Using a MySQL Installation Provided by an ISP
Most individuals and small- to medium-sized organizations don’t have the time or resources to maintain a production web server that’s available around the clock. Fortunately, there are countless Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that provide—usually for a fee—access to servers they maintain.
Since you’re reading this book, we can assume you’re interested in servers that can host dynamic web pages (for example, using PHP or Perl scripts) and provide a backend MySQL database that can be accessed by the web application. It’s not hard to find an ISP that provides this; a web search for “php mysql hosting” turns up several million sites.
When selecting a hosting package, see whether you are given
ssh or telnet access to the server to run the MySQL
client, or whether you can use only web clients such as phpMyAdmin;
using web clients is easy, but you could soon find them tedious to use
over extended periods of time. On a different note, don’t forget to
also check how much data transfer is included when comparing costs of
alternative web hosting deals. If your site becomes popular, it could
end up costing you a lot of money!
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