Friday 24 February 2012

Where Should You Host Your Magento Ecommerce Website?

Magento is a powerful, flexible and user-friendly shopping cart. It features a rich and diverse range of features, which make it ideal for tasks ranging from simple shopping carts for individual merchants to large-scale retailers with numerous offerings. For anyone with such needs, Magento represents an obvious choice. Less obvious, however, is what companies actually offer hosting services for a Magento site. If you wish to host this specific form of shopping cart, here are a few pointers to help pick the best provider.
Generally speaking, selecting a host for a given web technology involves two steps. First, the host must support the programming language in which the application is developed. Selecting a host that does not support the technology will result in a website that simply will not run.


Magento is written in the PHP programming language, a technology commonly used in developing web applications. Fortunately, most web hosts support PHP applications, so it will be fully compatible with a good selection of hosting services. Even so, it is important to ensure that the hosting company supports PHP before selecting it for your needs.
The second general consideration is whether or not the hosting provider supports the database necessary for Magento to operate. While many web applications can function with multiple database types, some are written specifically for one specific database. If the host does not support the required database then the application cannot store its data.

Magento uses the MySQL database. Fortunately, MySQL is the most commonly-available database among web hosting providers. Again, this means that it is supported by the vast majority of hosts, giving you more flexibility to choose.
If the previous discussion seems overly complex, it is only by way of explanation. Fortunately, most existing web hosts meet these requirements, and many are eager to advertise such support. If you wish to be ensured of selecting a host that works, however, here are a few practical guidelines.

First, Magento's website offers a list of hosts which advertise support for or have been confirmed to work. Any of these companies should be able to handily meet your needs not only for hosting Magento sites, but also for supporting any number of similar web-based applications. Of course, since this is a third party directory, any details should be checked out with the companies themselves before any decisions are made.

Many hosts offer one-click Magento installation, making it possible to transition from an empty web space to a fully-functioning shopping cart in a matter of minutes. Since such a feature is often desirable, hosts will often explicitly advertise support for this particular platform among their offerings to attract business. Often a Google search for "Magenta hosting" will offer up a large list of such providers for you to scour through.

Should that not work, or should none of the hosts meet your needs, simply searching for a host that meets the previously described requirements should yield a host capable of running Magento. Since it is a popular application, any competent technical support or sales staff member should be able to advise you as to whether or not they are able to support your site.

Whether your needs are simple or complex, Magento is a powerful platform with the features to meet them. Should you need to conduct business online, it certainly warrants consideration, and selecting a suitable host is a crucial step in that process.

Original Source
Magento Ecommerce Development

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