Dedicated server, Portal with dedicated servers

Dedicated Server Introduction

Dedicated server as the name suggests, is dedicated to just one customer or one business. It is one computer that serves your web pages and does not share resources with other customers. One of many important factors that visitor to your web page looks at, is how fast this page displays (loads up) and if this web site is available at all times. Not meeting one of these factors can be a cause for your customer to move to the competition.

Dedicated server advantages

Dedicated servers do not share any resources (eg: RAM, disc space or bandwidth) so that your web site has 100% available for itself. It is a proven fact that customers can be very choosy and picky, and the survey was undertaken, which determined that if a visitor does not see your full web page loaded after 8 seconds, then most probably he or she will close this window or hit the back button on their web browser. A dedicated server allows for much faster access to your web site, which improves customer satisfaction. Dedicated servers also give you much more control and flexibility over how you configure your server. But most important factor out of all of them is that dedicated servers come with the most proven reliability.

Dedicated server offers Reliability and Performance

Let's talk about reliability. Let's for example assume that you are running a web shop. If in case of a shared server overload, the shop becomes unavailable for few hours, then the profits loss can be huge. In my experience I have used the shared servers and dedicated servers, but so many times in case of shared web hosting I would come and load my web site just to check it, and I could notice that the performance and sometimes even the availability is not there. This could occur for a longer period of time, but even few times a day for few minutes.

So, dedicated servers can be much more assuring option if you are running a web site which requires to be available more than 99% of time. Actually some web hosting companies promise you in their quality of service assurance, that if you decide to host your web site with them, your web site will be online more than 99% of time. Do not believe that. I have been with many hosting companies and tried my luck with shared hosting, and I would be overestimating if I said that 97% is very good when it comes to shared server.The simple reason behind it is that the server admin staff can not control how the other users on the shared server are using the resources. For example, what if some other user that has a web site on the same server computer as you, created a web site with scripting, but the script abuses the resources and performance of the server. It happened to me so many times. To tell you the truth even myself when I was just beginning internet programmer, I created some really hopeless scripts and then placed them on the shared or call it virtual server.What would that leave the other users on the same virtual server with? Not much except to wait till I fix my scripts.

Dedicated server disadvantages

Even though, the dedicated server offers so many advantages, the luxury comes at a price. This option it is still recommended for larger businesses or anyone that requires performance, availability or the configuration control. The dedicated servers offer much greater control over the settings, but the user needs to have solid knowledge of operating system and networking issues, before undertaking this job. This could take many years to learn. Other option would be to hire somebody who is a guru, but gurus come at a price too.

Dedicated server conclusion

In conclusion, there is few factors to balance out before you decide to go for dedicated server hosting, so a good idea is to start off you web site on a shared server and then if the need arises move on to dedicated server.

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