We have discussed two types of web hosting until now, shared web hosting and virtual private server or VPS hosting. Each of them come with their own advantages and disadvantages. One may start with shared hosting as a novice to the online world. When the website traffic starts growing due to your efforts, you may think of shifting to a better option. In this case, VPS is the answer. VPS hosting can perform better than shared hosting. However, if your web site and business become more popular then you may have to choose to migrate to what is called dedicated server hosting.
In the first two types of web hosting, the physical server is always shared among number of clients. With dedicated server hosting that is not the case. The server is completely dedicated to you. There is no sharing at all.
You have full control over all the resources like processor time, memory, hard disk space, and bandwidth. You can decide on the architecture, operating system, appliances like load balancer, etc. Obviously, it comes at a high cost as compared to any other hosting plan.
Normally, dedicated server hosting comes with the best hardware, managed services, and 24×7 support. And, your website is like king. There is no chance to have any scalability problem or load time issue.
Pros
- A completely dedicated server for your website.
- You can decide almost everything including operating system, any additional appliances etc.
- Very fast as all 100% resources are available for the website.
- As there is no sharing, there is no chance of getting affected due to neighboring website overload.
- More secure than shared or VPS hosting. Dedicated server is completely isolated and is not affected because of the security loop hole in the neighboring website.
- This being the most expensive web hosting, the provider would give 24X7 service to you on priority basis.
Cons
- It is the most expensive option.
- As you own the entire server, you need technical expertise available to install, configure, maintain and optimize the server.
- If there is not enough traffic as you expected, dedicated server capacity can lie idle.
When to go for dedicated server
Dedicated server is the best suited solution for large businesses. The websites which receive traffic over 4 to 5 lac visitors per month. One of the important consideration is that you need to have a good technical staff to manage the server operations. You may go for dedicated hosting if security is one of the top concerns for you.
