Why Should We Choose Managed Web Hosting Service?

There are many different types of web hosting services available on the market nowadays, such as dedicated website hosting, shared hosting, reseller hosting and many others. In this article I would like to talk about managed website hosting.

What is managed hosting?
Generally speaking, managed hosting can be considered as a type of dedicated hosting and it refers to the hosting services that are administered by the website hosting service providers. With managed hosting service, customers will have more time to focus on other things because the server administration work can be completely handled by web hosts. The hosting providers will take care of their customers' needs, configure the servers and install software for their customers.

What kind of people need managed hosting?
Managed web hosting is a type of dedicated hosting which can give you much control and flexibility, so you do not need to share the same server with other websites. Besides, if you choose managed web hosting, you do not have to worry about website issues because the web hosts will satisfy all your needs so you can spend your time growing your website or company. Therefore, this kind of hosting service is fit for the people who have limited IT knowledge and limited time.

Advantages of managed website hosting
Choosing managed hosting service can save you a lot of time. As I have mentioned above, managed website hosting services always include monitoring, server updates, technical support, software installation and many others. So you do not need to worry about website building and website maintenance. It can also save you much money. Hiring a team of dedicated IT professionals to manage your website is very costly. However, if you choose managed hosting, the provider will handle all your daily needs. So this kind of service is suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises because it can help them save a lot of money. It can give you a high quality website. We know that managed web hosting belongs to dedicated hosting where the server is not shared with other websites, so it can provide customers with greater security and increased performance. Besides, your websites will be much more stable and can sustain heavy traffic if you choose this kind of service. It can provide you with excellent technical support. Your server and website will be monitored by your service provider all-day and he is able to deal with any possible issues that may arise.

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How to choose a dedicated server!

So you've outgrown your shared host and it's time now to move on to the real stuff.

Yes we are talking about dedicated servers, those byte crunching beasts. Figuring out all of the options and services can be very confusing.

But No Worry!

I will try and give you some tips and hopefully guide to your perfect server.

So let's not waste any time and start with first segment.

What is a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated Server is a single computer connected to a network (internet). This computer and all of it's processing power is dedicated to a single person or organization. Meaning that the computer resources are not shared by anyone else. You have the full control of the machine and you are free to run any software you want on that computer.

Generally dedicated servers are used to serve web page requests ( html, images, videos...etc) but they can be used for many other purposes as well.

Do I need one or more servers?
To simplify things we will divide the use of dedicated servers into these two groups:

Full Web site Hosting Specific Service Hosting (Database, email, httpd...etc)Single Web site Hosting
Hosting of a single or several web sites. In this kind of setup, all of the services/programs (http software, DB software, email software...etc) are installed and running on one dedicated server. Sometimes these services/programs can also be referred as "servers" them self.

This is the common setup for small to medium trafficked web sites since all of the necessary software needed to run the web site are located on one physical machine.

Advantage to of this setup is that it lowers the cost, but disadvantage is that all of the machine resources are shared by all of the software and processes.

Specific Service Hosting
Hosting of a single software or service on it's own dedicated machine. All of the resources on the machine are dedicated mainly for one type of service or functionality. For example, one might host only Database Software on the server so that all of the resources on that machine are only dedicated for processing of Database Queries. You are able to handle more queries, or deliver more pages.

Usually medium to high trafficked web sites will run this kind of setup.

Traditional setup will consist of one or more server that will only handle web (http) request, then one or more servers only handling database requests and maybe one or more servers only handling processing of the emails. Theoretically there is no limitation on the amount of servers. As a group working together these servers are used to process in millions of requests a day.

Which setup do you choose?
This of course depends on the amount of requests and traffic that your web site will be receiving. So to be able to answer this question we need to first understand little bit about what services are needed in order for web site to be accessed by the user.

Generally today's dynamic web sites require two main service types to deliver a full working web site to the user's browser.
WEB SERVERS / WEB SCRIPTS ( apache, IIS, php, perl, java ) DATABASE SERVER (MYSQL, MSSQL, ORACLE) Use of the word "servers" in the above text is referring to the application / software and not to the physical machine. This is a common term used to describe the type of application.

