Stay at home moms business|Small Business Ideas|Legitimate home based business

Managed Dedicated Hosting for Your Business Web Site

Thursday, 09 October 2008 12:01

by BenIngham

If you business has outgrown shared hosting usually the next step in the upgrade is a managed dedicated server. This type of hosting allows you rent your own server. This hosting provider typically maintains a stock of servers and will operate its own network and data center. The important point is that this server is for your exclusive use only, you do not share resources with other users or websites.

Unless you have some technical experience with web servers you may struggle to perform your own server management and administrative tasks. If you don't have the in house technical experience, you could consider hiring a technical person to handle these tasks if you feel the self managed server is what your business needs. There are many freelancing site where you could advertise for additional help and many business allow you to outsource your server administration work.

With Managed dedicated hosting however a hosting provider gives technical support and basic system helps. They should have technicians on site on a 24 hour basis in order to carry out reboots if neccessary. In some cases you still have complete technical control over your server, and the server is dedicated entirely to your own usage but additionally you will also have access to optional managed services such as technical upgrades, security patching, firewalls, and backup services

Dedicated hosting providers usually offer a choice of operating systems which are usually Windows 2003 and Linux (Centos, Ubuntu, Fedora etc). Also to make management of the server easier the managed hosting provider will install a control panel. The most popular control panels are Cpanel (Web Host Manager) Plesk, Helm and H-Sphere. This makes managing your server and routine task such as setting up users and creating mail boxes much easier. A server without a control panel is sometimes known as a "root server." If this is a Linux server this will often require command line expertise.

Whether renting an unmanaged dedicated server or a managed server, try and explore all options before making a decision. Use online review sites and forums to research the various hosting companies and find out what each offers. Ensure that if they offer 24/7/365 support, make sure they can actually provide it. When choosing a dedicated server provider, always go for quality of service rather than price, as the old adage that you get what you pay for applies to dedicated server hosting, as with anything else.

About the Author:

Ben Ingham is a Centos Dedicated Server Administrator with over 10 years experience renting and configuring Managed Dedicated Servers