The history of we hosting started in 1990 when the first web program was written by Tim Berners Lee. A great number of programs followed with companies creating their own form of services to offer web hosting which has resulted in the modern scenario. Today there is a huge increase in the web hosting industry. Although the term web hosting is very common today, it meant nothing before 1991 and similarly, there no ideas of the internet at that time either. However, to get the best from modern web hosting it can be worthwhile to research the development of the internet and it has developed a lot. Aside from television and radio, the internet is probably the largest technological development and there are over 50 million websites, making up the platform of the modern internet. If you did not have websites to visit, what would you do online?
A look back at earlier days
It was in 1962 and through the eyes of J.C.R. Licklider that the genesis of the internet began at MIT. A whole host of articles were created by Licklider which shared his ideas about the Galactic Network which described computers being linked to each other, providing information resources that everyone could share. The Computer Science program at MIT was also known as the Advanced Research Project Agency [ARPA] and this was where Licklider was scheduled to visit. Whilst there, he would tell of his ideas and try to convince people there was a demand for this form of networking computers.
It is always interesting to be aware of the political background at the time and ARPA was developed at the same time as NASA. After the Russians launched Sputnik, their artificial satellite, there was a huge need for the Americans to keep pace with their Soviet counterparts. The first form of computer networking came through packet switching, which enabled data to be transferred as tiny packages through telephone lines which was a huge improvement over the previous form of utilizing circuit lines that were solid. A great benefit was that this connection was busy only when information was passing through and this helped to free up room to allow the computer to undertake additional tasks. Paul Baran invented the Hot Potato network design when he was trying to create a package that would ensure telecommunication data to be passed in the event of a nuclear war. This design was to play a major role in the development of the internet.
The progress of the internet continued apace and was benefited by computers being able to communicate with each other. It is fair to say that 1991 is a key year in internet history and although it was already around, its development was going to get much bigger. The National Science Foundation [NSF] played a massive role in this when they judged that there should be a lowering of the commercial limits placed on the web. This changed the internet and brought many new possibilities and advantages. E-commerce developed from this point and the rush of companies looking to be ready for the boom period was signing up in droves. It was near the end of 1991 when staff at CERN brought the WWW, World Wide Web to users and this system used HTML, otherwise known as Hyper Text Markup Language. HMTL was also the brainchild of Tim Berner Lee and he used the same technique to create URL, the uniform resource locator. That may just seem like the last in a long line of abbreviations but it has quickly became the frequently used term for finding the addresses of websites.
As the internet expanded, its user base grew and it was no longer the preserve of computer literate people and technically minded folk. New features made it easier for the common person to use the system but equally,there was a drive to push technology further, so the setup became more complex in other ways. It was predicted by the business sector that the internet would boom and be a future hit and many organizations attempted to capitalize on this.
Hosting a web site was not cheap in the formative years but the price is now affordable, even if understanding everything may be a bit tricky for some users. One of the business developments has come about by firms renting server space and this has grown from humble beginnings. Nowadays, it is fair to say that there are a similar number of companies offering internet access as there are providing services for hosting web sites. As computer and technology has grown, so has the internet. Business too has dramatically changed and more use of computers and web hosts has brought about these changes.
Today there are over 35,000 businesses that play host to in excess of 100 websites through their server. This industry is growing due to healthy competition and in the time it takes you to read this article, there are probably hundreds more companies who have joined up. The WWW has had many programs but the first was a hypertext editor which made its debut in the NeXt machine. This progress was brought about by Nicola Pellow, a student, who brought about the line mode browser. Its main purpose was to provide a platform for discussion by people looking to research certain areas and this was made possible by the server publishing details of HTTP, HTML and UDI. Further progress was enabled when internet browsers such as Mosaic or Cello were created which allowed people to operate and search on machines which were not the NeXT model. The next notable landmark year was 1994 which heralded the start of the World Wide Consortium when firms came together to develop similar practices for web usage and which became the basis for a world of web sites.
Before this development, networking had been undertaken through a number of TCP/IP features but the people at the time had no concept of the future of the internet. Recent years much debate and praise to issues stemming from TCP/ICP protocols and its development, with much of the praise coming from the IETF meeting. More tools were required to continue the progress and further debate and conjecture about how best to facilitate expansion was discussed. An internet connection was vital and a number of easy to use products were created with this aim in mind. At times it seemed as though there were restrictions on how far the commercial activity would go but as numbers of people using the internet grew, the importance of the service developed. The more the internet became integral to everyday life, the more developments and technological change had to develop to make it all possible.
This can be seen in the way that many IT organizations such as Microsystems, Sun, Microsoft or IBM have moved into the internet market with an array of products, tools and other items to assist the development of the internet and web applications. There has been a development in the way that web servers are providing access to customers and the web pages that they need to visit, in addition to a large range of additional services and features.
In addition to tools and services, there has been a requirement for the makers of hardware to improve the size of their power servers to ensure the growth of the web hosting industry continues. There is no doubt that the way the internet is used today is drastically different from its origins. It may have started off with Personal Computers onto the client server and then to the Peer to Peer [P2P] type network. There have been abundance of different features that came to life thanks to the internet and these include passing of information and data, communicating via email, being able to log on remotely and many other useful functions. It seems that if you want it you can have it but also bear in mind that the internet is still rapidly developing. With television and videos on the internet being the latest features, it may be hard to predict what is coming next on the internet but whatever it is, it should be interesting.
Source: Web Design