Web server handles all of the initial requests from the browser and decides on how and where data from the Database is returned.
Database server handles requests from the web server in a form of queries. These queries retrieve data from the storage (hard disk) and return it to the web server.

As you can see both web and database server work together to deliver the final product (web page) to the user.

Usually web server handles more of the logic part so FASTER CPU and bigger MEMORY are always in need more then Hard Drive speed.

While database server handles more of data retrieval so FASTER HD and bigger MEMORY are always in need more then cpu speed.

In any case more memory is always needed:)

It's important to note that all of the server software always uses some of the CPU, MEMORY and HARD DISK resources. Eventually they start fighting over the available resources.

One way to stop this fight over the resources is to separate them onto each own dedicated server.

Another reason to separate service types is that is easier to optimize the machine to run well for one specific task then it is for all of the tasks.

For example:

Since we now know that Database needs faster Hard Drives, maybe we use more expensive faster Hard Drives in DB machine, and leave the cheaper hard drives on WEB machines where HD speed is not as important.

But maybe instead we use faster processors on WEB machines since they perform most of the logic.

Doing it like this we have optimal performance without wasting resources and $$$!

These are just general suggestions, and depending on the web site and it's functionality these configurations will vary.

Server Features and Components.
Ok now that you understand what each (web, db) server is hungry for, how do you know what components to get?

Because of the sheer amount of different types and models of each component I would need to write several books just to cover that subject.

So I am just going to give you some general guides for each type of component, which whould help you on your next server purchase.

CPU Speed:
This is a no brainer. More speed (Ghz) that processor has the faster it can do the calculations and faster the pages are going to get returned to the user.

Some CPU architectures are known to perform better then others in server setups so I suggest you do some research on that subject.

Number of CPU Cores / Processors:

Another no brainer. More cores or processors your server has, more taks it can do simultaneously. Since most of the actions on the server are based on requests and each request usually spawns a separate process, you can see how more CPU Cores enables the server to handle multiple requests at the same time.

Amount of RAM:
I think you see the pattern here "MORE". Needless to say that more RAM your server has, more requests it can handle at the same time. Reason for that is that each request requires certain amount of RAM so that it can be processed. This amount is dependent of various factors like: Software type, Operating System, Installed Modules...etc

For example popular web server software APACHE can take about 7mb to 15mb of RAM per request or process and that's not accounting for any other processes already running or being spawned to compliment that each request.

Memory is probably best investment you can make in your dedicated server.

Hard Drive RPM speed
Again the faster the disk spins, quicker it can get to the data on disk. Some popular Har Disk speeds are: 7200RPM, 10000RPM and 15000RPM.

Biggest performance increase by faster Hard Drives will be seen by applications which access the Disk often. Some of those applications are: Database servers, File Servers and Video Streaming servers.

SATA vs SCSI vs SAS
If you were wondering what all of these acronyms are related to, they are the 3 most common Hard Drive interfaces used in dedicated servers.

Starting from left with SATA being the most affordable but usually not being the best performer. While with SCSI generally you get better performance then SATA but at much higher cost and with a lot less disk space. With SAS you get better performance then SCSI and you also get more disk space.

Of course there is a lot more differences between these interfaces. Luckily there is tons of articles on the internet explaining it all. I suggest you spend some time researching.

Generally unless you are running very High Transaction DB server you are fine with SATA. And if you are looking for best performance and you don't care about the cost then go with SAS.

To RAID or not to RAID
So yes we are still stuck with the hard drives. When you see a word "RAID" being used in a server setup, that means that server has 2 or more HD's joined in an array forming one logical unit. Raid usually provides increased storage reliability through redundancy. There are different RAID setups and you've probably seen some: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10...etc

Two most common ones you will see in server setups are RAID 1 and RAID 5

What you need to know about RAID 0 is that provides you with some performance and increased total disk space but has no redundancy. If one drive fails, you loose your data.

RAID 1 provides redundancy thru mirroring and in certain cases performance increase, but you do not get increased disk space. If one drive fails you can still continue operating and be able to replace the broken drive without loss of data. This setup requires two Hard Drives.

