What is Dedicated hosting?
 by: Mer Amer


Dedicated hosting is a hosting environment where one or more servers are dedicated for a single client. The client effectively leases the server from the hosting provider. The hosting provider provides the server machine, the connectivity and the required software and operating system to run the server. Dedicated hosting can also be split into two categories – managed and unmanaged dedicated hosting. For managed dedicated hosting, the hosting provider will provide the services of running and maintaining the server within their own datacenter. This is a good choice if you don’t have the personnel, money or time to operate a server in-house. This is the choice for web developers who do not want to be bogged down by server management activities. While for unmanaged dedicated hosting, there will be a lot of support and maintenance features that are not provided by the hosting provider and will be done by the customers themselves. This is normally the hosting choice for system administrators who want to manage their servers themselves.

Dedicated hosting is the opposite of shared hosting where the resources are shared among different customers. It is crucial for large and complex websites that require plenty of disk space, bandwidth, applications and software to operate. This hosting type is the perfect choice for websites to maintain a high volume of traffic and fast data transfer. It enables the webmasters to have total control of their website since the performance of their websites is only controlled by internal factors and not by other websites. For web developers, installation and embedding of complex applications such as online shopping tools and automated tools can be done without affecting the stability of the servers.

It is important that you find out the range of services offered by different hosting providers as there is no standard set out for managed dedicated hosting. There will be different levels of support provided, depending on the packages and requirements by the customer. There are also different set ups and maintenance scope for the servers. For example, there are hosting providers who provide a shared infrastructure for backend database while the clients host their applications on a dedicated server. Conversely, there are also configurations whereby the application is hosted on a shared infrastructure while the backend database on dedicated server.

In terms of security, the control of security features for a dedicated hosting is far greater compared to a shared hosting. For a dedicated hosting service, the hosting provider will normally provide extreme security features to combat potential security threats to the hosted websites. Additionally, the dedicated server can only be accessed by the site owner and the hosting provider, meaning that there will be fewer possibilities of security breaches.

In summary, the take-up for dedicated hosting will definitely increase significantly due to the booming of complex e-commerce websites and various enhanced functionalities that websites are able to offer, thus requiring more resources and stability on the hosting platform. For beginners, the idea is to start small with shared hosting, then to scale up the hosting capabilities together with the website’s functionalities, and eventually moving to a dedicated hosting environment.


About The Author
Mer Amer writes in http://www.hostrecommend.com on various articles related to web hosting. Visit http://www.hostrecommend.com for more resources on web hosting and list of highly recommended web hosting services.