Friday, February 22, 2008

What Are Dedicated Servers?

Do you want to host your website on the Internet, but you don’t want to share server space with anyone else? Have you ever heard of dedicated servers? These could be the perfect solution for you if you don’t want to share your server space.

A dedicated server is a type of Internet hosting that allows you to lease an entire server and not share it with anyone else. This is a more flexible option than shared hosting because it will give you full control over your server or servers. You will get to choose your operating system and your hardware. Your hosting company can provide you with server administration as an add-on option.

Dedicated servers are usually housed in data centers and can offer less overhead with a larger return on your investment. A dedicated hosting service will also provide you with system administration, since they own the server itself. Some useful features that may be offered to you at an additional fee are serial consoles, automated restores of OS, and remote backup spaces.

The operating systems that are offered on dedicated servers are usually determined by the availability, price, and the employees’ familiarity with that operating system. If you are on a budget, you can still lease a less expensive dedicated server, but the quality might not be as good as one of the higher quality providers.

The administrative maintenance of the operating system will sometimes include upgrades, security patches, and daemon updates. Some levels of management may also include the ability to add users, domains, daemon configuration, and custom programming.

There are a few limitations to dedicated servers. Most of the providers don’t allow IRC, which can overwhelm their networks, and this can lower service quality for all customers. Adult content is prohibited due to the questionable legality of it and because it can consume large sums of bandwidth. Also, “spam” is generally disallowed by the acceptable use policy.

Now that you know what a dedicated server is, do you think it is right for you? If it is or isn’t, it is up to you and what your needs are. Do your research and make the decision that is right for you and your company.

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