RAID 5 provides redundancy and increased disk space. It requires minimum on 3 Hard drives. Maximum of disk space you can have is:(Size of Smallest Drive) * (Number of Drives - 1). If one HD fails you can still continue your operations.

RAID can be implemented via two common methods, via software or via hardware.

Software RAID uses Computer resources while Hardware RAID uses it's own dedicated resource on the card.

If you have a powerful machine then performance difference between Hardware and Software RAID could be negligable

Generally it is thought that if available Hardware RAID is a better choice.

If you have an option to "RAID" your server, I say go for it, at least RAID 1. Servers are 24hr nonstop workhorses and any interruption due to single Hard Drive point of failure could cause serious downtime for your web site.

Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the term used to describe the amount of data that server will deliver over period of time. Hosting companies can choose to offer various pricing structures for cost of bandwidth.

But some of the most popular ones are:

Metered Bandwidth Unmetered BandwidthMetered bandwidth packages usually come with certain amount of included bandwidth a month and if going over the included limit you are charged certain fee per transferred GB ( GigaByte ) of data.

Unmetered bandwidth packages allow you to to transfer as much as you can at the maximum included transfer rate. This maximum transferred rate is measured in Mbps ( megabits per second ).

Each pricing structure type offers its own advantages and disadvantages.

With metered bandwidth you usually have access to much faster connection so your speed can burst up to the hosting provider's maximum bandwidth capabilities. This enables the user to download the file quicker if capable. Since you are charged per amount of data transfer, you are only limited to the speed of your uplink port.

With unmetered bandwidth you are limited (capped) to certain speed of your connection (10Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps...etc). Amount of data you transfer is not measured. In nutshell hosting company says here is your max speed so you use it up to the max speed or not, you are charged one flat fee for that speed.

With metered bandwidth you have to make sure that amount of data transfer included a month can actually be delivered over a included uplink port.

For example: Lets say with your server you get 6,000 GB of outbound transfer a month but your uplink port speed is 10 Mbps.

With this type of uplink speed if you were to continuously transfer for one month at the maximum speed of 10 Mbps you would only be able to transfer 3,240 GB of data. So to fully be able to utilize all of the allowed transfer usage you will have to upgrade to higher port speed.

Operating System
Usually hosting companies offer several different types of Operating Systems, but most of them are grouped into Linux/Unix based and Windows Servers.

OS X Server is a very rear breed to find on dedicated servers.

Choosing an operating system is mostly dependent on the requirements of software, libraries and applications you will be running on your server.

Certain software is available on both Linux, Unix and Windows, while others are only available for specific OS.

Linux based Operating Systems are very popular choice since most of them are free and usually require less resources to run then windows.

Control Panel
Control panels allow for easy management of dedicated servers. They allow you setup new virtual hosts, domains, emails accounts and various other tasks that can without a control panel be vary tedious and hard to setup.

Some are free and open source but for most of them you have to pay. Usually paid ones come with more features and support.

Most popular paid ones are: Cpanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin.

Most popular free ones are: Virtualmin GPL, W

If you are a novice with dedicated servers and your web server is unmanaged by the hosting company then I would strongly suggest having some kind of control panel installed. It will make your server management easy and you will be able to spend the nights actually sleeping instead of trying to figure out why your apache server is returning "500 Internal Server Error":)

One thing to note is that some Control Panels take over your OS and embed them self so deep with the OS that it can make doing setups and installs not supported by the control panel difficult.

Web Hosting Support and Management
Managed or Unmanaged?
Most of the Dedicated Server packages come as "Managed" or "Unmanaged".

With unmanaged servers it's your responsibility to manage the server. Meaning that installing and configuring any software on the server falls on you. Unmanaged servers are usually much cheaper and if you do not have any "System Administration" experience it can be difficult to manage the server.

One option is to get some type of control panel which can make the management of the server much easier.

With managed servers responsibility of managing of the server falls on the hosting company. If you are very new to all this or you do not have time to manage it your self then this is your best bet. Usually managed servers are much more expensive. Managed services come with different levels of management. Make sure that you find out exactly what is included in the management of your server, some tasks or software might not be covered and you might get charged hourly support rates.

