Below is a descriptive glossary of many of the features identified in our Java Web Hosting Comparison chart. If you have any additional questions, please contact us.

Fast, Free Account Setup

JavaServletHosting.com does not charge setup fees for any hosting services. Setup is always free and fast. Since we use PayPal to process payments, you can pay by credit card or electronic debit/check quickly and easily. As long as you have ordered during normal business hours, your account will be set up the same day (typically within just a few minutes of payment verification).

Domain Name Registration

Every hosting package comes with the option of registering/transferring a domain name. We can host domain names with any extension (TLD), including all international TLDs. In addition we can also register/transfer a select group of TLDs for your convenience at a significant discount over most standard registrar fees. Please see the order form for complete pricing as it varies by TLD.

99.8% Server Uptime Guarantee

JavaServletHosting.com is proud to offer a *realistic* 99.8% server uptime guarantee. While other providers will make claims of 99.9999% or even 100% uptime, but then place a disclaimer that it does not include expected/scheduled maintenance downtime, we include that as a known factor (all servers will at some point require restarts for security patches, hardware upgrades/replacements, etc.). If at anytime we are unable to have our servers up and available to serve your website accordingly, we will issue a credit of 10x the downtime that exceeds our guarantee. The downtime/credit is calculated on a monthly basis and covers all problems within our control. Please see the User Agreement for additional details.

30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee

Try our service absolutely risk-free! If you wish to cancel your hosting account for any reason within the first 30 days, you will receive a full refund for all base hosting fees. This is a no-questions asked money back guarantee. This offer applies to the initial contracted term and does not include domain name registration or SSL certificates. If you selected an annual plan that included free domain registration, your refund will be less the posted domain registration fee. Guarantee does not apply to dedicated servers and is limited to one refund in any 12-month period per customer.

Multiple GigE Connectivity

JavaServletHosting.com is connected to the Internet via multiple private GigE (Gigabit Etherneta) connections from Sprint, Telia (x3), PCCW-BTN (x2), Level 3, Qwest and Savvis, as well as a supplemental gigabit Ethernet connection to the Atlanta Internet Exchange (AIX) public peering point supplying 12 additional providers, including Earthlink and Cox Communications.

24/7 Monitoring

JavaServletHosting.com has an extensive infrastructure monitoring system in place to which very few providers can compare. More than 70 metrics are collected on each server on a constant basis, not only providing for reactive response to any situations, but also providing proactive forcasting to allow for preemptive addressing of potential situations before they arise. In addition, the network itself is monitored across numerous metrics (differs depending upon device) providing similar proactive/reactive monitoring capabilities. In most cases our systems have the ability to "self-heal", but in situations where that cannot occur, our support technicians are avaiable 24/7 to expedite resolution.

Daily Server Backups

Full server backups are performed every night. Our backups are intended to restore servers in the event of a catastrophic failure; they are not intended to provide customers with their own personal backups. We include a Backup Manager that allows you to make/download daily backups of your individual website. If you absolutely must retrieve data from our backups, a flat rate of $20 per daily backup retrieved may be assessed.

Backup UPS Power

Two 50 kilowatt 480 volt Liebert UPS's provide conditioned power to our main PDU (power distribution unit), which continually balances and monitors every aspect of the power supplied to the NOC. This provides very clean power to the hardware and virtually eliminates a service outage due to a facility power failure. In addition, should an extended outage ever occur, 2 diesel generators (1.5mW/800kW) with in-ground 5000 gallon tanks are on stand-by at all times.

Page Hits

Page Hits include every requested element of every page on your website. Some vendors limit this number as part of their hosting costs without any regard to the size of the data actually transferred. We find this a poor measure for billing purposes, and as a result, we do not limit you specifically on the basis of page hits. We instead base utilization on true bandwidth consumed.

RAID Storage Space

All disk storage provided by JavaServletHosting.com is stored on hardware-based RAID arrays to ensure maximum uptime and reliability of your data. All hosting servers make use of RAID 1 mirrored arrays, while all NAS servers (backup nodes) make use of RAID 5 arrays. The majority of sites hosted use less than 200MB of disk space, and our shared plans included 2-5x that amount. If you require more, additional RAID storage space can be added as an option. IMPORTANT NOTE: Unlike other providers, under our redundant systems (including the number of backups we store for customers), 100MB of used space actually consumes approximately 1GB of physical space, so simply comparing advertised disk space is in most cases an "apples-to-oranges" comparison. Most providers do not have hardware-based RAID/NAS implemented with regular backup rotations to protect and safely recover customer data.

