Managed Dedicated Servers

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

Dedicated servers are a hosting option which allows a complete server to be leased from a company without being shared with another party.  These types of hosting plans allow the client to be able to have access to more options than a traditional hosting service.  The entire server can provide the maximum amount of memory and hard disk storage for the single client.  This can be very beneficial to very large websites or projects which use large amounts of memory and processing ability from the server.

Choosing Managed Servers

Depending on the selection of options that are available for the specific dedicated server, the client may have the ability to choose between a managed or non-managed server.  The non-managed server types will require the client to take care of all management processes of the server from every aspect while a managed server has everything provided by the hosting company in terms of background work.  The client would only want to choose a non-managed option if they wish to have full control of the dedicated server, which is not recommended unless the client really knows what they are doing or has a team capable of handling those responsibilities.  A managed dedicated server provides limited freedom for the client with the server but ensures that the server is managed by the host.

What managed hosting means for clients is that their responsibilities for the server are handled by the hosting company.  Such responsibilities include infrastructure management with hardware updates, software updates, hardware replacement, backup management, customer support, tech support, datacenter management and much more.  The client will only need to worry about what operating system they need to use from approved options for the dedicated server and any type of control panel software to manage the portions of the server which require much less responsibility.

Managed dedicated servers have one major advantage over the non-managed options and that is support.  Unmanaged dedicated servers will basically not have any form of support.  Support that may be offered would be on a paid by the hour basis and can be very costly.  Managed dedicated server hosting options will usually have a 24/7 support team which is capable of offering help in resolving any issues that the client may be having with their server.  The managed hosting will also be pressed to uphold the standards for the near perfect uptime and any maintenance that is required by the server.

A managed dedicated server is really recommended for any business or entity which needs a high powered server option but does not really need to have full control of the hosting.  Managed hosting can be somewhat more expensive due to the extra amount of work that the hosting company has to do for the client to ensure that the server is always up and running.  A small increase in cost over than of unmanaged dedicated hosting should not be a problem for most client needs for a high quality service.  Choosing a dedicated server can be done based on the requirements of the client.