Web Hosting: Its Ties To the History of the Internet
What is a Web Host?
A web host is a commercial company, private company, or a university that stores data from websites and gives users access to bandwidth on the Internet. It includes many other services as well, from backing up your work to on-line security. In the past few years web hosting has also added cloud services as well. Web Hosting is a full-service business for both individuals and companies.
Web History
While the direct history of commercial web hosting begins in 1991, the ideas behind it begin with the men and women who designed and built the Internet. J.C.R. Licklider was at MIT in 1962 when he wrote about connected computers that could be accessed and searched for information by anyone around the world.
When Licklider became part of ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) he was able to convince others that computer networking would be important in the future. During this time period computers were primarily used at the Government level. There were a few other groups, but money limited the access of most users.
Paul Baran is the man who designed the foundations of what would become the Internet. At the time he was working on a project that would sustain communication during a nuclear war. He came up with a process for moving data (that he defined as blocks), around from node to node like a “hot potato.” The blocks would move along the nodes based on the nearest nodes that worked, bypassing any that no longer worked. Donald Davies was also working on the same problem. He called those blocks packets. And “packet switching” was born.
In 1965 the first computer network was actually born. Lawrence G Roberts, and Thomas Merril connected a computer in Massachusetts with a computer in California. In 1966 Roberts came up with the idea for wide-area network he called ARPANET. In 1969 ARPANET became real. Four Universities: UCLA, UCSB, Standford, and the University of Utah became the web hosts for ARPANET Internet communications using dial-up services.
The Internet slowly moved from government, military, and academic usage hosted by universities to an Internet opening up to more sectors of users. Every user still had to have their own server or pay exorbitant amounts to a server host (web host).
In 1991, a new age began. Rules that hindered commercial sites and individuals changed, and the web was more open to public enterprises. Early on, companies understood the value of offering web hosting to others who might not have the time or the equipment to set up their websites.
These sites really begin to operate in the mid 1990’s with sites like Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod. These sites offered their services to the average person making it possible for anyone to have a website. Now, with even more people on-line, there are more web hosts offering more services.
When searching for a web host, you want to choose the best packages available. You can contact us for more information on what we can offer you.