Remote Reboot
Is referred to an option that enables you to instantly Hard Reboot your machine. This is usually done via web interface and it is useful since gives you the control to restart the server at your command. Once in a while something will happen with the OS or software on the server so that it crashes or freezes.

This requires the hard restart of the machine (cutting the power off to the machine, and starting again).

If remote reboot is not available, you can usually issue an email ticket or call the hosting company them self and they will perform this for you. Problem is that sometimes support team might not get to your ticket in a while, which is why remote reboot comes in handy.

Technical Support
Things do go wrong and they usually happen when you least expect. Servers crash, Hard drives fail, Processors can burn out and what do you do then? You are possibly thousands of miles away from the server and there is nothing you can personally do. You are in the hands of technical support.

There is all types of hosting companies out there, from those run by one person to those run by hundreds of skilled technicians. Some offer 24/7 manned phone, chat and email support, while some have only limited email support. Be careful when choosing your hosting company, pay good attention to the level of support they provide and see what is covered. For support that is not covered in your plan some hosting companies charge as high as $150 per hour. Make sure you read their SLA (Service Level Agreement) to see if they offer any guarantees for any down time as well

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How to choose an ideal server hosting Service

Selection of a hosting service is a very important decision for hosting your website with a hosting company. Choice of a hosting company needs to be done with great care. There are number of ways to identify a correct hosting service. Primarily of persons dependent on the web hosting reviews. Reviews of Web hosting are available in internet and people put their experience in the different levels of service, support, reliability, scalability, performance, etc. on the hosting companies specific. It is a valuable document on the internet, and you can also select this option to choose your hosting service. In addition, you can count on the individual opinion of people that are known to you or entry across through discussion forums which are also gaining in importance in the world of the internet.

There are hosting services such as free hosting, dedicated hosting, shared hosting, colocation hosting, cloud hosting, business hosting, hosting of ecommerce, green hosting, etc., and you need to identify the right according to your requirement. A free hosting service will be adapted for small business, the first time reports and individuals. Your server requirement is very important, given that the data you are going to deal with on the internet are of a confidential nature. A free server or a shared server may be more or less the same services and who may be vulnerable to security threats. There will be a different type of persons or of companies sharing the space with you in such an environment. Companies seeking a different method to attract businesses and they can provide different type of services or some of them are free or unlimited options. But for people who are experienced in technology infrastructure information are aware that it is literally impossible to allow free services due to the cost involved in the implementation of any hardware, software and other infrastructure for the company.

Another option to the concerned people is dedicated server hosting services. It can guarantee many security or a safe environment for the management of data. In such an arrangement, you share your space with others. The background of your neighbour on the web server is not known to many people and you can compromise your business interests and breach of trust of customers face with you your business hosting services. A secure server is very important for all types of business websites and people know more about it now these days. If you cannot provide it, it will be difficult for you to attract more people to your site and so generation of business.

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When Should I Choose A Dedicated Server Hosting?

Dedicated server hosting is not for everyone, but it can certainly lift your business to a new level of functionality and performance, at least as far as the online world is concerned. When starting out, you want to run things as cheaply as you can while also giving yourself a professional looking web appearance that can help with branding initiatives and getting your customers or clients familiar with who you are and what you do. At this point, it is wise to stick with shared hosting options as well as free hosting platforms. But there will come a point in the life of any growth minded business that you must focus on expansion and the financial commitments that it will take from you to reach those goals.

So how do you know when your business is ready to take the next step and move from a cheaper and more limited hosting plan to that of the dedicated server? You know it by keeping the following basic warning signs on your radar:

If your site is experiencing sluggish performance and a drop in traffic that coincide with one another, then you need to seriously take heed. There could be trouble ahead. Most of the time, if your audience likes what you are doing, they will have a certain degree of patience with you until all the kinks can be ironed out. That's why you owe it to them to stay on top of the needs of your site and to address those needs accordingly. While your faithful are a patient lot, they will not wait forever for you to correct the issues that your site may face. After all, if you don't care, why should they? It is particularly important that you pay close attention to viewer feedback at this time and strive to optimize your site's performance.

