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When it comes to choosing a hosting solution, you'll want to take many things into consideration:
What language will you use to code your site? If you are coding in ASP (Active Server Pages), you are best suited for a Windows powered server with IIS. If you are coding PHP, Perl or JSP, either Windows or Linux/Unix will work, but make sure to check with the perspective web host that the server maintains the proper software, plug-ins and modules needed to host your site efficiently. If you're coding a straight HTML web page, almost any web host should serve your needs. With a straight HTML site, reliability is your greatest concern. Ask yourself these essential questions:
 Is your site going to use a database? If so, Microsoft SQL Server will only work on a Microsoft Windows platform. MySQL and a few other databases work on both platforms quite well.
- Does the hosting company have the software you need installed or is it cost extra?
- How much control over the database do you need?
- How much space for the database do you require?
- Can you use phpmyadmin or a similar database control system to add/remove databases and create/restore backups?
- Are your database(s) backed up on a frequent basis?
These are all important questions for any database driven websites. Your data and how it is maintained, stored, processed and backed up is critical to your project.
As for choosing one platform over another, both Windows and Linux/Unix platforms (the most common platforms available) are excellent and stable solutions. I haven't had the opportunity to run a Novell or Sun platform, but I'm sure they also work very well. The key is to make sure you're able to do everything you need to do on that server without much trouble.
Another very important feature is the uptime and availability.
Does the host guarantee uptime? How much space do I need?
This is usually a difficult question because it's difficult to make a prediction. To calculate the space you're going to use, go through your site and find the size of the coded pages first. Then add your media files. Media files are PDF files, Word documents, movie clips, audio files, flash files, and images, among other items. Media certainly takes up the bulk of space on your site. Adding more disk space later is almost always never a problem with hosts so long as you're willing to pay more.
The next big item to tackle is how much bandwidth you're going to use. Bandwidth is what your host will measure to calculate how much people are downloading pages of content from your site. Bandwidth costs your web host money. so you will almost always incur bandwidth charges. For new sites, try starting at the minimal bandwidth cost, and change your monthly bandwidth rate only if necessary. You'll find out very quickly that the sites with very little media files take very little bandwidth while sites with media will take up more.
This finally takes us into cost. How much should you pay? Some web hosts charge separately for hosting, bandwidth, databases, etc., while others bundle it together.
Having to change hosts is an inconvenience. Do your homework, and choose a reputable web hosting company for your server needs. Choosing the right web host the first time avoids hassles and saves you money in the long run. Don't choose a web host for cost alone. Make an educated decision based on the web host's speed, reliability and connectivity.
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