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>2. What is a Virtual Web Site?</A
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> A World Wide Web (WWW) Server is normally a single machine dedicated to
processing HTTP requests for a single WWW site. Simply put, one WWW site
per machine. Since the computing resources for processing httpd requests is
low for most WWW sites, the majority of the computing resources are left
unused. A virtual WWW site simple allows more than one WWW site to share a
single processor. Instead of having www.domain1.com and www.domain2.com
requiring two physical computing devices, www.domain1.com and
www.domain2.com can be located on a single computing device and share common
resources.
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> Normally small computing facilities, and small businesses do not have the
resources to maintain a dedicated web server and a dedicated Internet
connection. These cost can easily start off at $10K for setup, and
$500-2500 monthly to maintain. Small computing facilities, and small
businesses are now able to "rent" WWW space from a Virtual WWW providers.
The customer can then maintain the WWW "pages" using a local telnet and/or
FTP connection.
</P
><P
> WWW providers such as InfoCom Networks http://www.infocom.net/
provide WWW space as low as $75 per month. A few Virtual Sites
might clear up the mystery. So the cost of setting up a WWW site is
significantly lower than that of setting up a dedicated server and
connection. The Virtual Site has a major advantage over other WWW
addressing schemes such as "www.yourprovider.com/~businessname". The
Virtual WWW server inherently contains the ability to move to a new location
or setup a dedicated WWW server without changing addresses. Changing WWW
URL's can result in a major loss of traffic to your site, and lots of
business literature updates.
</P
><P
> With most web sites, www.domain1.com and www.domain2.com both resolve to
separate IP's. In order to accept multiple request from a single host, the
virtual host must be able to answer request for both sites. The method used
to solve this problem is called IP aliasing. IP aliasing allows a single
host to accept request for multiple IP's. The virtual Web server must have
the ability to alias IP's
</P
><P
> IP aliasing is just one part of the virtual solution. The Domain Name System
(DNS) also must be configured to resolve both www.domain1.com and
www.domain2.com. If domain1.com and domain2.com are new domains, then both
must be registered with Internic. Currently, Internic is charging $50 a year
to maintain your domain.
</P
><P
> Most virtual WWW sites should also provide virtual mail, or the ability to
forward all mail to the virtual domain to another user or users.
</P
><P
> Virtual FTP or the ability to FTP using the standard host name
"ftp.domain1.com" should also be configured by the WWW provider.
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