If you are looking for the best web hosting service available then the chances are that you are considering dedicated server hosting for your requirements as dedicated server hosting generally gives you a lot more than any lower end form of web hosting will ever be able to. Although dedicated servers are expensive, the benefits that you will receive in terms of reliability and security make dedicated server hosting good value for money in most scenarios. During the order process you will be able to select the operating system that you wish to have installed on your server, allowing you to create a custom dedicated hosting environment; any good web hosting provider will be able to offer you the choice between Windows and Linux, normally providing a variety of versions of each operating system. Dedicated servers can provide you with a good level of isolation meaning that you won’t have to share any of your resources with any other users; even with VPS server hosting you are sharing the hosting node with other servers meaning that you will never be able to make full use of the processor, meaning that dedicated server hosting is your best choice for CPU intensive tasks.
A dedicated server will be able to provide you with guaranteed resources that can’t be used by anyone else and since you will be using the physical hardware resources, you can upgrade your dedicated server in any way you wish. During the order process you will be able to select additional components for your dedicated server and usually you can choose to use a more powerful processor, add additional RAM and bigger as well as extra hard drives; such expansion isn’t possible with VPS servers because there you are using virtual resources that are part of physical resources being shared across multiple VPS servers. Depending on your web hosting provider, you may also be able to add additional features to your server including PCI cards which will open up the possibilities for RAID cards and other PCI based cards that will allow you to boost the uses for dedicated server hosting.
The reliability of dedicated server hosting is the main attraction for most businesses as if you are running a business website then the chances are that it has some value to you, whether you are simply promoting yourself through that or running an ecommerce store. As a dedicated server has more resources to spare and because you won’t be sharing with anyone else, your website will be available for a lot more of the time than you would experience when using a shared web hosting package or even a VPS server. The reliability of server hosting can be further improved by creating a cluster of dedicated servers since this will provide you with near enough 100% guaranteed uptime because you won’t have to worry about your website becoming unavailable if one server crashes since there will be at least one other dedicated server available to serve your website.
When reviewing the security of a web hosting service, you will probably find that nothing can compare to the security of the hosting environment that dedicated server hosting will be able to offer you. The idea of complete isolation means that you won’t have to worry about anyone else compromising the security of your web hosting environment or website to any degree. With a dedicated server you can easily implement any security software that you feel will benefit you as you won’t have to worry about affecting the performance of any other servers or website in the vicinity. If you have a larger budget and/or want a higher level of protection then you can usually rent dedicated hardware firewalls from most web hosting companies for use alongside dedicated servers; a hardware firewall will be able to do a much better job at preventing attacks from having an affect on your server since they will be doing the blocking meaning that any DDOS attacks won’t be taxing your server’s resources.
Dedicated web hosting environments allow you to achieve a lot more with web hosting as you will be able to install any applications of your choice and can make the configuration changes that you feel will allow you to make the most of your dedicated server. If you have a specific requirements that can’t be met with shared web hosting services then the chances are that you have turned to dedicated server hosting as a way of having this requirement met. As long as the commercial software that you are using is licensed, web hosting companies don’t usually mind the software that you use on your dedicated server. However, it is down to you to keep an eye on your overall resource usage because dedicated servers can be harder to bring back online after they have crashed than VPS servers.
You should consider the level of your skills prior to purchasing a dedicated server as it takes skill to be able to manage a dedicated server properly. If you feel that you don’t have enough experience to allow you to do a good job of managing your dedicated server then you can always consider managed server hosting as a viable alternative. Although costing slightly more, having access to a professional support team can be an indispensable resource in some situations and as long as you choose a decent web hosting provider you are sure to get value for money.
In conclusion, dedicated server hosting will allow you to use a dedicated web hosting environment that can’t be influenced by any other users since you will have full use of your dedicated server’s resources. Dedicated server hosting is the only form of web hosting to offer you your own physical server and so for most businesses, the price points are justifiable. The more powerful your dedicated server is, the more it is going to cost you and so it is recommended that you only choose a server that comes with resources that will reflect your final requirements.