George Chao asked:


website is important for more and more people these days. Generally, people are more familiar with the phrase web server hosting and with the knowledge that web servers are required in order for sites to be shown on the Internet. A small, shared hosting plan is more than enough for many small and medium sized organizations doing work on the Internet. If your business gets heavy traffic, you should consider moving your site to a dedicated hosting solution.

A web hosting computer “dedicated” to a specific website or web business is the basic definition of a dedicated server. When a server is “dedicated,” it means that all of the computing resources of that server are solely allocated to one single client. In most instances, the dedicated hosting server is leased or purchased by the client who owns the website being hosted. Typically, specialized servers are kept in secure data centers, this also gives additional services, like environmental control, power backup systems, security and the necessary ability to connect to the internet.

When a company has specialized needs for its website a server hosting account is dedicated to it alone to provide more stringent security, extra bandwidth or a unique setup. A good indication that there is an need to upgrade to a dedicated server is when an business has these kind needs.

A dedicated server is also a viable alternative to purchasing a powerful and scalable server in-house, and any additional software that might be necessary. Purchasing several servers at once can be a very expensive process, and may be impossible for a small company, even though they may be soon shooting upward in size. A different option is to have a dedicated server to provide hosting services which provides the computing power needed for a thriving website at a manageable cost.

The main advantage to using a dedicated server is that the actual computers can be built to your own specifications and suited to your needs. At that point, it is dedicated only for the use of that company, and the company is able to completely manage and control the server remotely, in terms of system administration and application use. Its services are an exercise in duality, offering you maintenance of hardware, network connectivity and a devoted service provider or website hosting needs. Generally this means there will be technicians on call 24 hours per day, every day to ensure that the servers run smoothly.

Companies that provide dedicated servers do all of the above: up-front expenses, maintenance costs, which are divided between all clients to keep expenses for you at a low. A managed dedicated web server is usually the best option for startup companies, and for companies who don’t have technical expertise.

Doug Milton asked:


If you were asked that question, what would your answer be? Have you ever even asked yourself that question? If not, you may want to take some time to delve into the potential benefits of a dedicated server. The best way to find out whether your business needs a dedicated server is to get educated about the concept. From there, you can decide whether one could help your business boom.

At its base level, any web hosting solution that permits you to own the entire server is known as a dedicated server. The server is, as the name denotes, “dedicated” to one person and is therefore not shared by any other party. There are many kinds of dedicated servers that you can purchase, but it is useful to first decide whether doing so would benefit your business in any meaningful way.

If you are considering opting for a dedicated server, chances are good you have a business website already in place. If so, your daily use of the Internet will help you to determine whether you should go for one. If your site receives more than about 2,000 users every day, you may want to seriously consider a dedicated server to handle that kind of traffic. Further, if you notice that your website’s performance is slowing because of high traffic rates, you may want to go the dedicated server route to alleviate some of the backlog.

Once you’ve decided that you do need a dedicated server, you’ll need to decide what kind. The two most common types are managed and unmanaged dedicated servers. If you decide on an unmanaged server, you will be purchasing both the server and all the equipment you need to run it. If you opt for a managed dedicated server, you’ll buy all of the equipment necessary plus the help you will need to get it set up and managed. In this case, you need not worry about anything other than the content of your site; the management of your server is taken care of by a third party.

OK, now that those decisions are made, you have one more left to make: where to go to get your server. Most people do their investigative work online to find a list of server dealers and manufacturers. Not surprisingly, these companies usually have spectacular websites. Doing your research before you sign on the dotted line to make sure you are getting what you need.

Buying a dedicated server can be a big business decision, and it is one that should be made only after careful consideration and research. Take into consideration all of your company’s requirements and balance them against the cost of making a larger purchase such as this, whether you go the managed or unmanaged route. If you are too hasty, you could end up throwing away a lot of good money on the wrong kind of purchase. On the other hand, if you do your research and choose wisely, a dedicated server can greatly improve your business. Efficiency and customer service can be improved dramatically with the right kind of dedicated server, and those are two very good things for any business.

