CMS Security Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide for WordPress®, Joomla!®, Drupal™, and Plone®

Hosting Your Own Website Server

Occasionally, you will hear about a person who is hosting a web server at home. As a small business, you may very well be based in a home office. Hosting a server at home may seem like a good idea, but it is not. You should drop that idea and find proper hosting.

However, if you are a business with a technical staff, then hosting internally is a viable option. This brief section touches on the highlights of handling your own web server.

Getting Ready

You first must determine what size of physical server you'll need. If your website is a high-transaction store, then you'll want to look at a fast-processing, low-latency drive system. If you are in a low-volume, but high-bandwidth consumption business (for example, a training video server), then having the proper network bandwidth is where you will focus your budget dollars.

Determining your application stack, such as e-mail, web server, languages, and website software (for example, Joomla!, Drupal, Plone, or WordPress), will drive your hardware decision. Next up is the choice of operating systems. Although several are available, this book focuses on Linux primarily.

Each of these decisions will change your cost model in some fashion. For example, Linux will cost less, because it is an open source choice versus going with a major company like Microsoft that has higher-priced commercially licensed choices. Price should not be the deciding factor. Rather, choosing the right tool for the right job is the ...