Shopping for Web-hosting is not as easy as it sounds. There are thousands of companies offering Web hosting in different packages. In nutshell, Web hosting can be categorized into Shared hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Web Hosting and Cloud servers. Depending upon your website requirements like Traffic, server load, resource requirement you can opt for any of these hosting. For an new and basic WordPress, Drupal, Joomla site a shared hosting is best and then you can upgrade to VPS and later to dedicate hosting.
Before we get into detail of dedicated Web hosting, lets learn what’s the point of having your own hosting. Web-hosting companies provide people with a server and act as a data center by making their websites accessible and also by providing them with an internet connection. You will be getting an I.P and Web hosting space, where your site data will be stored. A basic HTML based site can easily be handled by any normal server, but for sites which is getting millions of traffic every day, a dedicated Webhost is what we need.
Dedicated Web Hosting for Newbies :
This kind of hosting is also known as dedicated server or as a managed hosting service. As mentioned earlier, it is a type of Internet Hosting. In this kind of hosting, a client is allowed to lease an entire server for his or her own use. The benefit of doing this is that the client will be in sole possession of the server he or she has leased, and that server will not be shared by anyone else. Many people like dedicated Web-hosting server as by leasing an entire server, the client has full control over the individual server, and he or she can also select the hardware, the operating system and things. This doesn’t mean that the hosting company just gives their clients the server and then leaves them to do what they want with the server. No, many hosting companies also provide their clients with server administration services as an extra service and that way they can help their clients use their servers in a more efficient manner.
Attributes of a Dedicated Web Hosting Server:
The Operating System to be used
As mentioned above, dedicated hosting provides people or organization with more control of the server as they are in sole possession of the server until they want to be. This kind of control provides the clients to select which kind of operating system or OS they want on the server. There are many factors, which determine what types of operating systems are offered to the servers that the clients have leased. These factors which determine the kind of operating system are the price, the familiarity with the employee and the availability.
There are also some open-source operating systems such as Unix and Linux that are provided to the clients without any cost for the server that they have leased. Other operating systems, such as the Microsoft Windows Server are provided to the client for a specified fee. The support for the different operating systems that are offered also depends on the management level that is offered with the dedicated hosting plan that the client is interested in.
Updates to the Operating system
The support of the operating systems that have been mentioned above depends on the service provider that the client is working with. Support for the operating systems might include different updates to the core system. These updates are very useful as they are required in order to get the most-recent security fixes, useful patches and other features that can help in taking care of the vulnerabilities present in the system. Other updates that are present for the core operating systems also include other things such as kernel upgrades, application updates, service packs and other security patches to keep the server as safe as possible.
The benefit of these updates is that it fix’s problems present in the server and the client who has leased the server doesn’t have to work too hard in order to properly manage the server that he or she owns. As these updates will take of most of the security and other problems that could be present in the server. Though, always check if company offers free updates or they charge for all such updates. It will be a huge cost saving factor in long run.
The Bandwidth and Connectivity
The bandwidth and the connectivity that is provided through the dedicated hosting is also a very useful aspect. For those of you who might not know, bandwidth is a term which refers to data transfer. In internet terms, it means the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another. It is represented in bits of data transferred in a second.
The bandwidth and the connectivity that will be provided to the users who will visit your website, applications or your server, depends on the hosting service provider you are working with. Many service providers also allow their clients to increase their server bandwidth if they pay them a certain amount of extra money.
Management of the Server
Once, a client has begun to use the dedicated Web hosting service, another important thing that they need to do is properly manage the server in order to keep it at its optimum functionality. The management terms are different for different providers, and clients need to see which provider is the right for them. The management of the dedicated hosting server includes things like: Operating system updates that have been mentioned above, server monitoring, application management, Firewall support, consultation regarding programming and numerous other things that can help in the proper working of a server.
Depending on the service provider, clients can manage the server by themselves or pay the service provider to do it for them. The management services provided by different dedicated server hosting service providers can be:
- Full Management: All the managements of the server is taken care of by the service provider.
- Medium Management: Customers can perform specific tasks, while the service provider takes care of a few things.
- Self Management: Customers take care of the management responsibilities. The service provider gives them regular monitoring and some support.
- Unmanaged: The customer takes care of every management task. There is no or very little involvement from the service provider.
Others
The security given to dedicated servers is of the highest level in order to keep the server safe and secure. Some service providers also give their customers different add-on software packages if they pay on a monthly basis. Though, my suggestion is to find and hire a guy who can manage your server and you can save a lot of money in hosting management.
- Read: Benefits of dedicated hosting
Limitations of Dedicated Hosting:
With all the benefits of dedicated hosting servers, they also have limitations. Many service providers don’t allow adult content, as they might think of it as being inappropriate, or because they take a lot of bandwidth. Furthermore, hosting copyrighted material whom the client has no copyright to, is also against the terms and conditions of dedicated hosting providers.
Another issues with buying a dedicated web-hosting server is cost involved in it. There are many cheap dedicated hosting providers, that you can find easily but a reliable and best dedicated server are costly and for a starter online business company this might not the cheapest option. Also, you need to invest on a technical team or a technical hosting guy to manage dedicated servers for your company.
One thing, which I would highly recommend is, if you are moving to a dedicated hosting resource, make sure you pick the one with best name in the market and they are known for their quality support. Here are some of the dedicated servers which I found to be rated as affordable and best:
- RackSpace <Link>
- MediaTemple < Link>
- KnownHost <Link>
- SiteGround <Link>
- Hostgator < Link >
- Dreamhost <Link>
Subscribe
Contents
1 thought on “What is Dedicated Web Hosting”
hey harsh what you think about bigrock or godaddy