John Thompson asked:


At this juncture I will go over the ins and outs of shared web hosting (administered and unmanaged), reseller server hosting, virtual private server packages, exclusive server hosting, and even arrangements your own sites on your own personalized servers. Stick on by!

Noticing a cheap dedicated server arrangements answer can be a harrowing experience particularly if you are brand new to this topic. Practically, hundreds of posts across the internet are being passed back and forth debating the merits of various individual-only setups services.

The bottomline is this, Finding a cheap individual-only hosting server purchase is not difficult. Here is the rule of thumb for beginners:

1. shared web hosting traditionally gives you less performance as you are Literally sharing your web hosting with many other accounts subscribers, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of them. Also, you will get less access to the technical aspects of the setups. Clearly this is a good answer for beginners.

2. reseller arrangements gives you a bit more flexibility, but ultimately all the shared accounts will be sharing resources such as CPU and Ram. You get a bit more control in that you can setup accounts and your own domain names. This is an attractive server hosting alternative for those with lower to medium trafficked sites.

3. virtual private server packages is pretty much the same as the previous options in terms of it still being a ‘shared’ answer, but it gives you far more control over your own arrangements environment, and giving you greater resources allocated solely for your needs. This is normally the step individuals pursue who do not need a full-blown individual-only server package off the bat.

4. personalized hosting is what it sounds like, you get the whole shebang, total access to your hosting machine and you are free to alter the server requirements to whatever you desire. You get better performance and flexibility.

Those previously talked about alternatives are for the most part what’s ready to website owners everywhere. It’s not always cut and dry in terms of how to choose the best packages solution. I.e. you should never base it solely on price. Reputation and years of operation of the firm are crucial points. Don’t entrust your ecommerce presence to undependable operations!

Ricardo D Argence asked:


Having a popular website is a great thing, especially if that website is related to your business. However, you’ve probably never thought popularity could cost you money.

If you use a shared web service, you’re allotted a certain amount of bandwidth every month. Each host has a different way of dealing with the situation if you go over that amount of traffic.

Some will suddenly shut your site down, which means your visitors will see only a page telling them you’ve exceeded your allotment. Others will allow your page to keep running, and will charge you for the extra bandwidth.

If your site gets popular quickly, you could find yourself facing hundreds or thousands of dollars of extra charges for that usage.

This is why it’s vital to keep an eye on your bandwidth usage and the traffic that goes through your site every day. If it begins to look like you’ll exceed your bandwidth allotment, it might be time to look into getting a dedicated server.

It might be tempting to use one of the shared hosting servers that claims to offer “unlimited” bandwidth. However, in the end, you’ll probably find that there are limits written into the fine print.

Shared hosts also have a lot more down time than a dedicated server. By upgrading, you’ll be increasing the amount of time your site is available to its visitors, and eventually attract even more.

Upgrading to a server of your own will improve reliability and performance, as well as giving you total control over your website.

You’ll never have to deal with unexplained downtime, bandwidth limits, or restrictions on what scripts you can run. You can also run more sites on one server – as much as a few hundred. However, be sure that you plan for the extra cost.

In the end, having a dedicated server will bring in enough traffic to pay for itself, but you could be surprised by the initial cost.

There’s a setup fee, and a dedicated server can cost as much as $200/month. However, if you stop and think about it, you’ll realize that that amount per month in exchange for reliability is a good deal, versus poor reliability and occasionally being charged several hundred dollars for bandwidth overage.

Put an end to the nightmare of shared hosting look into your options for a dedicated server. You won’t have to deal with problems from scripts other users are running, downtime, or extra charges just because you’ve become popular.

If you’re happy with your existing provider, ask about their options for dedicated servers. If you’ve had to deal with bad customer service and other problems, however, you might be better off shopping around.

If your site is growing in popularity, keep an eye on the bandwidth your visitors are using. If you don’t pay very close attention, your site’s popularity could end up costing you a lot of money.

Instead of having to worry every month whether or not you’ll exceed your allotment, try switching to a dedicated server that will put an end to unexpected fees and extra downtime.

In the end, a dedicated server may cost a bit more, but it’s well worth it. Control, reliability, and all the bandwidth you need to serve your site’s visitors make a dedicated server cheap for the price.

