What is Managed Hosting?

There was a time when hosting companies offered dedicated servers where for the most part, the hosting company did not manage the hosting services that their clients were receiving through the use of the dedicated servers. Businesses and other hosting clients were maintaining and managing the operations of their own servers. This was often difficult and expensive for the hosting clients. A demand arose for hosting providers that would offer a variety of technical and other services with the dedicated servers. This demand brought about the start of managed hosting services. Managed hosting is a form of dedicated server hosting.
The first step in deciding if managed hosting would you is to decide if you need dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting is often used for websites with a high volume of traffic. Websites that use very large amounts of disk space often need or can benefit from dedicated hosting. Some websites require custom applications and advanced e-commerce features and can therefore benefit from dedicated hosting. These are a few reasons as to why you might need managed hosting for your website. If you come to realize you need dedicated hosting, then you can decide if you will need managed hosting.
Consider the services that you want to be provided by your web hosting company. Do you want them to back up your data for you on a regular basis? Does your website need firewalls and other security measures that you want to be set up by your hosting provider? Do you want your web host to monitor your server for you? If the answer to these questions is yet, you will want to think about using managed hosting services.
Managed hosting can be beneficial for companies. They are able to have their websites hosted and servers maintained by their hosting provider. This can save a business money n the long run. They are paying for the managed hosting services, but will not have the cost of hiring IT people to handle the hosting aspect of their business website. Having people on staff that are able to mange the hosting end of the websites can be costly and time consuming. Allowing the web host to handle these tasks can therefore save a company time and money.
It is important to know that managed hosting does not mean the same thing to every hosting company. Some hosting providers will offer more services than others. For this reason you should look carefully at the managed hosting services provided by any web hosts you are considering to host your website. Make certain you know what services are included with your managed hosting plan. There are several services you are likely to want for certain with your managed hosting package. You will probably be looking for a company that offers server management and monitoring, security measures to protect your data, data backups, hardware and software updates and excellent customer support. As with any form of web hosting, you should shop around to find the host that offers all the services you need and want for your website. Source
There are lot of  Faqs available on managed hosting
webhostingmatters.com/disclaimer

Read More   world's largest website on webhosting matters

How to prevent SQL Injection with MySQL and PHP

Most new web developers have heard of SQL injection attacks, but not very many know that it is fairly easy to prevent an attacker from gaining access to your data by filtering out the vulnerabilities using MySQL extensions found in PHP.
An SQL injection attack occurs when a hacker or cracker (a malicious hacker) attempts to dump the data in a database table in a database-driven web site. In an unprotected and vulnerable site, this is pretty easy to do.
In order for an SQL injection attack to work, the site must use an unprotected SQL query that utilizes data submitted by a user to lookup something in a database table. The data could be from a search box, a login form or any type of query used to look up data using data input by user. It also means that querystring data used to query a database can create vulnerabilities. Read More

latest Wordpress 3.0.4 Important Security Update

There is  a news for wordpress about a security update, Version 3.0.4 of WordPress, available immediately through the update page in your dashboard or for download here, is a very important update to apply to your sites as soon as possible because it fixes a core security bug in our HTML sanitation library, called KSES. I would rate this release as “critical.”
Official link : http://wordpress.org/news/2010/12/3-0-4-update/
source
webhostingmatters.com/disclaimer

installation of ioncube on cpanel dedicated server

ionCube is an encoder (encryption method) used to help protect the php files from software piracy. It is normally used by software vendors to deliver their php software(s) in some sort of encoded format to help protect their copyrights and licensing distribution.

The ionCube version of Ultimate Locator is meant for Linux, Unix and FreeBSD platform servers. ionCube can also be run on a Windows server though.

Outsource support

Here are the installation steps for ionCube loader:

Download link: http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php

wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz

tar -zxvf ioncube_loaders.tar.gz

cd ioncube

mv ioncube /usr/local/

You can check the path of the php.ini file with the below command:

php -i | grep php.ini

Edit the php.ini file with the following command:

nano php.ini

Then, add the below line in the php.ini

zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so

So, now determine if ionCube is on your dedicated web server, do the following:

Add the below code in you a php file, usually in case of cPanel server it is under your public_html directory



And, access the file in your favourite browser.

Using SSH you can check it with the command:

php –v
source
Knowledge base web hosting guide, world best web hosting guide magazine  webhostingmatters.com

why-do-i-need-24×7-hosting-support-for-my-web-hosting-company?

Now a days web hosting
is a global business, and to help your customer you need hosting support services which have to be available 24×7 i.e. during all time zones which would definitely get their problems fixed within time.
In a case, if you have an existing customer who is a owner of a web design company and is in a meeting with their potential client and giving him a online presentation/demo and is facing some technical problems which has to be fixed by the web host. This is an embarrassing situation for them – especially if your hosting company doesn’t have access to the support staff 24×7, this customer will have to wait for you to come online during your working hours and get their issue fixed.
Now, think if you have a 24×7 support team – this client will come on your website and contact you by the support channels you have i.e. live chat and help desk support. And, your technical support staff available on duty is notified about the issue by the support channels you have and gets the problem fixed within no time. This is what a customer expects from your company, and I bet they would spread the name of your company across the web or known ones, which would give you more business.
Whether you’re a web hosting reseller, VPS hardware node/container owner or a dedicated server owner – it’s mandatory to have a 24×7 support online presence to help your clients. Source
knowledge base web hosting website
webhostingmatters.com

webhostingmatters.com/disclaimer