Dedicated Hosting

Ways to Categorize Web Hosting

There are several ways to categorize web hosting, each of which elucidates some features of dedicated hosting. One categorization scheme divides hosting options into those in which your site is sharing a server and that server's resources with at least one other site and hosting options in which you have a server to yourself. In the first group would fall "regular hosting" with no designation about how it's served, shared hosting, and virtual private server (VPS) hosting. In the second group would fall dedicated hosting and managed dedicated hosting. A second categorization scheme divides hosting options into those in which your site has a dedicated amount of server space, bandwidth, and other resources that cannot be affected by anything that other plan purchasers do, as opposed to those in which the behavior, bandwidth hogging, spamming, and other activities of those on your server can have an effect on you. With this schema, we still have "regular hosting" and "shared hosting" together in the second category, but this time VPS has jumped the fence and is firmly situated with dedicated hosting and dedicated managed hosting.

Three Types of Dedicated Hosting

Given what we now understand about VPS, we can lay out three types of dedicated hosting instead of two.

• Managed hosting plans offer a dedicated server, with all its resources, and a dedicated manager in charge of administration.

• Dedicated hosting plans offer a dedicated server, with all its resources, but you either are or supply the dedicated manager, and you are responsible for managing and troubleshooting the server yourself.

• Virtual Private Server plans are like a mini version of dedicated hosting, in which instead of a whole server, you have part of a server—smaller size and smaller cost.

Things to Consider When Choosing Dedicated Hosting

Research across several web hosts shows a tendency for dedicated hosting on Windows servers to have higher monthly charges than comparable hosting on Linux servers. Web hosts often list their offerings without explicitly stating the OS of the server, making comparison of plans difficult. In addition, you may find that the plans on Windows and Linux servers seem to be the same, but that the space is less on the Windows server. You will have an easier time if you take notes while you search, as you may have to look at a large number of different pages on each site to see what the offerings are.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you ponder the choices among dedicated hosting plans:

• Do you need (or will you shortly need) a whole server?

• Are the services that typically come with dedicated hosting—such as better customer service/technical support plans, uptime guarantees, reliable and redundant hosting for security—on offer at the webhost you are considering?

• Are the freebies that typically come with dedicated hosting—such as advertising credits, an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate, etc., of value to you?

• Is one of the dedicated packages offered a good fit for you? If not, does the web host provide you with the opportunity to design your own dedicated hosting service, with choice of, for example, server OS, control panel, RAM, and custom support options you might need?

• Do you have needs that can only be met by dedicated website hosting, such as multiple processors, multi-core processors, exceptionally fast processors, a static IP address, etc.?

• Are there options for memory and hard drive (HD) upgrades?

• Is a hardware firewall and/or a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) card available?