It’s all got a lot more confusing since I last looked at it.

As a Java developer rather than a web designer, I’d much prefer to rent a virtual server. Amazon seem to be offering me a virtual server for free for 12 months. Is it as simple as signing up then logging into my own virtual machine and installing whatever I want? I’d be installing JBoss or Tomcat probably, and possibly using it for a few other projects besides.

Are there any providers other than Amazon that are worth looking at?

Can you set up your own domain name with this set-up?

You would probably need to go to someone like 1 and 1 for the domain name side of things and there are quite a few people that will rent you virtual machines. Have a google around.

Would it not be easier to run a virtual machine locally or do you need it accessible on the internet all the time?

Yeah it’s mainly for a website with light traffic, but possibly other stuff too. I’m not familiar with PHP or Perl etc so having the ability to work in Java would be handy for me.

My understanding is that you won’t get access to a desktop as such. You can choose the OS it is based on, normally Linux or Windows and then via a web control panel you can opt for them to install different things for you.

You may not need a full virtual server to yourself, you may be better off just looking at normal web hosting which can work in a similar way but you share the resources of the server you are on with other users.

I use 1 and 1 for my web hosting and it’s been excellent for everything I’ve needed but shop around 🙂

Take a look at heroku or cloudbees . Muach less faff than managing a proper virtual server. Depending how simple your site is, you might get away with a noddy host and using a tool like Jekyll.

with aws or azure windows virtual server(s) you can rdp to them just the same as normal physical servers, and you can install whatever apps you want.