Secondly, if you have noticed a consistent increase in sales, and you have reached all of your marketing objectives, then it's time to think about what you must do to keep that momentum alive. Being able to latch on to a more customizable experience will greatly enhance the look and performance of your site.

Thirdly, if you feel limited by the things that you can do to maintain creative control over your site, and you see a steady increase in revenue, then you need to seriously think about breaking free from your current way of doing things, and make the jump to dedicated servers, which give you absolute control over every aspect of the online experience.

While dedicated servers cost more to maintain and operate, they can also give back to your business in more ways than you could possibly plan for. Make sure you know your business, and you'll know when the time is right.

Great dedicated servers and high quality vps hosting plan from liquidweb hosting. Liquidweb is simply the best choice. Find out how in this liquidweb review website. Also get two free months hosting and more coupon codes from this liquidweb reviews page.

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Choose the right free Hosting Provider

You can easily get there by taking the free webhosting as there are many hosting companies available on the internet that the free hosting facility. Usually free hosting services include ads on the Web pages or websites hosted by the clients. In general, while getting a free web hosting you can receive a subdomain with the name that you choose. If you are a beginner, can you go with the free hosting if you can learn more about webhosting. Although choosing a Web host that is a difficult task, choosing a free web host that will be even more.
At first only determine the type of website you're going to build and host or blog, a simple website or a website are encrypted. To host a blog, there are a lot of free popular blogging services available that are offered by WordPress and Blogger. You can start blogging with the technology used by the free blog services. You can just sign up for an account and access the control panel to start adding your content. If you have your own site based on HTML or PHP, will then be better to host that site for a free host through which you to your own content via FTP you can upload.
There are several ways to find a quality free Web hosting provider. The most convenient and familiar way is to find by searching in the search engine. Of course the free host that on top of the results in search engines almost comes the quality of the service and consistent performance. The next way is to visit the folders the list of free web hosts available at present in the market. This method allows you to by the reviews on these hosts to go and help you to choose the best among them. In principle it is better to avoid the free web host that offers offers unrealistic. In addition, you have to look through the properties of a particular host and ensure that these functions are needed to run your website before you choose that host.
You can better the Web host that has all the features you need, and for a long time in the industry. Finally, you must consider whether the free hosting plan offered by the host upgraded or not. Because, the transition will be much easier with the upgradeable plan offered by the hosting provider. In the same way as the host offers cPanel, you can move it to a new host as fast as possible using the backup tools. What it can, choosing the right free webhosting provider for your website is your responsibility.

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Free Hosting Versus cheap webhosting-which to choose?

The advantage of free webhosting is that you can get free webspace to use. Free webhosting is ok for people who are just practicing and have no stable revenue model. If you're looking for stable online business, then don't make the mistake of choosing free hosting.
It is true that hosting costs crucial role in the online business. Choosing free hosting can charming initially but it has many disadvantage in the long term. You can save money by choosing cheap web hosting in place of the free host.
Disadvantages of free hosting
People who own and manage Web space for your Web pages are not responsible for problems such as server failure, down time, loss of data, no support. If you are trying to make money with your website, you probably don't want a problem with your website.
No Online identity or brand
You will not be able to create your own identity as the most free hosts offer their own Website name by providing a subdomain like yourwebsitename.yourfreehostsname.com. i.e. abc.blogspot.com, zxy.wordpress.com
Limited features
You will not be able to grow your business in connection with limited features. It is also very hard to make decent website because limited features and limitations of free hosting.
Instability and unreliability
Free hosting are not stable and there is no guarantee that they will continue to long for you, one of the most popular example of unstable free hosting is yahoo free hosting. Web giant Yahoo is in but still they have closed their free hosting customers leave the helpless.
Cheap hosting is best for small businesses
These days, there are many web hosting providers whose costs less than $ 4 per month. Because of the high competition in the hosting industry, many decent host offers discounted price with nice features. You are able to business Web site to host a full $ 2 to $ 10 easily.
Advantages of cheap webhosting
With cheap web hosting you can enjoy all the features and stability required for a business website. You will support with problems, enough disk space and bandwidth to grow your online business. You will also be treated as valuable customer having full control on your website that are not possible in free webhosting.

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