SSH, which is an abbreviation for Secure Shell, is a network protocol that is used to exchange encrypted data between a client and a hosting server, making it impossible for unauthorized parties to intercept any information. Many tech-savvy customers opt for SSH mainly because of the higher security level. The connection is established and the commands are delivered through a command line. The accessible options depend on the type of Internet hosting service - on a shared server, for example, files may be transferred or deleted, databases can be imported and exported, and archives can be set up or unpacked. On a virtual or a dedicated server, your options are a lot more - the web server and the database server can be started/stopped/rebooted, server-side software can be installed 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. Even though SSH is used largely with UNIX-like OSs, there are SSH clients for other OSs too - Windows, Mac OS, and so forth.