When it comes to web hosting industry, a database is one of the most important applications that you must be first aware of. A database is an organized collection of information that can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. Databases can efficiently store large quantities of information. If you are creating a website with a lot of data to work with, then you need to use a database. Databases make organizing and maintaining long-term data easier.
You can use any database management system to access information from a database. Most web hosting companies provide a web-based management tool to manage your own databases. SQL is a special-purpose programming language used for accessing the databases.
The most common databases are MS Access, MySQL, SQL Server, and Oracle.
SQL Server
SQL Server is a popular database software for database-driven web sites that have high amount of traffic volume per month or web sites that need to handle large amount of files. SQL Server is a very powerful, reliable, robust and full featured SQL database system. This is why SQL Server hosting is expensive. SQL Server requires a Windows operating system.. You can use it with asp.net hosting.
| Recommended SQL server hosting: InterServer (MSSQL 2008), 3Essentials.com (MSSQL 2008) |
Oracle
Oracle is almost the same thing as SQL Server. It is also very powerful, robust and full featured SQL database system that can handle high amount of traffic volume per month. The only difference from SQL Server is that Oracle can be used for any types of hosts and operating systems. i.e. Oracle runs on Windows or Linux operating systems
MySQL
MySQL well known for its affordability, stability, and flexibility. It is an inexpensive alternative to the expensive Microsoft and Oracle solutions. The PHP / MySQL are widely used by Web sites and most web hosting service providers use MySQL database. MySQL is part of the quartet LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. MySQL runs on many different operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X,AIX, IBM i-5, BSDI, FreeBSD, HP-UX, NetWare, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OS / 2 Warp, SGI Irix, Solaris, SunOS , SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, Tru64 Unix, Windows (2000, XP, Vista and 7).The databases are accessible using the programming languages C, C + +, VB, VB. NET, C #, Delphi / Kylix, Eiffel, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby and Tcl.
| Recommended MYSQL hosting: Bluehost, WebHostingHub |
Access
Microsoft Access can be used for a web site that requires only a simple database solution.
| Recommended Access database hosting: InterServer |