Real facts about virtual hosting
What is virtual hosting? It turns out that there are a number of different options for hosting services, and virtual hosting is one which hosts several domain names on the same server. Virtual hosting is closely connected to shared web hosting, so called because it allows a single machine to efficiently “share” resources like memory and processor cycles among multiple domains.When you choose virtual hosting, you also have the choice of name-based or IP-based virtual hosting. Name-based virtual hosting does just what it says, using different host names on the same IP address. The server uses the Host header field to determine which site and page to access.In contrast, IP-based virtual hosting assigns a different IP address to each host. This increases the cost of hosting, and also uses up a greater number of IP addressesa growing phenomenon which is referred to as IP address exhaustion.In some cases, virtual hosts can also configure the port of the website from the default 80. This could be accessed by adding 
port number), as in :81 for port 81, to the end of the address. However, this option is not accessible to all webcrawlers and firewalls.The biggest benefit to virtual hosting is the lower prices, since the server can be divided among many users. However, it’s imperative that the Domain Name System (DNS) function properly in order to access virtually-hosted websitesif the DNS fails, the browser may not find the prompted web site.Virtual servers can be used within a company to host several of their websites on the same IP address. This is generally an economic option, since this requires less management and administration on the part of the IP department, and obviously a smaller number of servers. However, companies should be aware of both the pros and cons when it comes to virtual hosting. There are a number of other hosting options, including reseller, dedicated, managed, colocation, cloud, clustered, and grid hosting.