Are you in search of a quality Xen hosting plan?  Lunarpages has just released a line of virtual private server plans that are powered by Xen.  You have the choice between Linux Starter, Linux Pro, and Windows Pro. 

Xen VPS’ are completely independent from the hardware node, and each other. This means that you are able to run updates independently of the hardware node. This also means that one customer can’t crash a service or the server. If one front end server ceases to work, the VPS’ that were running on that server can be restarted on other Xen servers, almost instantly.

The Backend Servers use Open Solaris ZFS file system, which provides for real-time file systems checks and instant automatic snapshots of your data. In the event of a VPS experiencing an issue, they can restore from a snapshot up to 3 days prior. In the event of backend failure, they will have Backups stored off server via Amanda Backup, which can be restored very quickly.

To learn more, be sure to check out the Xen VPS page at Lunarpages.com.

Webmasters don’t have to use WordPress to host a blog or family/personal website. Many professional webmasters are using WordPress to run fully functional websites, as there are thousands of free WordPress plugins that will assist in helping webmasters make the most of their WordPress web hosting site.

Here are a few more advanced WordPress plugins for webmasters who need that extra edge.

WP Super Cache
Need to relieve some of the load off your dedicated web server? By using this free WordPress plugin, you can generate static HTML files automatically, easing the load on your server instantly and without hassle.

NextGen Gallery
Creating a photo gallery using WordPress doesn’t have to be rocket science. In fact, this plugin will easily and efficiently help you create a professional image gallery in minutes. Create sortable albums, unzip massive files, add watermarks to protect your work, incorporate a slideshow or widgets, and more.

cformsII
Using contact forms on your WordPress website is now easy and efficient with this WordPress plugin. It allows you to manage and maintain contact forms in a highly flexible and customizable interface.

WP E-Commerce
In the past, it’s always been difficult to configure a WordPress website to look and feel like a real online shopping portal, but with this free plugin, you’re no longer confined to a blog! Now you can sell products and services (digital or tangible) with ease.

SSL (secure socket layer) Certificates are designed to keep your website files protected, but a lot of ecommerce webmasters require something even more secure in order to accept monetary transactions via their websites.

So when is it time to get a pro SSL certificate and when is it okay to have just a basic shared SSL?

Shared SSLs

• These are good for personal or business websites that do not require an active ecommerce website. So if you are not planning to take credit card payments directly on your website through a merchant gateway, you can use a shared SSL just fine.
• Shared SSLs are just that – shared! So know that you are sharing a secure space with multiple users. The IP address for this certificate will be shared among most likely very different websites. Some customers fear being associated with an adult website or moneymaking scheme in this way, so they opt to upgrade. Most customers will never have to worry about this.
• If you are using PayPal to receive payments or referring your customers to a website outside of your own for payment, you do not need a pro SSL.
• If you purchase a dedicated server hosting plan, you only have the option of purchasing a pro SSL since your server isn’t ‘shared’ with anyone else.

Pro SSLs

• Pro SSL certificates are best for websites that require ecommerce payments to be made directly through their websites.
• If you are working with a payment gateway to take payments through your website, more than likely you will be required to purchase a pro SSL.
• Pro SSL certificates secure all transactions made on your website and ensure your customers feel safe about their purchases.
• On a dedicated web hosting account, you must purchase a pro SSL, as shared SSLs are not an option.

You may be wondering why we would be talking about “small business web hosting” on a dedicated server website. You may think to yourself, if you’re only a small business, why would you need such a big server, storage space, RAM, or bandwidth?

Well, our answer to you is that small businesses can be just as resource-intensive as fortune 100 corporations! It might surprise you to know that millions of small businesses are purchasing dedicated servers every day, because even if they appear to be a small business to some spheres, in their local or national markets, they play like the big boys.

Think, for example, about your local supermarket. Hundreds if not thousands of people shop there daily. Maybe the supermarket has a couple sister supermarkets placed around the county or nearby cities, or maybe it’s a chain supermarket but only for the Eastern, Western, or Midwestern United States. If they need a website, they are not going to be using shared web hosting – they are going to be sitting on a dedicated server, because those thousands of customers will be visiting their website to print directions, get contact information, request the newsletter, or search for deals and discounts.