Domain Aliases

You can have more than one domain name resolving to your master site. For example, you can set yourname.net as an alias to yourname.com.

Subdomains

A subdomain is essentially a secondary virtual server for your primary domain. It follows the pattern similar to 'subdomain.domain.com' (assuming your domain is 'domain.com'). Each subdomain is mapped to directory in the root of your primary domain's website and can run filetypes of html, php and perl. They cannot run jsp or servlets due to the way Tomcat performs its mappings. All of our packages come with at least 1 subdomain (additional are available as a paid option; some plans may include unlimited subdomains).

Premium Web-Based Control Panel

The Customer Portal (CP) gives you the capability to manage all aspects of your account and is included with every hosting package. With the click of a button you can install applications, create email accounts, manage directories, or even view your site statistics. You can even add additional options to your site the minute you need them. The CP also give you online account management . You can change your billing cycle, update your address, or even change your method of payment. With this best-in-class tool you not only gain control of the features of your website, but also the flexibility to make changes within your time frame according to your needs.

File Manager

The File Manager is a very powerful feature. It allows you to manipulate all the files in your web site. You are able to create, delete, and move your files. You can also upload files from your local PC to the server in File Manager; all via the web browser, without the need for an FTP client. Plus, you can edit the HTML in any of your files from this option.

Backup Manager

The Backup Manager will allow you to backup and compress your website files. This is an excellent and free way of versioning your website code, images and more.

Cron Job Manager

Cron jobs allow you to automate repetitive tasks on the server that hosts your web site. Our Cron Job Manager is a powerful web-based tool available in your CP that allows you to take a hands-free approach to repetitive tasks. For example, you could add a cron job that automatically copies a MySQL database dump to a secure location on your account as a backup, or one that automatically retrieves a closing stock price daily and adds it to a live database.

Shell Access/Telnet (via SSH)

Many users are not at all familiar with telnet and just as many do not need to use it. Telnet allows you to get a shell (command prompt) on our Linux servers. The implementation of shell access that we use is called SSH (standard Telnet is highly insecure). Due to the sensitive nature of such access, we require you to send us a fax with a copy of your photo ID if requesting SSH access. You will need an SSH client to connect as well.

Site Statistics GUI

Many statistics about the usage of your web site are available through the Site Statistics option in the CP. We have implemented AWStats that will allow you to view how many hits your pages receive, the number of pageviews, what web site referred your visitors, and which of your pages is visited most often. This tool tracks your site's statistics over time so you will always know how many visitors your site has and where they are coming from. Use this information to analyze your marketing strategy or plan your next advertising campaign. This vital information is always available and updated daily to your site's CP.

Access to Raw Logs

You can download the raw access logs that contain all the recorded hit information that your site has received. These logs are only really useful if you have ur own preferred reporting tool to parse the data or you are looking for specific data on which to search.

Bandwidth Usage

This is the amount of incoming and outgoing network traffic specific to your domain. The majority of sites require less than 3 gigabytes (GB) of traffic per month; however, all of our plans provide for more than that amount. If you require more, additional bandwidth can be added as an option.

POP3/IMAP4 Accounts

Email addresses are very flexible. You can connect to your mail server here using either POP3 or IMAP4 clients (though we do not recommend you mix the two protocols for any single account as you may cause some inconsistencies; sticking with a single protocol is the most reliable method of accessing your mail).

Email Aliases

Email aliases allow you to have multiple email addresses on your domain routing email to just a single email inbox/account. It gives you the ability to have many external email identities for your domain, but more easily manage the email through just one actual email account rather than an individual email account for each and every address.

WebMail (Web-Based Email)

WebMail unburdens you and your users from your PC and allows you to check your email from any computer with just a browser and an Internet connection! All of the email users under your domain name will be able to send, receive, delete, and compose email with this user-friendly, web-based program.

Secured Private SMTP Server

Many web hosts require you to use your ISP's SMTP (outgoing mail) server. JavaServletHosting.com allows you to have your own private and secured SMTP server (mail.domain.com). We do require you to use authentication to access it, and as always, please try to use it only when necessary. Your local ISPs SMTP server is always the quickest route since you are physically on their network. In addition, if you are using a mail client on a local machine, the sending of mail through our servers SMTP port actually counts 2x against your bandwidth utilization since the email has to come into our server and then back out again. It is best to limit the use of our SMTP server to your web application only, not the individual email accounts you use remotely.

Mailing Lists

Mailing lists allow you to distribute email to a large number of subscribers in a very efficient manner. You can manage your mailing list(s) through the CP, and subscribers can add/remove themselves in an automated manner.

