Access: Microsoft's latest database origination and maintenance software. It is very popular among developers who maintain online databases with Windows NT.

Active Server Page (ASP): ASPs are HTML documents implanted with scripts (typically Microsoft's VB Script or J script). These scripts are processed by the server before transferring to the user.

ActiveX: A set of qualities that define how applications are to share information with each other. These qualities are known as controls. This gives greater control to the client's system to execute commands/tasks.

Aliased Nameservers: An aliased nameserver is a nameserver that has been named as yours (the reseller's) despite the fact in real it belongs to your Web hosting provider. This ensures that domains located on your server are listed as "ns.yourservername.com" instead of "ns.yourprovidersname.com". Also see NAMESERVER below.

Apache: Most popular web server programs of the world, Apache was built by a group of open-source programmers and is often used because of its outstanding performance, strong safety features and the fact that it is free.

Bandwidth: The capacity of your site to store data that can be transmitted at a given moment to a server. The higher your bandwidth, the larger amount of traffic your site can handle at one time.

CGI: Abbreviation for Common Gateway Interface, a small script that processes data taken from the user (such as from a form application).

Cgi-bin: The directory located on web server where CGI scripts are to be stored.

Co-located hosting: This hosting option gives webmasters complete control over their server. Your duty is to provide the physical hardware and network administration; the hosting company will provide you with the rack space and Internet connection.

Cookie: A text file sent to a user's Web browser from a Web server. Cookies are typically exchanged back and forth between the two in order to prepare custom content for users, and to exchange data like registration information.

Dedicated hosting: This is a hosting feature that permits a website to have its own server. This is more elastic than shared hosting as webmasters have full control over the back end of the server, including choice of OS. Administration, however, is still handled by the hosting company.

Domain names: Domain names are the word sequences which are entered by the users in their URL bar to visit your site. They are attached to a DNS ( Domain Naming System), which is used to translate numeric addresses (known as IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses) into words. Each site you visit on the net has a numeric IP address behind its name.

Firewall: A piece of security software designed to protect Web servers. They are used to protect sites from hacker attacks/unauthorized access.

Flash: A popular piece of animation software developed by Macromedia. Flash is widely used on the Web because it requires little bandwidth, therefore making it friendly to users with low or high-speed connections.

FrontPage: A popular site design and management tool developed by Microsoft.

FTP: Means File Transfer Protocol, a method of allowing remote users and Web servers to exchange files.

HTML:Means Hyper Text Markup Language, the language by which Web servers and customer browsers communicate. All server-side functions (such as database processing), although they may be performed in another language, must eventually be output back to the user in HTML.

HTTP: Stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, the protocol by which HTML files move across the Internet. HTTP requires a client browser and an HTTP server (typically a Web server).

IIS: Short for Internet Information Server, Microsoft's server software for Windows NT/2000.

Intranet: A vast internal network structured in a fashion similar to the Internet. Intranets are usually established by large corporate organizations to improve communication. The main difference between the Internet and an intranet is that access to intranets are restricted to authorized members only.

IP: Stands for Internet Protocol, which designates the format of "data packets" that are used to exchange information over the Internet.

IRC: Short for Internet Relay Chat, a popular text-base multi-user chat network.

ISDN: Short for Integrated Services Digital Network, a high-speed solution to moving data over phone lines. It can transfer data at approximately 1,28,000 bits per second over a standard landline.

Load Balancing: Distributing data across a network of servers in order to ensure that a single web server does not get overloaded with work, thereby affecting performance.

Managed hosting: A dedicated server which have full technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.

MIME: Short for Multipurpose Internet E-mail Extensions, a protocol that permit users to transfer non-text messages like audio, video and images through e-mail.

Mirror sites: A mirror site is just a duplicate copy of another FTP or website. These are used to spread traffic load on busy websites.

MS Index Server: An add-on for Microsoft Internet Information Server that indexes documents on Web or Intranet servers running IIS. The information is then presented to users in a searchable format.

Nameserver: A server responsible for translating domain names and IP addresses.

NOC: Stands for Network Operations Center, a hosting company's "home base," so to speak. The NOC is usually where most administration, technical support and physical server storage takes place. For more information, please refer to our article, Inside the NOC, here.

OC: Short for Optical Carrier, representing the speed of fiber-optic networks. OC speed ranges anywhere between 1 and 48. Most of the hosting companies have OC3 connections, which permits for the transfer of data at a rate of upto 155.52 Mbps.

Packet switching: The method by which most data is exchanged throughout the Internet. Most data is broken down into smaller "packets" prior to transfer, and then reassembled at the destination.