Venkat asked:


What is Dedicated Server Hosting?

Now a days the world wide web grows like anything and the need of website security, standreds and bandwidth also need to consider while going to start a web based business or a information portal to make things better. How to measure that a hosting package will fit for your corporate website need? There is a solution for corporate websites who think about security and uptime..Dedicated Server.

Dedicated server hosting can alleviate the need to share hardware or software with any other sites or web pages. Webmasters are given the autonomy to decide on applications that are installed on the server to create specific configurations for their web needs, and have the ability to provide a secure environment for their site. As compared to a shared-server environment, dedicated server hosting offers a peace of mind that a site will be delivered in a reliable and secure manner.

There are major benefits of dedicated hosting, as discussed below. However, the major disadvantage, cost, is quickly being overcome. Because of continual growth in the dedicated server hosting industry, the rates for dedicated server plans are rapidly declining. A competitive environment drives up the level of service and decreases cost. This reduction is powered by an increase in small and medium-sized businesses gaining an online presence and the rapid proliferation of web hosting providers.

Advantages:

Dedicated hosting is favorable because of 2 major assets: control and reliability.

Since a dedicated web administrator has more control over a dedicated server, it tends to be more secure, compared to a shared web server. By knowing what exactly is installed on a dedicated server through full root access, a system administrator is able to confidently make decisions on the software and application updates necessary to maintain the dedicated web server and keep it running in its most optimal configuration.

Increased reliability is another major asset of dedicated hosting, as a server administrator has the self-sufficiency to optimize page loads by tweaking variables such as page load speed and general server resource allocation. This server reliability translates to customer satisfaction and an increase in the bottom line goals of a web site’s presence.

Disadvantages:

While the benefits of dedicated hosting is apparent, the bottom line consideration, especially for business purposes is cost. Dedicated hosting is significantly more expensive compared to shared or virtual web hosting, and until recently, could most commonly be quoted at several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per month. Although cost may still be exorbitant, most businesses are able to justify the use of dedicated servers through a true web analysis to weigh the resources necessary to run applications and code.

Another drawback is the need to be able to monitor, install, upgrade and configure programs, add sites, deal with potential hacks, and troubleshoot systems. Therefore, the necessary system administration skills, if one does not possess them, may definitely inhibit the successful implementation of a web site hosted on a dedicated web server.

Benefits

The direct benefits of a dedicated server hosting plan surround the ability to totally administer a web server. The advantage to be able to effectively maintain a dedicated server lies in one’s ability to control the variables associated with reliability and stability. In a dedicated environment, server overload, malicious scripts from other users, and too many installed applications are variables which can be controlled, as compared to this loss of management in shared server hosting.

Furthermore, a dedicated server allows one to only install applications or software that applies to the major hosting goal at hand. Conversely, shared web hosting has installed software that may or may not be related to the web hosting goals.

Reliance on the web host repair services and time delays of platform repairs can be minimized, as one may intervene and provide solutions to existing problems with dedicated hosting. Having the option to add patches, upgrade software, or tweak performance is invaluable and allows the dedicated server administrator to work with 24 hour access to perform adjustments, corrections, or updates.

Lastly, speed of downloads can be determined through the amount of bandwidth that is dedicated to just your website. Statistically, visitors will quickly leave a site if the load time was long. Dedicated servers allow quick delivery of web pages, which increases the probability of keeping web site visitors on a site that may convert them to paying customers. Furthermore, quick loading pages enhance the company’s image and may encourage existing customers to refer your web-based services to others.

What is the best application of a dedicated hosting service provider?

Utility of a dedicated server environment is best suited to those with a working knowledge of server operating systems and those who don’t mind troubleshooting problems which may arise.

Server administrators must be able to apply kernel upgrades, service packs, and software patches, as well as provide ample security, monitor traffic, update server applications, balance server loads, and configure email, FTP, and DNS services.

