e., http://somedomain/yourname).

There are several limitations to this type of hosting, such as the types of scripting available. I don't know of any nonvirtual hosts that allow you to use ColdFusion. While this type of hosting may be okay for your home page, it's usually not suitable for business purposes. A business without its own domain name won't be very credible.

Virtual Hosting
This is the most common type of hosting on the Web and the method I'll focus on. In a virtual hosting environment there are several Web sites on the same server. Each has its own domain name and usually comes with e-mail and the ability to create dynamic Web pages. Virtual hosting is cheap, but you can encounter a variety of problems, which I'll discuss in detail in the next section.

Dedicated Server
With a dedicated server you have the resources of an entire machine. You're essentially renting the server from the hosting company, which provides some level of technical support as well as the tools to administer the machine remotely. At the minimum level the hosting company replaces any hardware that goes bad, but can provide higher levels of support for a price. Dedicated servers are much more expensive than virtual hosting and usually require you to provide some level of administration for the machine, but you avoid many of the problems of virtual servers. You must also purchase licenses for the software you use on the server. If you want to use ColdFusion, you'll have to purchase a copy of the ColdFusion server.

Colocated Server
A colocated server is similar to a dedicated server, except you're re-sponsible for the machine. With a colocated server you essentially purchase your own machine and connect it to the hosting company's high-speed network. If it breaks, you have to fix it, though the hosting company will provide technical support for a price. Because the hosting company doesn't provide the hardware and offers less maintenance, this option is generally cheaper than a dedicated server.

Why All the Problems with Virtual Hosting?
Why is it so difficult to host a Web site? You can run Windows 95 with a personal Web server and ColdFusion on your desktop without any difficulties. The problem with Web hosting is that it's a volume business. Hosting companies put 500 to 1,000 Web sites on a single server, and it's not uncommon to see over 1,000 on UNIX machines. A thousand Web sites sounds like a lot, but most high-power servers can easily handle this number of sites and HTML pages. Sever-side scripting is typically the culprit behind system instabilities.

A single server can provide Cold-Fusion, Active Server Pages, Java Servlets, Perl, and any number of other Web development languages. In addition, it may provide re-sources such as databases, mail, and COM components. A glitch in any of these technologies can affect the stability of the entire server.

You also have to contend with programs written by many programmers with varying levels of skill. You may be an excellent programmer, but your well-written, streamlined code is competing against many poorly written, inefficient programs.

Another problem with ColdFusion hosting is that it typically runs under NT, although ColdFusion is available for UNIX. Despite what Microsoft would like you to believe, NT is just not as stable as most UNIX-based environments.

What to Look For in a ColdFusion Host
There are some general things you should look for in a hosting company, the most important being reliability. Many hosting sites used to have "99.9% uptime guaranteed" plastered across their home pages, but you don't see that much anymore, and it's a telling sign for the industry. Also make sure they have responsive, knowledgeable technical support. Eventually you'll have a problem, and you won't want to spend hours on hold or wait days for an answer. Performance is a big concern for any dynamically generated site. No matter how fast the network connection, an overloaded server will generate slow pages.

You should be aware of some hosting issues specific to ColdFusion. The first is the use of tags that can affect files on the server, like and . These tags may be disabled for security purposes. If you need to upload or manipulate files on your site, make sure these tags are available.

You should also check to see if the ColdFusion Security Sand Box is enabled. This feature limits access to files and data sources to a particular site. You don't want other people with sites on the server to be able to access your files or database. You may also need access to certain custom tags on your site. Some hosts provide commonly used custom tags or will allow you to upload them.

How to Find a ColdFusion Host
Now you know what to look for in a host, but how exactly do you find out how good a hosting company is before you host a site there? Fortunately there are many resources available on the Web to aid you in your search.

Hosting information sites rate hosting companies in some fashion. I prefer the sites that provide user-based ratings in various categories. You shouldn't base your decisions solely on the ratings. Take the time to read the user comments. A site may be rated high in general, but may have specific issues you'll discover only by taking the time to read the comments. The biggest problem with these rating sites is that the majority of people create static HTML sites, so the ratings don't reflect how well the service will perform for a ColdFusion site.

Asking other ColdFusion developers is another good way to learn about hosting companies. In particular, the support forums provided by Allaire (www.allaire.com) are a good place to ask. The forums get a lot of traffic and the people are helpful.

Table 1 contains some resources specific to ColdFusion hosting.

Your Web site is a reflection of your company, and bad hosting makes your company look bad. Do your research before choosing a hosting company and make sure it's right for you.

• Figure 1
• Figure 2