Clustered

A group of several servers that share work and may be able to back each other up if one server fails is considered clustered.

Collocation

More typically spelt ‘co-location’, it is a service whereby a company that owns a server houses it in another company’s data center due to the greater security, stronger backbone or other technological reasons.

CGI

(Common Gateway Interface) — A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the ‘CGI program’) talks to the web server. Usually a CGI program is a small program that takes data from a web server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form into an e-mail message, or turning the data into a database query.

CGI scripts

CGI "scripts" are just scripts which use CGI. These scripts are usually written in PERL or C++ and are usually placed in the web directory and called through a form. CGI scripts link the server and a program running on the system; for example, CGI scripts are used with interactive forms.

CGI-BIN

The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGI programs are stored. The `bin` part of `cgi-bin` is a shorthand version of `binary`, because once upon a time, most programs were referred to as `binaries`. In real life, most programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files — scripts that are executed by binaries located elsewhere on the server. While many hosts will allow you to store cgi scripts anywhere in your directory, the CGI-BIN usually affords a higher level of security.

Cage

One measurement for server space in a colocation facility. Generally, a cage is larger and more secure than a rack.

Catch-all Email Account

An email account in which an email of the form, anything@yourdomain.com, will go to you. For example, Support@you.com, Webmaster@you.com, and anything-else@you.com, will all be sent to the account (some hosts allow you to have these sent to different accounts) set up for you.

Certificate Authority

An issuer of Security Certificates used in SSL connections.

Control Panel

A Web site Control Panel provides a simple user interface for maintaining and monitoring your Web site. Features of the Control Panel vary among providers, but most include site administration, design, statistical reporting, and account maintenance tools.

Contact Record

In the case of many registries, contact information for technical, billing and administrative purposes are maintained in their database. It is important to keep your contact records updated to ensure that billing and renewal can proceed without problems.

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion is a scripting language used on web pages to interface with. MS Access, dBASE, FoxPro, and Paradox databases. If you use Cold Fusion, you will usually need a host which uses an NT operating system.

Cookie

The most common meaning of ‘Cookie’ on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online shopping cart information, user preferences, etc.

Database

When we speak of databases for web hosting we are usually talking about web sites that need to add, delete, and update large quantities of information via the web. There are many different types of database systems available. Some of these include MS Access, MySQL, SQL Server, and Oracle Databases. If you plan on using ASP more than likely you will need your hosting company to have a database.

Database server

A database server is specifically configured to run database software. Typically, a company will use a database server combined with other servers to run a powerful web application such as e-commerce.

Dedicated server

A dedicated server is one that a web hosting company has dedicated to a single client. In other words, only one client can access that server and that company’s site is the only one residing on that server.

DNS

Domain Naming System. The DNS is a distributed, replicated that allows nameservers to map easily remembered domain names to an IP number.

Domain Name

The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine. For example, the domain names: candidwebhosting.com, ftp.candidwebhosting.com, whatever.candidwebhosting.com can all refer to the same machine, but each domain name can refer to no more than one machine.

Data Transfer

Data Transfer / Hits You have unlimited data transfer (or hits) on your virtual server. Any outward-bound traffic from your web site is considered data transfer. For example, each time a html file, image, or other element on your web page is loaded, data transfer is generated.

Detailed Web Statistics

Comprehensive daily graphical reports on your website visitor demographics. Allows you to monitor how much traffic goes to your Website.

Disk space

Refers to the amount of server disk storage your account is allocated. One of the factors in how much you’ll pay for Web hosting is how much space you will need to store your Web pages. Disk space is usually reported in megabytes (MB). The amount of space you will need depends on the number of pages in your Web, and more importantly, on the number and size of your graphic images. Although it is difficult to determine exactly how much space you will need, keep in mind that you can get about 100,000 words on a single floppy disk, or 1.44MB.

Down-time

The amount of time your Web site is disconnected or inaccessible via the Internet is known as down-time.