Small businesses may be ‘small’ by nature, but they can eat up resources just like the big boys. Consider the following things as a small business owner:

* Do you have more than 100 employees?
* Do you require a custom Content Management System to be developed for your website management needs?
* Do you have more than 100 customers?
* Do you offer more than 50 products? Or if you offer services, do these services include web-based services like email, management, design, SEO, or logo creation?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should consider dedicated server hosting.

WordPress Web Hosting is one of the most popular choices for new webmasters these days, but it is also a viable choice for large enterprise bloggers and popular websites for affiliate websites, ecommerce, and more. As most bloggers will eventually outgrow Shared WebHosting, customers often upgrade to a dedicated server to host their WordPress website.

Even though WordPress is a blogging platform, most users these days use it as a content management system, as it easily integrates pictures, text, videos, ecommerce, and more into your site. It’s also incredibly easy to learn. It’s biggest competitor, Joomla, is best-suited for larger websites, while WordPress is easier to learn and adapt to. Both Joomla web hosting and WordPress webhosting are valuable choices if you are new to the website hosting world, as content management systems are becoming more and more popular.

The good thing about WordPress Web Hosting is that you have literally millions of incredible templates to work with and there are endless WordPress Theme Design contests that showcase the entries and even offer Free WordPress Themes for download.

Joomla web hosting is becoming a very popular choice for novice and experienced users alike due to its incredible power for maintaining and editing websites. With Joomla, users have an easy way to create websites, because Joomla is a content management system (CMS), a tool that assists in managing your website. CMS web hosting puts you in control of your website’s features, content, etc.

Because Joomla is a CMS, you are able to login to one simple interface to manage all aspects of your website. You can add images, polls, chat scripts, content text, advertising banners, links, music, video, blogs, and more, all from the same easy-to-understand control panel.

Because Joomla is open source or free software, web hosting providers can provide it to you for free via the Fantastico Script Library. With one click, you can install Joomla into your website in any location you’d like – from yourdomain.com to joomla.yourdomain.com, etc. If you have a dedicated server, you can download Joomla from their website instantly and download it yourself in several very simple steps. Once installed, you can immediately start using it.

With Joomla web hosting, you can maintain your website with ease.

CPanel is arguably the most powerful control panel on the planet when it comes to dedicated server hosting. This is why it’s also the most popular choice for webmasters these days. If you’re unfamiliar with cPanel’s web hosting technology, you should definitely research this amazing control panel before you add it to your dedicated server. But cPanel works with a variety of really cool programs, not the least of which is the Fantastico Script Library.

What is Fantastico?

Fantastico is a fantastic script library, which is a fancy of way of saying it automates the process of installing really cool software on your server, like blogs, CMS, photo galleries, and more.

Why Fantastico?

Fantastico simplifies the process of installing a blog or other popular software extensions onto your website. Instead of downloading the necessary scripts, then uploading and installing them to your site, then configuring them based on your system, Fantastico allows you to click on a button and the rest is done for you automatically.

What does Fantastico web hosting include?

The better questions is what doesn’t Fantastico web hosting include, because it literally comes with everything you’ll need to get your website up and running in no time. Here’s a brief rundown of what comes with Fantastico by default:

• Blogs – including WordPress!
• Content Management Systems – including Joomla, Mambo, and Post-Nuke!
• Ticketing Systems
• FAQ Systems
• Chatroom Software
• Forum Software – including SMF!
• Ecommerce Software – including osCommerce!
• Image Galleries
• …and more!!

When you purchase your Windows or Linux Dedicated Server, you have the option to add the Plesk Control Panel, one of the most powerful control panels on the planet. And if you do decide to add Plesk as your control panel, you also have the ability to add the Plesk Power Pack, a series of amazing add-on modules similar to cPanel’s Fantastico Script Library.

So what do you get with your dedicated server and the Plesk Power Pack?

• Application Pack – With the Plesk Power Pack’s Application Pack, you can pretty much do everything you need, all from one simple administrative panel. The Application Pack comes complete with the Mambo Content Management System (CMS), a Website Builder Tool to create dynamic websites, support for post-Nuke Web Hosting, osCommerce Ecommerce software for ecommerce web hosting, phpBB software, picture gallery software, phpBook for guestbooks, bbClone for website statistics, and gtChat for chat web hosting.

