Welcome back to our continued series on hosting. Today we are going to explore dedicated hosting. Please check our previous post covering shared hosting and virtual private servers. This option provides you with the big iron. Hardware that is yours and only yours. You will find all makes and models – the big players are Dell and HP. You might own the hardware but usually rent or lease it from a hosting company. Coming in with an almost unlimited amount of configurations – this is the most expensive option as well.
You can expect $100 or more per month, larger or more complex configurations can add up. With electrical and cooling costs, rack space can be expensive in crowded facilities.
Does your site get an extreme amount of traffic? Complex design? Certain regulatory requirements? Dedicated hosting may be the best or only option for you.
Above all, do you really need it? Probably not. In the past four or five years we have not encountered one client who actually required dedicated hosting. Our CTO explained – “those who still use dedicated hosting are probably too busy to switch.” Similarly, “switching from dedicated to virtual can sometimes be a daunting task. The team who originally designed the environment may no longer be with the company.” Most importantly, with the way technology moves, dedicated is going the way of modems. It can be hard to scale in real-time, prone to hardware failures and difficult to manage. Spikes in traffic can not easily be managed. Need a quick reboot? It could take upwards of 15 minutes or longer. VPS’ can reboot in seconds.
Consider VPS’ (or virtual machines) to get the most bang for your buck! Limitless options. Priced according to how much you use and endless scaling. Almost all of our new clients are moving in this direct – it is the future!
