Dedicated Hosting

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. There is also another level of dedicated or managed hosting commonly referred to as complex managed hosting. Complex Managed Hosting applies to both physical dedicated servers, Hybrid server and virtual servers, with many companies choosing a hybrid (combination of physical and virtual) hosting solution. There are many similarities between standard and complex managed hosting but the key difference is the level of administrative and engineering support that the customer pays for – owing to both the increased size and complexity of the infrastructure deployment. The provider steps in to take over most of the management, including security, memory, storage and IT support. The service is primarily proactive in nature.Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service. In some cases a dedicated server can offer less overhead and a larger return on investment. Dedicated servers are most often housed in data centers, similar to colocation facilities, providing redundant power sources and HVAC systems. In contrast to colocation, the server hardware is owned by the provider and in some cases they will provide support for operating systems or applications.

Operating system support

Availability, price and employee familiarity often determines which operating systems are offered on dedicated servers. Variations of Linux and Unix (open source operating systems) are often included at no charge to the customer. Commercial operating systems include Microsoft Windows Server, provided through a special program called Microsoft SPLA. Red Hat Enterprise is a commercial version of Linux offered to hosting providers on a monthly fee basis. The monthly fee provides OS updates through the Red Hat Network using an application called Yum. Other operating systems are available from the open source community at no charge. These include CentOS, Fedora Core, Debian, and many other Linux distributions or BSD systems FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD.

Management

Dedicated hosting services primarily differ from managed hosting services in that managed hosting services usually offer more support and other services. As such, managed hosting is targeted towards clients with less technical knowledge, whereas dedicated hosting services, or unmanaged hosting services, are suitable for web development and system administrator professionals.

To date, no industry standards have been set to clearly define the management role of dedicated server providers. What this means is that each provider will use industry standard terms, but each provider will define them differently.

Server management can include some or all of the following:

Operating system updates

Application updates

Server monitoring

SNMP hardware monitoring

Application monitoring

Application management

Technical support

Firewall services

Anti-spam software

Antivirus updates

Security audits

DDoS protection and mitigation

Intrusion detection

Backups and restoration

Disaster recovery

DNS hosting service

Load balancing

Database administration

Performance tuning

Software installation and configuration

User management

Programming consultation

Software

Providers often bill for dedicated servers on a fixed monthly price to include specific software packages. Over the years, software vendors realized the significant market opportunity to bundle their software with dedicated server.

Security

Dedicated hosting server providers utilize extreme security measures to ensure the safety of data stored on their network of servers.