Custom MX Record Modification

Many hosting providers will charge set up fees or monthly fees if you wish to set up a custom MX record (if they even offer it). We allow you to enter MX records of your choice at no charge. This is ideal if your company runs their own mail servers or if you prefer to use the specialized mail services of companies like BigMailBox.com or Everyone.net.

Tomcat 5.5 (Java Servlets & JSPs)

We currently offer Tomcat 5 (specifically Tomcat 5.5). Our Tomcat 5.5 platform extends Java Servlet 2.4 and JSP 2.0 specification capabilities to each virtual server. Our shared servers are designed for the deployment of previously built solutions and are not intended for 'from scratch' development. As such, we provide JRE 1.5 support, rather than JDK 1.5 support. All Java code must be executed through the Tomcat container. Please be sure to review our Usage Policy for application/framework/API exclusions. Also note that WAR files are not supported on the shared platform; the contents of the .war must be decompressed and deployed into the industry standard /WEB-INF directory structure provided.

Tomcat 6 (Java Servlets & JSPs)

We currently offer Tomcat 6. Our Tomcat 6 platform extends Java Servlet 2.5 and JSP 2.1 specification capabilities to each virtual server. Our shared servers are designed for the deployment of previously built solutions and are not intended for 'from scratch' development. As such, we provide JRE 1.6 support, rather than JDK 1.6 support. All Java code must be executed through the Tomcat container. Please be sure to review our Usage Policy for application/framework/API exclusions. Also note that WAR files are not supported on the shared platform; the contents of the .war must be decompressed and deployed into the industry standard /WEB-INF directory structure provided.

PHP 5

PHP is a very popular and robust scripting language. We have included many supplmental modules, such as MySQL support. We also include the Zend Optimizer for increased speed in parsing.

Private CGI-BIN Directory

We encourage development of highly interactive successful sites. For your site to be truly interactive you may need to be able to run computer programs/scripts in your own cgi-bin. This is standard with all packages.

MySQL Databases

Sun MySQL is our database of choice. We develop all of our own products using MySQL. Each MySQL database allows for 10 concurrent connections. We recommend the use of connection pooling for active sites. MySQL storage space is part of your overal disk space allocation.

MySQL DB WebAdmin

This interface is located in your CP and allows you to create and manage MySQL databases, user accounts and more.

phpMyAdmin Web Interface

This is a web-based tool that allows you administer your MySQL databases. You can create/edit/delete/replicate tables and fields, backup your data and schemas, add/modify/delete data and much more.

SSL Support (https://)

Due to the nature of virtual mappings within Tomcat, we cannot provide a shared SSL certificate. Servlets must run using your fully-qualified domain name and utilizing a SSL certificate on another domain in a virtualized fashion (as is done with shared certs) would render your servlets unusable. We will be happy to help you install a test certificate (for those of you that need SSL but do not require one from an approved Certificate Authority (CA)), or a production certificate, which we would recommend, to perform secure transactions on the web using https://www.yourdomain.com. You must acquire a secure certificate either through us or from an authorized CA. We will generate the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) and install the certificate for you. A small fee applies for the required dedicated IP address, separate from the certificate cost.

Password-Protected Directories

You can use the CP to specify which users are allowed to access certain areas on your site. When visitors click on a certain URL, they are requested to enter a username and password which you have configured. This function is for non-Java portions of your site (a Realm should be set up for Java app security).

24/7 Support Helpdesk

Our integrated billing, knowledgebase and trouble ticket system is known as the Customer Portal and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The knoweldegbase contains FAQs to our customers' most common questions and includes sample code for such things as authenticated JavaMail and JDBC. If there is a planned outage or known issue, announcements are also proactively made within the Helpdesk to keep you informed.

Shockwave & Flash

Macromedia (Adobe) Shockwave and Flash allows you to bring your web content to life with unique animated capabilities. HTTP streaming is supported.

Quicktime & VIVO

Quicktime and VIVO allow you to bring your web content to life with streaming video technology. HTTP streaming is supported.

Real Audio/Video Streaming

We support RealMedia (Audio/Video) streaming via HTTP at no extra charge.

osCommerce Shopping Cart

The osCommerce Shopping Cart is a full-featured shopping cart that can be installed with the click of a button. The product is fully documented at the osCommerce website. Please refer to the osCommerce website if you have any questions about using the shopping cart. Limited support is provided by JavaServletHosting.com.

Custom Error Pages

Instead of having the standard browser-generated error pages appear when someone encounters some problem with your site or files, you can create your own error pages with a simple tool in the CP.