E-Commerce web sites present a list of concerns and requirements unique doing business on the internet. Once you’ve battled with deciding which web development methodology to use to build your site, you’ll need to locate a web hosting provider that specializes in e-commerce sites. Aside from which operating system the server will run (determined by your development tools), there is a long list of security concerns that must be addressed by the hosting provider.

One of the most important aspects of e-commerce sites is the security involved with the processing of payments and other customer information. Because these sites contain financial information as well as customer’s personal information, these sites often become the targets of hackers attempting to obtain financial gain from breaking into these sites. To protect against these types of intrusions, multiple layers of security are typically built into hosting providers specializing in hosting e-commerce sites.

The first layer of defense is what’s known as Secured Socket Layer or SSL. This layer, combined with a digital certificate, provides for the secure communications of information from the web server to the client’s browser. The one major drawback to SSL communications is the overhead on the server for the encryption and decryption of information sent over the internet. An e-commerce hosting provider has different methodologies available to them to offload this overhead from the servers to improve performance.

Another common practice of good e-commerce providers is the breaking up of there datacenter into different zones. In a typical three-tier datacenter design, the web servers sit on the outermost least secure area, the business logic of the application sits in the middle, and the database in the third layer and most secure area. The typical configuration is a three-tiered approach, with the most sensitive data being stored behind multiple layers of security.