When is a dedicated server the right choice for an online business?

A dedicated server is more secure, has more available resources, and is more scalable than a virtual hosting solution. Additionally, a dedicated server is under complete control of the company leasing the machine. If these features are important to you, then a dedicated server may be the best solution for your online business. A comparison of these features will make the differences between dedicated servers, virtual hosting, and colocated servers.

Control: With virtual hosting, only those software packages supported by the system administrators will be on the servers. Leasing a dedicated server allows you to have complete control of the kinds and amount of software that you run.You get to choose the services that are available and those that are restricted. You control how much storage space is allocated for your databases.

Security: Virtual hosting is a shared resource with many people having access to the machine. Access to directories and files is controlled by user and group names, so other users could would not be able to see the files unless they somehow acquired your password or surreptitiously become the superuser. While few users have malicious intent towards the servers that host their website, they could unknowingly allow access to some person who may have malicious intent. Because of these issues, the presence of users outside of your organization can be a potential security hazard. Furthermore, files destined for presentation on the web must have world readable protection so that the low privileged webserver can read the files. While these files may be password protected from the outside world via .htaccess or some other password protection mechanism, all users on the computer (the "world" for world readable) will be able to see these files. If you have sensitive information that is to be seen only by those who you have authorized to access to your web pages, then you need a dedicated server. Since you will know who has access to your server and what programs they can run, you can be sure that some poorly written or buggy program will not be run which could halt services or hang the machine. While Linux is very good at protecting against such unwanted program behavior, there are circumstances where this could occur.

Physical security is also an important issue to consider. We have restricted access and only Stellarhost personnel are allowed access to the machines. Colocation services by definition require that the owner of the machine have access to the machine for upgrades and maintenance.

Server Resources and Scalability: As your online business grows you could easily outgrow the resources of your original webhosting solution. If you started out with a virtual hosting package, you can purchase more storage space or bandwidth, but the basic server is unlikely to be changed. If you need large amounts of storage space, the per MB charge is not cost effective compared to the cost of adding a whole disk drive onto a dedicated server. If you need more processing power or simply a larger portion of the available CPU cycles, a virtual web hosting package may not be able to accommodate your needs. With a dedicated server, all you need to do is to request that more disk drives be added or that the processors be upgrades to a higher speed. If your processing needs are very demanding, you can also request that your disk drives be places in a dual processor server package or even row into multiple servers. With these types of upgrades, downtime is minimal and your online business while then progress faster. Since Stellarhost owns the equipment you do not need to spend resources on researching the best equipment or the disposition of retired equipment. An additional benefit of leasing is that in the event of a component failure, we will replace the part at no charge to you. This easy upgrade path allows you to focus on promoting your online business and not be diverted by hardware issues.

Support:

At Stellarhost we take pride in our customer support. With hundreds of clients we have heard many permutations of questions about the same issues and misunderstandings, all of which were answered promptly, correctly and courteously. This extensive experience with webhosting and Linux server applications, allows us to be able to answer readily your toughest questions concerning servers. Our goal is help you keep it up and running so that your online business will prosper.

If you are still not sure whether a dedicated server is the right solution to your online business problems, please call to speak to one of our dedicated server specialists.