Parking: All domain names have to be stored on a server in order to be purchased. Most domain registration services will therefore temporarily place a newly purchased name on their servers until a hosting plan is purchased or the owner points the DNS to a different site. This is known as parking.

POP: It is Post Office Protocol. An e-mail protocol that mail software such as Eudora use to communicate with mail servers.

Propagation: It is updating of the Internet i.e. the process where nameservers throughout the Internet add new domains and remove expired ones from their records. This may be a long process, which is why connecting to a new domain name can often take three or four days.

RAID: State for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, a method of data backup. Data is stored over a number of servers so that information will still be accessible if a piece of hardware/software crashes.

Reseller: A reseller operates components of a Web hosting operation using services, infrastructure and equipment provided with another Web hosting service. Few resellers operate whole businesses by using the hardware, software, network and logistical support of another Web hosting industry, while others simply operate as sales agents for other Web hosting companies, offering discounts and providing low-level technical support.

Scalability: The capacity with which a system or component can be modified to fit the problem area.

Shared hosting: The most basic type of web hosting. In this hosting service, numerous websites are shared on one server. While an economic solution, they typically cannot handle large amounts of storage or traffic.

Shopping cart: A program prepared to handle the e-commerce section of a website. Shopping cart software allows users to search and purchase products online.

SMTP: Short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a protocol for mail servers to exchange messages with each other.

SQL: Short for Standard Query Language. This is a standard protocol used to request information from databases. Servers which can handle SQL are known as SQL servers.

SSL: Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol which handle and protect confidential/sensitive information required for e-commerce transactions (like credit card numbers), developed by Netscape. SSL address usually begins with 'https'.

Subdomain: It is known as a "domain within a domain" or a subdivision of a larger domain. Subdomains are individual web addresses created upon a pre-existing domain name (such as customername.yourhostingcompany.com). As a reseller, you will have the option of assigning Subdomains to customer if they do not choose to have a domain name.

T1 Connection: These are actual Internet backbone connections. A phone or data connection that can support the transfer of Upto 1.544Mbits of data per second. T1 connections are popular among businesses and ISPs. Most T1s are connected to T3, which can handle Upto 43Mbits per second.

Tape back-up: A popular and cheap way to back up websites. Contents of a site are periodically stored that looks similar to a cassette. Some cassettes can store several gigabytes. Tape backup is the ability to periodically copy the contents of all or a designated amount of data from its usual storage device to a tape cartridge device so that, in the event of a hard disk crash or comparable failure, the data will not be lost. Tape backup can be done manually or, with appropriate software, be programmed to happen automatically.

Telnet: A command-line interface that permits remote users and web servers to communicate.

TCP: Short for Transmission Control Protocol, which is an important network protocol. TCP permits two hosts to connect and exchange data, and ensures that "data packets" are delivered exactly as sent.

TLD: Short for Top Level Domain, the suffix for major domain names like .com, .net and .org.

UNIX: A text-based, multitasking Operating System suitable for Web and network administration. A multiuser, multitasking operating system originally developed by AT&T Bell Labs that runs on a wide variety of computer systems. Unix has spawned numerous popular spinoffs, including Linux and Free BSD. Most Unix-based Operating Systems are open source, meaning the source code to the Operating System has been made freely available to the public for modification. Most Web hosting companies and resellers offer Unix-based hosting in some capacity or other.

USENET: A network of thousands of discussion groups (known as newsgroups) on the Internet.

UUENCODE: Short for Unix to Unix Encoding, a method of converting images to ASCII text in order to be transferred over the Internet.

Virtual host: It is the most basic type of hosting. Numerous Web sites are shared on one server is called shared web hosting. So virtual host is a shared hosting solution.

Virtualization: Virtualization is a framework or methodology of dividing the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments, by applying one or more concepts or technologies such as hardware and software partitioning, time-sharing, partial or complete machine simulation, emulation, quality of service and many others. A process/software designed to reduce server management costs through automation, while providing more control over service levels.

Virtual Private Server (VPS): A virtual private server provides the properties of a dedicated server on a machine that is shared by other web hosting customers. So customers get hosting services that are similar to that of dedicated Web hosting without sacrificing privacy or performance. It's a server that runs within another server

WHOIS: A central database which tracks all domain name/IP registrations.

Windows NT/2000: Microsoft developed a graphic-based, multitasking Operating Systems. Both can act as standalone OS for personal computers/workstations, or can serve as an OS for a website/network. Most Web hosting companies and resellers offer Windows-based hosting in some capacity or other.

XML: Short for Extensible Markup Language. XML is a language allowing developers to create their own markup tags. All XML tags are defined by the programmer, and can be interpreted differently in different applications. For example, the "" tag in HTML means Italics, but could mean anything in XML, depending on the function the developer assigns to it. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML.