How does it differ from Shared Hosting?

Compared with Shared Hosting, Grid Hosting offers increased availability and scalability. Shared Hosting can handle a limited amount of traffic, beyond which the Website becomes unreachable. Grid Hosting responds to traffic spikes by adding additional resources to your Website, keeping your Website live regardless of traffic.

Due to differences in Grid Hosting, it cannot offer support for some of the technologies that Shared Hosting can:

• Access databases are not supported due to Access' locking scheme which prevents concurrent usage from different processes.
• Front Page Server Extensions are not currently supported.
• Java and ColdFusion are not currently supported.
• Concurrent file writes to the same file in multiple sessions or concurrent threads. Example of affected resources: File-based databases and cross session log files (these issues are exaggerated in a Grid Hosting environment due to additional volume).
• Storing data within the Application namespace and depending on multiple concurrent sessions accessing accurate data for the entire application.
• Static Classes where sessions across the Website (application) must have concurrent access to accurate data.

If you want to change your Grid Hosting account's operating system, see Switching Your Hosting Account Operating System.

Can I upgrade an existing plan to Grid Hosting?

Yes. For more information, see Upgrading to Grid Hosting from Shared Hosting.

Why should I purchase Grid Hosting instead of Shared Hosting?

Other plans require upgrading when you outgrow them. You can't outgrow Grid Hosting — your hosting plan grows as your Website grows, automatically.

Do I need to have server administration experience?

You do not need server administration experience. Grid Hosting is as easy to setup as our Shared Hosting offerings.

Is there a control panel like Parallels Plesk Panel or cPanel?

We offer our own easy-to-use control panel. The control panel is similar to the one we use on our Shared Hosting plans. Some of the features include:

• DNS control
• Domain management (add multiple domains).
• Access to quick-install applications.
• Access to database management.
• File management tools.

Can I host multiple domains?

Yes.

How far can I really scale?

There is theoretically no limit. We will continue to add servers and bandwidth to meet demand.

Will I be able to monitor the resources I am consuming?

You will be able to monitor bandwidth and disk usage. CPU, memory and page hit monitoring are planned for future releases.

Do I have manual control over my resources?

There are no plans for manual control over resources as the resources automatically adapt to increased demand.

Is my Website secure and protected from attacks? Do you offer a firewall?

We do the following to protect your information and maintain superior uptime:

• Use best-of-breed equipment for routers, firewalls, and servers.
• Offer full network redundancy.
• Employ 24x7 dedicated prevention systems to ensure the network perimeter remains secure.

While we keep our hosting environment secure, we cannot protect against weak passwords and vulnerable scripting practices.

Components:

• ASP
• ASP .NET (1.1, 2.0, 3, 3.5, and 4.0)
• ASP .NET AJAX
• Python CGI
• PHP 4 and 5
• MS SQL
• MySQL
• Perl w/ FASTCGI
• Ruby on Rails

Databases:

• MySQL
• MS SQL

Features:

• Secure Certificates
• Shell access via SSH
• Quick-install applications via Value Applications

The following are not currently supported, but may be supported in a future release:

• Java
• ColdFusion
• FrontPage Extensions

The following are not supported:

Databases:

• Access

Features:

• Streaming video
• Email hosting — you cannot use your hosting as an email server
• Multiple clients, like cPanel's or Parallels Plesk Panel's client configuration — however, Grid Hosting can allow multiple domains' hosting on the same account

Are there limitations to the type of software I can install?

The same limitations that apply to Shared Hosting apply to Grid Hosting.