Dedicated Server | Dedicated Server Hosting | Web Hosting UK

Dedicated server hosting services provide extremely powerful and secure web hosting solutions. Unlike shared hosting where a customer “shares” a server with other hosting clients, dedicated server hosting provides each customer with their own server. When a hosting client “leases” an entire server from a hosting provider, this is referred to as dedicated server hosting. The web hosting company still owns the server.

A client will have only their website or websites hosted on server when they use dedicated server hosting. This allows a higher performance and more security for their website. When people utilize shared hosting services their site is hosted on a server with many others and therefore the server’s resources can be taxed, causing a lower level of performance for the function of the websites. This is not the case with dedicated servers since one server is used for a single website and not multiple websites from multiple customers. Dedicated server hosting also provides customers with a higher level of security. Only their website is hosted on that server. The customer does not need to worry about any other customers finding a way to tamper with their website or data.

There are many reasons as to why a website might be a good candidate for dedicated server hosting. Websites receiving large volumes of traffic often work best when hosted on a dedicated server. This is often also the case for websites using an extremely large amount of disk space. If a website requires custom hardware and applications, dedicated server hosting will most likely be needed. Highly specialized e-commerce sites often function best when hosted on dedicated servers.

Dedicated server hosting works well for large business websites. It provides businesses with highly secure, powerful websites without the cost of having an in-house solution. Businesses can use customized software and applications meeting the specific needs of their business. However, they can do this at a much lower cost than owning and maintaining their own server. By utilizing dedicated server hosting rather than owning a server they also will not need to operate and maintain and data center.

A hosting customer does not typically need a dedicated server for a basic website. If the website does not use a great deal of bandwidth or disk space, shared hosting services work quite well and at a lower cost. If a website does not require customized hardware and applications, shared hosting rather than dedicated server hosting is typically the best choice.

When a person or business does opt for dedicated server hosting services, the hosting company will provide the maintenance and security for the server. They will also perform backups of the data stored on the server. It is the responsibility of the web-hosting provider to maintain the data center where the server is stored. They will update and manage all the hosting equipment needed to host the website. The web-hosting provider offers technical support for the server.

For business websites and other websites requiring a large volume of bandwidth and disk space dedicated hosting can be an excellent choice. It provides powerful, reliable and secure hosting services. Only a client’s website is hosted on that server which allows for fast load time and more secure hosting services.

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When should you Upgrade from Dedicated Web Server Hosting to Clustered Server Hosting?

Dedicated web server hosting gives you much greater flexibility and control than virtual hosting, but it still has volume constraints and failures can be caused by a single point of error. Here are questions that should help you determine if it is time for clustered server hosting:

Are the services on my web server so critical that I can not afford them to be down even an hour or two? Dedicated web server hosting is much more robust that a virtual hosting, but there are still many single points of error that could cause downtime.

Are so many people trying to access the applications on my dedicated hosting server that it is becoming too slow? Good applications get a lot of use, however as you get many people using them at the same time the system slows down and productivity suffers.

Are so many people visiting my web site or trying to download information that it is becoming too slow? Getting a lot of visitors to your web site is great, but a single dedicated server only can handle so many requests for information before response time slows and potential customers leave.

Would placing applications on different web servers simplify troubleshooting performance issues? When too many things get loaded onto a single dedicated web server it is very difficult to tell what is causing the problem when troubles start.

Does the traffic volume or system load fluctuate greatly from high to low in unpredictable ways? Trying to handle wide swings in volume on a single dedicated web server is very difficult as you end up with too much or too little capacity.

Is my business growing so rapidly that I need an easy way to scale my web servers? Adding more web servers to handle growth to a properly configured cluster is very easy.

If you answered yes to any of these questions it is probably time to seriously consider migrating to clustered hosting.

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When should you Upgrade from Virtual Hosting to Dedicated Web Server Hosting?

Virtual hosting is an inexpensive way to gain access to the internet if you have relatively few pages viewed on your web site or files downloaded. However, it is very easy to outgrow virtual hosting. Ask yourself these questions:

If high volume on someone else’s site that shares my virtual hosting server slows down my web site, is it a major issue to me? You are one of many customers on the hosting server and your site can easily be affected by things beyond your control.

