Having a good hosting solution for Magento is essential for having a good e-commerce store which works 24/7 online to generate maximum sales for you by selling your products and services uninterrupted.

We  recommend this tried and tested web host for hosting your magento powered websites and stores.

What is Magento?

Magento is one of the most popular and fastest growing web application in the E-Commerce industry. It has been strengthening the world with the powers of Open Source technology. Magento is a new extremely professional open source E-Commerce solution which offers the client community with great control and flexibility. Magento, designed with the outlook of unique implementation of E-Commerce as no two businesses are same has modular architecture which puts the control right back in the hands of the online merchant. It places no limitations on business processes and flow. Magento promises magnificent revolutionary E-Commerce platform for the industry.

Magento was in fact developed in response to the increasing and new needs of online merchants in modern world. More than any other feature of online commerce, the client community needed a flexible environment. Magento is developed with the primary goal of developing a platform that places no constraints on business processes and flow. Magento is a feature rich open source E-Commerce solution which aims at providing the clients with flexibility and control over the look, content, and working of their online store. The pro-active interface of Magento provides extremely efficient tools for jobs like marketing, merchandising and data management. It gives client the power to create sites that are specifically made for their unique business needs. Magento provides the client community with ultimate E-Commerce opportunities which are completely scalable and are backed by extensive support network.

Magento was launched on March 31, 2008 as an open-source E-Commerce web application. This was created by Varien and built on components of the Zend Framework. Magento is available under the Open Software License 3.0. After version 1.1.7 some of the parts are licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0.

Magento Enterprise Edition is a paid version of Magento tailored for larger companies. It was launched on April 15, 2009. This version provides service agreement with Varien.
Installation of modules is supported by Magento through a web based interface accessible by the administration area of Magento installation. Hosting of modules is done on the Magento E-Commerce website as a PEAR server. A module can be uploaded by any community member through the website and it is made available once confirmed by member of the Magento team. By entering a module key, modules can be installed and made available on the module page, into the web based interface.

Three categories of modules hosted on Magento Connect:
1. Core Modules
2. Community Modules
3. Commercial Modules

Installation of Core and Community modules can be done through the administration area. Price information is provided on Commercial module pages and a link to an external website is also given. Magento is owned by a company Varien, which earlier worked with osCommerce. They earlier thought of working osCommerce but later they came up with the idea of rewriting it as Magento.

Magento History
Magento officially came into being on 31 August 2007, when the beta version was launched but its development began in early 2007. It almost took them seven months before they could actually come up with the first public beta version. Magento featured in the December 2007 edition of a German periodical magazine called t3n. Magento was picked to be presented at the Under the Radar: The Business of Web Apps conference, where it was proclaimed the audience favorite. Magento 1.0 was released on 31 March 2008. Magento 1.1 was released on 25 July 2008. This version not only fixes for various bugs but also made Magento faster as it was loaded with more efficient UI. On 29 December 2008, Magento 1.2 was released. It brought out glimpses of various products and also provided many bug fixes. Full text search and upgraded libraries of Zend Framework were also included in it.

On 30 March 2009 Magento 1.3 was released. It provided client community with fixes for many bugs and speed was optimized which aimed at making Magento faster. 15 April 2009 saw the release of Magento 1.3 Enterprise edition. Magento 1.6 Enterprise was released on the day of 20 October 2009. Magento Enterprise Edition Version 1.6 included module for BridgeConnect. Magento 1.7 Enterprise edition was released on 19 January 2010. It featured the entirely new concept of reward points system. It also provides an agreement with Varien, who provides service and starts at a base price of $11,125 USD per year.

Magento Server Requirements

1 Supported Operating Systems
•    Linux x86, x86-64

2 Supported Web Servers:
•    Apache 1.3.x
•    Apache 2.0.x
•    Apache 2.2.x

3 Supported Browsers
•    Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and above
•    Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and above
•    Apple Safari 2.x
•    Google Chrome
•    Adobe Flash browser plug-in should be installed

4 PHP Compatibility
•    PHP 5.2

5 Required extensions
•    PDO_MySQL
•    simplexml
•    mcrypt
•    hash
•    GD
•    DOM
•    iconv
•    curl
•    SOAP (if Webservices API is to be used)
•    Safe_mode off
•    Memory_limit no less than 256Mb (preferably 512)

6 MySQL Support
•    4.1.20 or newer
•    InnoDB storage engine

7 SSL Support
•    If HTTPS is used to work in the admin, SSL certificate should be valid. Self-signed SSL certificates are not supported
•    Server – hosting – setup:
•    Ability to run scheduled jobs (crontab) with PHP 5
•    Ability to override options in .htaccess files

All these magento hosting requirements are met with this web host at an afforadable cost and you get reliable and prompt support too