In exchange for competency in the above functions, the best uses for a dedicated web server environment would be:

mission-critical sites requiring custom server management and software implementation.

dedicated hosting resellers, web developers and designers who need greater flexibility, reliability and security for their clients

backbones of corporate intranets

robust and dependable servers for streaming media, online gaming, and e-mail or chat applications

complex application sites with high traffic and secure information such as ecommerce, database, and multimedia sites.

enterprise-level web sites

Web sites which may have content restrictions if hosted elsewhere (e.g. adult targeted sites.)

How to decide

Overall, the cost, security of data and equipment, bandwidth availability, the knowledge and integrity of the web-hosting provider, uptime, hardware maintenance, and any technical support offered by the dedicated web host are important deciding factors. Although your specific dedicated server hosting needs may be unique in a few ways, generally, one can make a decision on a dedicated web server provider by considering the following things:

Data Transfer Rates

Data transfer will need to be determined based on the amount of information that will be downloaded, as well as the type of content a site will be sharing (general text vs. high resolution graphics and multimedia). A dedicated server host will generally have various packages that will allow one to choose the data transfer level, normally measured in “gigabytes per month”. Higher levels of data transfer rates normally mean more cost, so utilization of the first few months to correlate data transfer rates and traffic patterns is key.

Platforms

The two most common systems available are Windows based servers versus some flavor of UNIX (Linux and Solaris). Windows is historically more expensive, but is generally regarded as more user-friendly, especially with the ubiquitous presence of Windows-based pc’s and administrators. Linux, on the other hand, is less expensive to install, but harder to maintain, as a steeper learning curve exists for those unfamiliar with it. Therefore, the operating system installed on a dedicated web server should depend on a couple of factors.

First, the platform should be conducive to the coding in which the website and necessary applications are developed. Next, since administration of the dedicated server will be done by the subscriber, the necessary skill base to support the platform must be in place. Commands and administration techniques are definitely platform-specific.

Monitoring

Dedicated server monitoring works to prevent service interruptions. The web host will provide a service that can, at a pre-set frequency, check a website to see downtime.

Automation

Although dedicated web servers may require a greater degree of skill, certain dedicated server hosting companies may offer software that will automate common procedures, thus lessening the high level knowledge necessary to maintain servers and implement new services.

Data Backup

Some dedicated server providers assist the web hosting subscriber with data backups. Finding a dedicated server provider who will assist in this process could alleviate the hassle of doing it yourself and can allow one to devote time to other things.

Scalability

Dedicated server hosting providers should be able to account for major growth. Progressive expansion can be accounted for by asking a web host if modules of extra space, bandwidth, or better yet, larger packages can be purchased to allow easy transition to better hardware and software.

Service Level Agreements

More dedicated server hosts are publishing their SLA’s, which thoroughly documents what they will do in exchange for what the customer is responsible for. For instance, some dedicated server hosts are offering features such as: 100% uptime guarantees, unlimited live answer technical phone-based support, free upgrades of patches, hot-fixes, personal Dedicated Sales account managers, maintenance staff with spare parts for all server configurationsFeature Articles, and more. A full understanding of the commitment that a dedicated server host is offering will help in a decision to utilize that service.

Types of dedicated server platforms?

There are several types of platforms available with server providers to fit for your website, application development need.

1. Coldfusion Dedicated Server for coldfusion application development.

Doug Milton asked:


A dedicated server is a server that is solely for your website or business. No one else gets to share it! As opposed to shared hosting, a dedicated server is ideal for those who need a reliable, high performance, secure way to host your site. In short, a dedicated server is perfect for those who need that kind of power and who have the funds to pay for it.

The benefits of operating a dedicated server include:

* Improved website performance

* No need to purchase any equipment

A dedicated server is owned by the web host; you are essentially renting it. You can customize your server to suit your particular needs, but the host owns it. That means that if your business doesn’t have the administrative know-how to tackle the variety of tasks you need performed, it doesn’t matter. The host takes care of all that for you.

Do You Have Dedicated Server Experience?

As with just about everything else in business, some companies may have experience in managing dedicated servers and some may not. If your business has that kind of in-house know-how, you are well equipped to handle any necessary changes to your company’s website. Depending on what kind of changes need to be made, in-house management may be an option. If, however, your site is high performance and requires a great deal of maintenance and manipulation, you may not have someone on staff who will have the necessary experience to handle this.