Do I need to add an application, such as a database to my site for my customers or employees? Because this hosting dedicated server has to meet the needs of many different companies the applications available are typically limited to email and similar basic applications.

Has the volume to my web site increased enough to slow down the response time? The available bandwidth on a virtual hosting server is quite limited. Growth is the leading cause of upgrading to dedicated web server hosting.

Are the services provided by my virtual hosting server critical to my business or could I easily overlook it if the server went down for a day or two?

Virtual hosting is much less reliable than dedicated hosting. You are taking a large risk being on a virtual hosting server if you can not afford your web server to be down.

Do I need easy access to experienced engineers to help me support my site? A virtual hosting company may have thousands of clients so it is difficult to get expert support.

If you answered yes to any of these questions it is probably time to seriously consider migrating to a dedicated web server hosting.

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What is Web Server Clustering ?

Web Server Clustering is where two or more web servers are configured to act as a single system. Web server clustering can improve the reliability and throughput of an Internet-based system. Troubleshooting and determining the root cause of problems also can be much simpler with web server clustering. However, clustering requires a great deal of technical knowledge if the system is to be properly set-up and maintained.

Advantages of Web Server Clustering

Clustering improves the reliability of Internet-based systems because it eliminates many of the single points of failure that are possible in a single web server system. For example, with web server clustering you could have two or more web servers supporting your Internet site. If one of the web servers fails your throughput might be impacted to some degree but the site would still be available on the second web server. In a single server system your site would be offline if this happened.

The throughput of a system can be vastly improved with clustering because you can put a load balancer in the system that will send traffic to the least busy resource. This also means clustering can handle huge swings in volume that may occur during the day.

Web server clustering also makes it much easier to troubleshoot systems if properly configured. Instead of having many different items loaded on one web server you can put similar programs on each web server so it is easier to determine if a problem is related to an application, database, bandwidth, etc.

Web Server Clustering Issues

The drawback to clustering is you have to know what you are doing. Web server clustering done right is easily scalable and easily maintained. Clustering configured wrong is a nightmare you don’t want to experience.

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Web Server Load balancing is a way of distributing the throughput or processing requirements evenly among multiple web servers in a clustered environment. Web Server Load balancing allows a computer system to easily handle large fluctuations in volume to web sites or databases. Without web server load balancing, one web server could be under utilized while at the same time another web server was being swamped by requests.

Web Server Load Balancing — Methods

Web Server Load balancing can be accomplished with software, hardware, or a combination of both. There are trade-offs to consider in how to implement web server load balancing, so it is best done by someone with web server load balancing expertise.

Web Server Load Balancing — Benefits

While web server load balancing improves the throughput and efficiency of a computer system, it does not improve reliability. Because of this, it is typical to combine failover capabilities with load balancing to improve the robustness of the system.

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Web Server hosting is where a server has only one customer on it and he controls all aspects of the server. This provides much greater flexibility than a virtual server, but the burden of administration must be handled by the customer or outsourced to a web server hosting provider.

Web Server Hosting — Control

You get much greater control with web server hosting as you do not share the web server with anyone else. No longer will the volume of another site on the server impact you. Web server hosting also allows you to add any application onto the server that you require, so you are no longer limited to just the standard email and other basic applications found on a virtual server.

Web Server Hosting — Reliability

Web Server hosting provides much greater reliability than virtual hosting. You no longer are exposed to the business practices of other companies sharing a virtual server. Plus you can ensure that security and upgrades are implemented since you control server administration with web server hosting.

Web Server Hosting — Support

Engineering support is also vastly improved with web server hosting. You will still need to select a qualified provider that has good technical skills, but with dedicated hosting the support engineer to customer ratio is much more attractive.

At some point your business requirements may out grow web server hosting on a single server and cause you to upgrade to clustered hosting, but web server hosting is a logical first step for most businesses. Web server hosting allows you to control how your server is used which improves speed, reliability and scalability.

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