Dedicated Servers – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
What is all the fuss about dedicated servers? Why is it different from a normal web hosting service that you have to bother?
A shared server is a single server that hosts multiple web sites. When you sign up for hosting on a shared web server, your website lives on the same physical machine with many other sites and many other businesses, with whom you have no relation. With many plans, you might even share an IP address with other unrelated web sites – not a good idea, but is often the case with plans on the less expensive side of spectrum.
A dedicated server is a single server that is controlled by a single customer. Control is the keyword here. With a dedicated host, you own the neighborhood. You can put a slew of sites on your server, but no one can put a site on your box without your permission. With a dedicated server, you don't have to worry about unscrupulous neighbors who may bring your server down with bad coding or get your IP banned for something out of your control.
Virtual dedicated server is basically a dedicated server with a slight difference. That is, the customer shares the server space with a limited number of other customers using the same server box. Each virtual dedicated server is isolated from the other accounts giving the user full control of their own server. Virtual dedicated servers are useful for companies and individuals that run complex applications that need the bandwidth, consistent performance, and flexibility of a dedicated server.
The Good
Control You get to have complete control over the server. You can reboot and do whatever you like to it without worrying about other users. Your site will not be subjected to traffic horrors of shared hosting, which in turn equates to better uptime. You can centralize your projects on one machine, rather than having your web site spread out across a bunch of different hosts.
Flexibility Running your own server lets you do thing the way you want. Nobody will care what you want to install in the server, malicious or not. Since the host do not need to worry about you swamping their other customers or chewing up 'excessive resources.
Security Since no other users are in the server, you won’t have to worry about security issues that are beyond your control. This will include things such as IP address sharing.
Bandwidth No downtime, no lack of bandwidth. You get the pipeline all to yourself and you don’t have to worry about other users sucking up the traffic.
Hardware While processor speed might not be the biggest issue, memory certainly qualifies. Make sure you get plenty of RAM and a sufficient amount of hard drive storage.
The Bad and Ugly
Backing up Although you get an easier time backing up, you have to do it yourself since everything is under your control.
IP address With the advantage of you getting your own individual IP address, you also have a hard time with search engines. Since all your websites will come from the same server, you will also have the same IP addresses. This can cause problems if you have multiple of different websites.
Responsibility More work and more technical skills required. You have to be up to the task or you will find yourself immersed in problems you have no clue in solving. In that case, try to get one of those managed dedicated servers where your hosting company provides technical support for an extra cost.
Should you be getting a Dedicated Server?
You can understand your need for a dedicated server by analyzing your daily use of the web. For example, does your website have about 3000 daily web users? If so, you will want to consider moving to a dedicated server. Also, if your website seems to be moving slower now than it did when you first began putting it up, you may also have a need for a dedicated server.
Whether or not you use a dedicated server is up to you. But, if you need to move to this level of hosting, it is wise to consider several options and to get it all together well. You will want to insure that you have the right specifications.
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