In some cases, however, no experience may be required at all. You may be able to opt for managed web hosting through your provider. In this case, they maintain and monitor your operating system and all dedicated servers and applications. You get everything you need without the experience needed to go along with it. Unmanaged dedicated hosting is a cheaper solution in most cases, but if you don’t have the technical savvy to make that work, managed dedicated hosting is likely the best option.

Whether your business has the necessary experience to manage a dedicated server, be sure your business actually needs the server. If you are ready and able to take on the potentially hefty cost that comes along with using the host’s equipment and you are confident that they can, and will, provide you with the necessary tech support when you need it, it could be a good choice if your website is powerful enough to require a server like that. If you have been shy about going this route because you feel you don’t have the necessary experience to make it work, there’s good news: Dedicated hosting can be the right decision whether you have the experience or not. There are ways to make it work even if you don’t have any experience in the area.

In a world where a company’s reputation can be defined by its website, the choice to use a dedicated server, either managed or unmanaged, can be an important one. But even if you don’t have the experience you think you need to manage a dedicated server, you can still take advantage of this powerful business tool through the use of managed hosting.

Jon Murray asked:


When you first start thinking about building your first web site you are faced with a lot of choices. You need to choose a domain name, but also somebody to register that domain name. You need to decide on whether you’ll use a CMS tool like Joomla or a blog engine like WordPress, or maybe you’ll purchase a nice template and use that. One of the biggest choices you’ll need to make is your hosting service. The right hosting service can be the difference between spending time installing and configuring your site and spending time adding content.

Once you’ve chosen your hosting service you will be asking yourself one more important question. Do I choose shared hosting or dedicated hosting? There is not an easy one or the other answer to that question. In fact I’m having trouble even phrasing it generically so that you can size up your situation and decide, but I’ll lay down a few rules and gotcha’s and see where we end up.

On the surface shared hosting seems like a great deal. For instance from Go Daddy you can get shared hosting plan for just $3.99 a month. The plan will give you 5GB of disk space and 250GB bandwidth. For a little more, $6.99 you get 100GB disk and 1000 GB bandwidth. Now, I just used Go Daddy as an example, but Host Gator and others are similar, some with slightly higher prices and some with slightly lower, but all have the same rules.

Hidden somewhere in your shared hosting agreement there will be a clause about not hogging system resources. What that means is that even if your site is not busy 99% of the time, if you get a big spike they have the right to shut you down. You see, the factor to be concerned with is not bandwidth or disk storage, it’s CPU cycles. It’s not average CPU cycles over the month, if you spike even for a short time all hosting services will shut down your shared account.

How do I know about the shared host shutdown? It happened twice to me. I’m not complaining, that’s the price of having a successful web site while paying for bargain basement hosting. In my one case I got shut down because I had 8000 hits in about an hour. My daily average was about 500 hits. It seems that the blog engine I was using was using too much CPU time on my shared host, so they shut me down. Okay, so you’re thinking that you can go shared and when you get to around 7000 then you can switch over to dedicated. Maybe that’ll work, but in another case I was shut down with just 346 hits. Now for the 346 hit case my host sent me the log file and to my eyes it didn’t seem that I was using much CPU at all. It showed my account using 100% CPU for .2 seconds. It also showed (in another case) my process taking 29 seconds, but using 0% CPU. I believe this was a case of mistaken identity. They saw that their server was slow and looked for long running processes, but didn’t look at actual cycles taken. The long wait by the way was because of a YouTube vid running on my site.

So, after a full year on two shared hosting accounts, from two different companies, it was time to try my hand at dedicated hosting. One thing you must know about dedicated hosting is that you are running and responsible for all aspects of the box. That means that you are “root”. There is nobody else monitoring for hung processes, nobody else installing software for you, but the best part is nobody kicking you off for using too much CPU for 10 seconds of the month.

