Many novice (and even seasoned!) online store owners do not realize the importance of hosting platform that power their online store. In the case of Magento powered online stores, the importance of Magento hosting increases immensely because of the complexity of Magneto’s internal structure that supports the store and manages the transaction and customer handling processes.
Many store owners use cost as the only factor for opting for hosting for their Magento store. However, like with everything in life, you get what you paid for! Low cost hosting is a surefire way of disgruntled customers and lost revenues.
Selecting the right hosting opting for your Magento store is not that difficult. Just remember the following pointers and you should be doing well!
Discover Your Requirements
The first step in selecting the right Magento Hosting is to discover the requirements of your store. Three fundamental numbers in this process are disk space, bandwidth, processing capacity.
Many people make the mistake of using the average values for these key matrices. This is an important reason why stores fail to perform during crunch time when the demands often exceed these average numbers. The prudent policy should be the usage of maximum values so that the hosting platform is able to handle all the demands on the store.
Opt for Specialized Magento Hosting
Once you have figured out the key numbers, it is time to do some research on hosting providers. As you will discover, hosting providers offer a wide range of services. Since your store is powered by Magento, it is best to opt for a hosting provider that specializes in Magento hosting. This means that the infrastructure of the hosting provider is optimized for handling the unique demands and structure of Magento based stores. Because of their experience and expertise in managing Magento based stores, vendors like Cloudways are in the best position to advise you in selecting the parameters of your Magento hosting solution.
Select the Right Server(s)
The type of server that hosts your Magento store makes or breaks your business.
Hosting comes in two very distinct flavors. You should be very careful in choosing the right match for your business model’s requirements.
The first type is Shared Servers. These servers are created through virtualization technologies. Thus, several stores share a single physical server hardware platform. While this means that the cost of the hosting solution would be very competitive, the downside is that the finite and limited hardware resources (processors RAM and disk space) are shared dynamically among the stores. This could result in downtime and overall slow performance during peak usage times.
The second type is Dedicated Servers. These servers host a single store on a single hardware platform. The cost of the hosting solution increases significantly but with added benefits of speed and dedicated resources that manifest in excellent and consistent store performance.
Opt for the Right Hosting Type
At this point, you have decided upon the hosting parameters and the type of server for your store. Next and equally important consideration for your store is the type of hosting solution. This is a very important decision because it pertains to the day-to-day management of your store.
The first type of hosting solutions is Self-Managed Hosting solutions. These solutions are ideal for tech savvy people who understand the underlying workings of server hardware and software. Since you have complete control over the server, you could coax out high performance from the servers.
However, the downside is the constant attention that such a hosting solution requires constant and often undivided attention. In majority of cases, this is not possible for a typical store owner or administrator who has to see several other equally crucial aspects of running the store.
The second type of solutions is Managed Hosting solutions. These solutions are provided by vendors who take care of all aspects of server management including updates and backups. You only need to worry about the managing the store related activities while the hosting provider takes care of hardware and software issues. Many vendors such as Cloudways ensure that your store is up-and-running without any hassle.
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Security Matters (A Lot!)
Security is the most important (and unfortunately, most ignored!) aspect of the overall Magento store hosting and management process. While there are security related best practices that the store owners/administrators could implement themselves, the hosting provider is responsible for the bulk of the security related issues. This includes taking care of all the patches of both the underlying operating system of the server and the official Magento patches. In addition, the vendor should advice about the security related issues of third-party Magento themes and extensions that might be active at your store.
Before opting for a particular hosting provider, always do a proper research about the vendor’s reputation in security related matters. Although, as store owner/administrator, you are responsible for the security of your store, you could not do it without the continuous and dedicated support of the hosting provider.
Specialized Magento Support
When you face an issue, the support provided by the hosting provider matters a lot. While prompt and thorough support is the hallmark of every hosting provider, it is particularly important in the case of Magento store hosting providers.
Almost all issues, whether related to underlying hosting platform or the setup of Magento store itself require prompt attention because time is literally money in the case of Magento stores. The business is losing customers and money for every second the store is down or inaccessible. This is why always opt for a hosting provider who has Magento experts on its support teams. This way your issues receive expert attention and are resolved quickly and effectively.
To recap
Selecting the right Magento hosting solution is the matter of identifying correct store usage statistics, choosing the best mix of server type and hosting solution for your business model. You should also never compromise upon strict, proper security practices and dedicated support teams.
