SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol employed to exchange encoded data between a client and a hosting server, which makes it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any data. Many tech-savvy clients favor SSH because of the better security level. The connection is created and the commands are sent through a command line. The offered options depend on the type of Internet hosting service - on a shared server, for instance, files may be moved or deleted, databases could be imported and exported, and archives may be created or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, your options are significantly more - the web server and the database server may be started/stopped/rebooted, server-side software can be set up plus much more. These things are not possible on a shared server, for the reason that full root access is required and all the other customers on that server would be affected. Though SSH is employed primarily with UNIX-like Operating Systems, there are SSH clients for other OSs as well - Windows, Mac OS, and so forth.