Reselling web hosting services is a very common thing.  Your own web hosting provider may be a reseller without you even knowing it!  Reseller hosts typically pay for a more expensive account with another host, and have tools to re-sell you space out of their allottment.

There is a slight difference between reselling and co-locating which is outlined in a future post.

So how do you check if your host is a reseller?  It can be tricky, but the first place to check is this website: http://www.whoishostingthis.com.  Enter your web hosts domain (ie: hostgator.com).  It will run what’s called a “reverse DNS lookup” which will indicate where the servers are actually located.  You’ll notice Hostgator is actually hosted by a company called “The Planet” which is a large-scale server leasing company.

Reseller hosting is not necessarily a bad thing.  If you are looking for basic hosting services, this is a perfectly fine source.  If you want core access, root access, and very specific requirements, you may want to look at companies who are not resellers.

Web hosts are starting to claim that their web servers are “optimized for energy efficiency”. Although this may be true, this is a hard claim to dispute because standards have not yet been set for efficient operation of web servers. However, if you know something about servers, these things could help you determine if a web host has truly optimized their servers to run on the least amount of energy.

The type of server matters. Blade servers tend to be more efficient because often components that consume the most energy can be shared such as fans and motherboards/processors.

The age matters. Servers are like any other technology, they become outdated as soon as they ship from the factory. Unfortunately, web hosts make money after servers have been paid for, so there is built-in economic incentives to keep servers well past their prime.

Hard drive and storage types matter. Solid state hard drives (not often found in web hosting applications) consume much less energy because there is no spinning disk.

Power supply matters. How the host configures their power supply can increase or decrease energy consumption dramatically.

Cooling systems matter. As server farms or data centers become more advanced, more efficient methods of cooling the massive heat generated by servers advances as well. From liquid nitrogen to water cooled, the method of cooling matters. Choose hosts located in colder climates. This takes less energy from the grid to cool controlled atmospheres.

Ask your host about these things, and make them part of your web host evaluation.

This is a term often used among green web hosts to describe the carbon footprint of the company.  Carbon neutral means the energy consumption of a particular activity has been equalized in one of two ways:

a) Carbon credits have been purchased equal to the energy consumption (effectively removing the exhausted carbon from the atmosphere through scrubbing or reclamation programs).

b) Renewable energy credits have been purchased equal to the consumption of non-renewable fuels (effectively inserting clean energy into the grid).

A major pillar of green web hosting is utilizing renewable energy instead of conventional, fossil fuel based energy.  Servers consume vast amounts of energy both conventionally and kinetically by operating fans to cool them.  In fact it is said that “By 2020 the web hosting industry will be as big of a polluter as the airline industry!”

Renewable energy is defined as any source of energy generated from natural sources which are naturally replaced.  However using this definition – one might say that oil is a naturally occuring, naturally renewing source.  So we append this definition with “Energy that is generated from natural sources that does not produce any significant amount of pollution through either production, generation or maintenance.”

Simply put, renewable energy is wind power, hydroelectric, photovoltaic (solar), biomass, geothermal or biofuel.

This is one method of making sure the energy-suck of hosting is environmentally friendly. Purchasing a “carbon credit” essentially means the web host has calculated their total energy usage and purchased a credit for the greenhouse gasses they have contributed. Usually this means they are purchasing green energy and putting it into the energy grid.

This could also mean the host has contributed to a program that is supposed to have “scrubbed” the atmosphere of the amount of CO2 the host put in.

Important note: This does not mean the servers are powered by wind, solar, etc. This means the energy could have come from anywhere, and the host has made the effort to neutralize their carbon footprint.

A truly green web host will attempt to improve the energy source – as well as the energy consumption of their operation.

Several green hosts claim they have replaced their old, clunky, energy-sucking servers with state-of-the-art, energy efficient ones.

This is difficult to verify – however several hosts identify the exact servers they use which can be checked against a list of most efficient servers. Dell, HP and IBM all sell an energy efficient model of their servers.

Green web hosting is a movement to change the way the internet is served to its customers. Web servers run 24/7, and draw an immense amount of energy from the power grid. Over 50% of the energy generated in the United States comes from dirty coal power – making web hosting a significant contributor to global warming.

The world is at a tipping point right now when it comes to making web hosting more environmentally friendly. Ways that hosts are greening their services include:

• Using energy efficient servers
• Powering their facilities with on-property solar or wind energy
• Purchasing carbon credits or energy offsets to remove the carbon they put into the atmosphere
• Planting trees for each new account to balance out the carbon footprint
• and more