Dedicated Servers Unmasked

When we talk about hosting servers, there are three principal types - shared hosting servers, VPS (virtual hosting servers) and dedicated servers. Shared web servers accommodate many clients and so the system resources per web hosting account are limited, virtual private servers give you more server configuration freedom, but also affect other virtual hosting servers on the hardware node if used rashly, and dedicated servers offer you the independence to carry out everything you desire without meddling with anyone else.

Why would you need a dedicated servers?

Dedicated servers are normally much more expensive than shared web hosting servers or VPSs. Why would anyone, then, want to use them? The explanation is pretty simple. If your firm has a heavy-traffic web portal, or simply has very precise server setup requirements, the most logical option is a dedicated servers. For someone who is inclined to invest in security and dependability, the higher price is of no importance. You acquire complete server root access and can use 100% of the physical server's resources without anyone else sharing these system resources and messing with your web portals.

Hardware configurations

Most hosting suppliers, incl. us at ServerFarm, offer several hardware configurations you can select from in consonance with your requirements. The hardware configurations offer different types of microprocessors, a different amount of cores, different RAM memory and server disk drive sizes and different web traffic quotas. You can choose a hosting CP, which is a useful interface if you want to use the dedicated servers for web hosting purposes solely and prefer not to resort to a Secure Shell console for all the modifications you will be making. We offer 3 kinds of hosting CP software - Hepsia, DirectAdmin and cPanel.

The hosting Control Panel of your choosing

If you are a confident Linux OS user (our servers are running on Linux or other Unix-based OSs), you could manage your dedicated servers via an SSH connection exclusively. That, however, could be inconvenient, particularly if you decide to grant full root access to somebody else who has less technical experience than yourself. This is why having hosting CP software pre-activated is a fine idea. The Hepsia hosting Control Panel user interface that we offer does not give you full server root access and is mainly appropriate for someone who runs lots of websites that require lots of system resources, but wants to manage the sites, databases and email addresses through an intuitive hosting Control Panel. The DirectAdmin and cPanel web hosting Control Panels, on the other hand, grant full server root privileges and have three levels of access - root, reseller and user. If you intend to resell hosting packages instead of utilizing the dedicated servers just for yourself, you should pick one of these two.

Web server monitoring and backup procedures

Last but not least, there is the matter of monitoring the dedicated servers and of backing it up. In the event of a problem with your dedicated hosting server, like a non-responsive Apache or an outage, it is good to have some kind of monitoring platform enabled. Here at ServerFarm the system administrators monitor all dedicated servers for ping timeouts, and, if you order a Managed Services upgrade, they monitor the separate services on the dedicated servers as well. Backups are also a bonus feature - the web hosting services provider offers you data backups on our own backup servers. You could choose a kind of RAID that would allow you to have the same data on 2 server disk drives as a precaution in case of a hard disk drive failure, or in case someone whom you have ranted full server root access deletes something by accident.