My shared hosting accounts were $6.99 and $10 (total of $17/month). My new dedicated hosting account started at $79/month, but I bumped up the memory and CPU on the box and the final price is $111/month. That’s a huge difference when you’re just starting out, and over the first year I’ve saved $1200 going that way, but now I feel to move forward with my web sites I need the freedom that dedicated hosting allows. Freedom to have a busy day, freedom to be successful.

I don’t want to make you shy away from shared hosting when you’re just starting out. It’s a great way to get your feet wet, establish a proof of concept and build your knowledge while keeping your budget low. Many small businesses or personal pages may never need more than a shared hosting account. For me, one year on shared hosting gave my little business enough time to grow enough for me to justify paying for dedicated hosting.

As a closing note, my ongoing move from my shared hosting accounts to my dedicated hosting account has taken about two weeks. The first couple of days was experimenting and learning, followed by a few days moving my best performing sites over and the last week has been spent moving the rest of my web sites over, cleaning up security and doing more learning. In the end, I chose Go Daddy as my dedicated host. I figured they deserved it, at least when they shut me down at 8000 hits it was conceivable that I was over stressing my shared account. As for the other company, the one who shut me down with the log file which proved nothing at 350 hits, sometimes you only get one mistake and in the web business when your site is having it’s best day ever and your host shuts you down without good reason, it’s time to move on.

Christine Anderssen asked:


Let’s recap the different types of hosting services that are available:

1. Free web hosting – these are normally sponsored through advertising. A no-no if you are serious about hosting your website for business purposes.

2. Shared hosting – shared hosting is the most common type of hosting available today. This is most commonly used if you are running a small website or are just starting out.

3. VPS hosting (Virtual Private Servers) – this is the poor man’s dedicated server. With VPS hosting the hosting provider partitions one server into multiple private spaces. You are therefore still sharing a server with other clients, but you get your own private ‘slice’ of this server. This means that your website performance will not be affected by the other clients sharing the same server since each client has his own virtual private space in which they run. Clients that host on VPS servers therefore has access to the same type of services normally only afforded by dedicated hosting technology

4. Dedicated hosting services are needed by clients with large websites that generate high volumes of traffic. There are also some companies which need huge storage space, and are not willing to share space with smaller companies but with the price of hardware and hard disks coming down in recent years, the more common reason to require a dedicated server these days are more to do with bandwidth usage and performance.

In both these cases, dedicated hosting providers the solution. Instead of sharing space on a shared server or even with a Virtual Private Server, you will lease an entire dedicated machine that is pre-configured for your requirements. Hosting companies that offer dedicated hosting are often larger and more established than companies that only offer shared hosting. Small web hosts often do not have the financial or technical muscle to provide dedicated hosting.

Web hosting companies that make provision for dedicated servers need to make a considerable investment in hardware and software, and because the client has full control over what type of software should be run on these machines, the hosting company also requires more investment in training and skills development of their staff. The hosting company also needs to make provision to stay up to date with the latest developments in hardware and software. The web host therefore needs to upgrade technology regularly to be able to provide state-of-the-art equipment.

Remember that the advantages of dedicated hosting is that the client does not control the hardware and basic software that is required to run the server, nor does the client have to employ any technical resources to maintain the hardware and software – this is completely the responsibility of the dedicated hosting provider.

This is why dedicated hosting costs considerably more than shared hosting or even VPS hosting. The cost can range between $99 to $2500 per month depending on which hosting company you deal with and depending on the client requirements. The cost will also be determined by the type of service contract that will be put in place between the client and the hosting company. Such a contract is commonly called a Service Level Agreement and it spells out the requirements of the client to a low level of detail. These requirements normally cover issues such as bandwidth usage, the required up-time of the server, scheduled maintenance slots and so on. The higher the required level of support from the hosing provider, the more expensive the monthly rental contract will be.

In some cases the client would do some of the management of the server himself (this is called un-managed hosting). In this case the hosting provider will only provide the physical server and infrastructure (e.g. network connectivity, storage space etc). In this case the actual management and monitoring of the servers are the responsibility of the client and this type of dedicated hosting should be on the cheaper side of dedicated hosting costs. It must be remembered then though that the client must make provision for employing technical staff to maintain the servers.