Is a Dedicated Server Needed?

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When you decided that you wanted to run your own website, you were faced with many options. Most likely you were offered many design choices, email addresses, blogging interfaces, and e-commerce choices. Quite naturally, once you decided on all of the above, you had to make the decision about hosting and what types of hosting you wanted to have for your website. Most people start out small so they wouldn’t need too much in regards to a hosting server, so many choose basic or deluxe shared hosting.

Shared hosting is when there are several, sometimes hundreds of other websites being hosted on that one server. Usually this is okay for any simple and small business owner. But what if your business is picking up, or if you have confidential clientele matters handled through your website? Or what if you are worried about someone hacking into your server and causing havoc on your website? Is there a way to guarantee that no one else has access to your server and/or can view any files or databases? There certainly is. That guarantee comes in the form of a dedicated server.

In contrast to other types of servers, a dedicated server is distinct. Not like a shared server that is not secure. When hosting companies get customers ready to host, the selection of shared servers is used often, hard drive space and monthly bandwidth is shared by each customer on the server. If you use this method, you can have a lot of security issues with people on that server. The complete opposite of this is a dedicated server.

There isn’t anyone or anything on that server except you and your website(s). Your server is “dedicated” set apart solely for you and your usage. A dedicated server would be a good idea if you are running a highly confidential website such as a banking institution, doctor’s website, high traffic ecommerce site, and anything with content-sensitive material.

Numerous banks and hospitals employ dedicated servers for hosting their sites. A dedicated server can easily be obtained by asking for one from your hosting company. Be aware, unlike shared hosting, that there can be hefty fees associated with the monthly use of a dedicated server, since you have a server for you alone. There is no other way to share your costs. In order to view the dedicated server plans that are available to meet your website hosting needs, check with your present hosting company.

There are tons of pluses regarding using designated servers. One primary advantage is its security. Now it will be impossible for someone to hack into your website. You have the rights to the server and everything that is included in that. You have maximum storage space, more bandwidth, data transfer, and above all you have your own control panel.

Most control panels use Plesk Cpanel. And with the Cpanel come the many choices in software, for instance: Wordpress, PHPBB, Joomla (CMS), Drupal, Siteframe, phplinks, MySQL databases, phpAdmin, apache, and the list goes on! However, dedicated servers tend to be costly as it was previously discussed. Rather than renting shared space, often it is more cost efficient to obtain a dedicated server.

Take all these things into consideration and then ponder over them for a while. Before making your choice to switch to a dedicated server or to stay with a shared server, decide whether or not you can risk any compromises in your website’s security. It’s better to be safe than sorry. If you deal with credit cards and other personal information on your site, you should really consider switching to a dedicated server hosting plan.

Tags: Hardware