Is a Dedicated Server Needed?

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 means that multiple websites are being hosted on a particular single server. Typically the simple and small business owner finds this to be okay, but say your business is gaining momentum, or if your website processes client matters that are top secret. Are you going to be worried if someone hacks into your website that will cause havoc even on your server? Is there a legitimate way to ensure that your server, files and databases are secure from anyone else accessing them? Of course there is. That assurance arrives in the style 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.

Using dedicated servers have many advantages. One advantage that takes to the for is the issue of security. No longer do you need to worry about people hacking into your website. The whole server and everything therein is yours. 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, as mention before dedicated servers can get very expensive. Sometimes it’s cheaper to get a dedicated server as opposed to renting shared space per month and per year.

Consider all these things before you choose 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. If security is not an issue as much as lots of bandwidth, then maybe you could upgrade your shared server. But if you deal with credit cards and other personal information on your site, you should really consider switching to a dedicated server hosting plan. It’s better to be safe than sorry.