How Dedicated Hosting Works

When we talk about web hosting servers, there are 3 basic types - shared website hosting web servers, VPS (private virtual web servers) and dedicated servers. Shared web hosting servers host a lot of clients and thus the resources per account are limited, VPS accounts offer more configuration independence, but also affect other VPSs on the hardware node if utilized imprudently, and dedicated servers offer you the freedom to carry out everything you choose without interfering with anyone else.

Why would you require a dedicated server?

Dedicated servers are typically much more high-priced than shared web hosting servers or VPSs. Why would anyone, then, want to use them? The answer is very simple. If your firm has a intense-traffic website, or just has very specific web server setup requirements, the most logical choice would be a dedicated server. For somebody who is prepared to invest in safety and reliability, the bigger price is not an issue. You get root access and can use 100% of the dedicated web hosting server's resources without anyone else sharing these system resources and meddling with your web pages.

Hardware architectures

Most hosting providers, incl. us at IPguide, provide several different hardware configurations you can select from on the basis of your demands. The configurations include different sorts of microprocessors, a different number of cores, different RAM memory and server hard disk drive sizes and different traffic usage quotas. You can pick a web hosting Control Panel, which is a useful graphical user interface if you wish to utilize the dedicated server for hosting purposes only and choose not to resort to an SSH client for all the changes you will be making. We provide three sorts of web hosting CP software - Hepsia, DirectAdmin and cPanel.

The hosting CP of your preference

If you are a confident Linux user (our web hosting servers are running on Linux or other Unix-based Operating Systems), you could manage your dedicated server via a Secure Shell client only. That, however, could be inconvenient, especially if you want to grant full server root access to someone else who has less technical experience than yourself. That is why having Control Panel software pre-activated is a fine idea. The Hepsia Control Panel tool that we offer does not give you full server root privileges and is mainly suitable for someone who runs a lot of web sites that devour plenty of system resources, but would rather administer the online portals, databases and mail addresses via an intuitive hosting Control Panel. The DirectAdmin and cPanel hosting CPs, on the other hand, grant root access and include 3 levels of access - root, reseller and user. If you intend to resell web hosting accounts rather than using the dedicated hosting web server just for yourself, you should select one of these two.

Web server monitoring and backup services

Last but not least, there is the issue of monitoring the dedicated server and of backing it up. In the event of a problem with your web server, such as a non-responsive Apache or a network downtime, it is good to have some sort of monitoring system activated. Here at IPguide the system administrators monitor all dedicated servers for ping timeouts, and, if you have a Managed Services package, they monitor the separate services on the dedicated server as well. Backups are also an extra option - the hosting distributor offers you data backups on our own backup web servers. You could select a type of RAID that would allow you to keep the same data on two server hard disk drives as a precaution in case of a server hard disk drive failure, or in case someone whom you have ranted root-level access erases something by accident.