• Anti-Spam Solutions – Plesk’s Power Pack utilizes SpamAssassin’s Anti-Spam solutions software to eliminate spam forever.

• Tomcat Web Hosting – Tomcat java servlet support allows you to manage and deploy Tomcat web applications and run Tomcat’s JSP web hosting.

• ColdFusion Web Hosting – Administrators can configure and enable/disable ColdFusion right within the hosting panel. Perfect for ColdFusion web hotsing.

• MS SQL Hosting – Need the world’s most popular and powerful relational database manage system? You got it with Plesk Power Pack’s support for MS SQL web hosting. You can deploy and manage MS SQL databases on local and remote instances. Your Windows Web Hosting solution is complete. Also perfect for Windows Server 2008 Hosting!

• Multi-Level Helpdesk – Now you can run your own HelpDesk solution for answering tickets and support inquiries via a powerful integration system within Plesk’s Power Pack.

You’re thinking of ordering a brand new, shiny dedicated server. You’ve got your domain name, you’ve chosen a reliable dedicated hosting provider like Lunarpages, and you’ve found the best dedicated hosting coupon available. So…now what?

Have you decided what kind of dedicated server you are going to be running? Look over these fun options to find the best solution for your dedicated server hosting plan!

Media Server Hosting

This is becoming a very popular choice for dedicated server hosting, as media websites like YouTube.com or social network sites like MySpace.com utilize media in incredible ways. With media server hosting, you are running a website primarily to serve streaming or live media content to your audience. You can store music and video files to stream on the web using Flash Media, Windows Media, or even Microsoft Silverlight, the hottest technology for media server hosting.

Make sure you choose a dedicated web hosting provider who allows media server hosting and can offer competitive amounts of storage space and data transfer bandwidth. This way, you’ll never have to worry.

Game Server Hosting

Do you like multiplayer games? Need to host your game for players around the world to be able to join in? You can create a whole world and community on your dedicated server by running it as a game server. Depending on the popularity of your game or games, you may need to cluster or join many servers together to create a network of interlocked dedicated servers. These servers provide the massive amounts of bandwidth necessary to have game players from all over the world connecting to your website! Game server hosting is extremely popular and you can make a ton of money through advertising and player upgrades.

Social Network Server Hosting

If you like MySpace or Facebook, you can create a website of your own to match them or even make a better site. Imagine creating something as popular as Myspace…right on your own server!! This means you have control over membership payments, you can deploy advertisements and sell ad space, and you can collect the revenue from partnering with other companies, etc.

Hosting a social networking website means an incredibly heavy load on your web server, so make sure you choose a reliable dedicated hosting provider who can handle the CPU resources, bandwidth, storage space, and even features necessary for these massive web hosting accounts. You should choose a dedicated server hosting company who can allow you to grow as your website does and who won’t limit you to ordering 10 servers if and when you need them.

Other Dedicated Hosting Options

Chat server hosting, forum server hosting, blog web hosting, personal web hosting, and even adult web hosting are all options for your dedicated server. Remember, you can also run your dedicated server as a web or database server as well, so if your aim is just a simple, clean, dedicated server hosting solution for your business or ecommerce website, you can’t go wrong.

Dedicated server hosting can take many formats, from simple web servers designed just to showcase your products and services to complex ecommerce or social media streaming servers that are clustered between several powerful dedicated servers. Really, it’s ultimately up to you what you want to do with your dedicated web hosting server – just make sure the technology you are paying for is supporting your dedicated hosting ideas.

So what is a media server? And what is media server hosting?

A media server is really exactly what is sounds like – a server that houses media and can stream live content for video, audio, or any media format. Media servers are useful for adult web hosting, social network web hosting, game server hosting, popular band web hosting, or trendy podcast web hosting. If you use your server as a media server, you can stream your videos in live feeds or offer your podcasts on demand! Media servers are useful for ecommerce websites as well, to put you ahead of your game.

What can you do with media server hosting?

* Run Windows Media live and Microsoft Silverlight instantly
* Stream Flash Content
* Stream Quicktime Content
* Real Networks Streaming
* Live Event Video/Audio Streaming – perfect for adult websites, television stations, radio shows, bands or orchestras, religious organizations, or any other live event website