What Saves your Website

Web Hosting doesn't mean to purchase a hosting plan, upload your website on server and get it live. Once your website is live and live, the real job starts then. If you are a business man your website means a lot to you as for what purpose you have created it. Continuous updates on your website is what i mean here.

Again if its your personal website then may be you are not looking for any money returns from your website but again you need to keep a track if its live. Up-time is what I mean here.

Let me remind you, Its not in vain you have created and uploaded your website but its some purpose that your website reflects. Now when it comes to track your website, to take care of it, the first thing that comes to our mind is HOW?. For a website designer/developer it is as 'update content on your website with latest news, changing designs with time and so on. For and IT professional its related to the technical aspects of your websites like server up-time, fast connectivity, etc.

To make sure that you on track of Website Maintenance you either hire any technical staff or can get help from you hosting provider or more you can do is to just have some technical know-how of your hosting panel. Within your hosting panel there are many things that can help you out for managing your website. All you need is one Control Panel along with your Hosting space. Generally you get one Control Panel along with your Hosting package but there are many vendors who don't provide any. However if you are not getting any control pane then it doesn't mean you are alone. Again, I must say that what that suffice your requirements is GOOD for you.

Now If we talk about the Control Panel then there are two that are used mostly: WHM/CPanel and Plesk Panel. Both the control panels are available with almost every Hosting company and are very much user friendly. If you are an individual or a Reseller of Hosting services you need them. Though these are not the only option for managing your Website, you can also manage your website from server's root access(if you have) and further there are many other free Control panels that are available in market. The word 'FREE' here doesn't mean that the WHM/CPanel and Plesk Panel are paid but if you want an ADMIN license to these then yes 'charges applied.'
With the technical aspects of these control panels, WHM/CPanel is available with Linux Hosting and Plesk Panel provided with Windows Hosting. Though the Plesk Panel can also be installed on Linux Server.

Benefits of Control Panel

As mentioned above you can manage your website from Control Panel, the same applies here. Use you control panel to upload/download your website, manage emails, manage databases, manage scripts and so on. To be more detailed on these control panels are products of separate vendors and not a offering of Hosting provider.
WHM stands for 'Web Host Manager' and is the admin panel of hosting vendor. From WHM you can manage all your customers, individuals or resellers in one place. Once and when any hosting space is assigned to any domain name then a separate control panel is also assigned to it called CPanel. The same works in Plesk panel. There is one Admin panel and one individual panel.
If you purchase Linux Hosting then you are provided with CPanel, if you have single website to host or if have more than one website but all yours. If you need to host more than one website and each website belong to your clients or you want to have separate control pane to manage them then you are provided with WHM access under Reseller Hosting package.
In Plesk Panel too there is one Admin Panel and individual hosting panel that are provided same as above.