Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Hosting
The first thing you will need to do is choose whether you will need Dedicated Server Hosting or Shared Hosting. You may find advantages to both. If you are a home user and just want to put up a page that says hello this is my corner of the web. Then shared hosting is definitely for you. The cost is much less expensive than a Dedicated Server as it will have many users on one server. Sometimes as many as a few hundred to several thousand people will be on a shared server. Unfortunately this slows down how quickly information is passed along to the browser. This will also limit you as to how quickly any databases you may have will run.
Think of it this way. In your house you may have a television. If you are living alone you can watch that television whenever you want with no waiting. Then you get married and you have to share the remote with your spouse. Then you have children and they have programs they want to watch as well so you will be using your new TV less and less.. Then your mother in law moves in and guess what even more sharing. Now all the televisions in the neighborhood are out of order except yours and all the people in your area come to watch your television. There are two possible solutions to this dilemma.
1. Stay single and tell the neighbors to stay home and play cards
2. Buy a second television for your use only.
If you don't mind sharing your television with everyone you ever met then shared hosting will work just fine for you. Your not watching that much television anyway so it doesn't matter. However if you are totally addicted to a television show and someone is watching another show while yours is on then you need a set no one else can use.
The same principle applies to Hosting. If you don't mind waiting for information to be shared until the server determines it is your turn then shared hosting will be the way to go. If however you have a business to run or are trying to make some money with your site and do not want to have bottlenecks ever. Then you would need a dedicated server. Sites that will benefit from a dedicated server are. E-Commerce sites that sell products. Social interaction sites where you may have hundreds or thousands of users logging into your system to interact with one another. Video sharing sites which generally take up a lot of the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of a server. These sites all use more CPU and will eventually slow down any shared server they are on. This will cause the server to LAG (slow down), or crash altogether. Most hosting companies will put in the TOS (Terms Of Service) or AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) restrictions on what you can and can not run on a shared server. They will also limit the amount of CPU you may use. The general consensus with shared hosting in most policies will be 2% of the cpu Some databases and almost all software installed on a server will use up to 2% before you even know it has happened. Now add to that a shopping cart or a video and you get more and more customers coming to your site and the amount of cpu usage increases.
Are there different kinds of Dedicated Servers?
As with most everything now there are a many possibilities for servers. Prices range from just at $100.00/mo to anywhere up to thousands of dollars a month. For the purposes of this discussion we will use the lower end of the scale.
Deciding if you need Linux or Windows dedicated server hosting will depend on the types of usage you will need. If you are going to have Microsoft services like cold fusion, then a Windows dedicated server will suit you best. If you will be running most anything else then Linux dedicated server which in the opinion of many circles is the more stable server will suit you better. Some may decide on a vps. This is a server cut into smaller pieces but allow you more control over your own settings. But do not be confused it is still shared hosting. When choosing a dedicated server make sure you are getting a server and not a desktop set up to run as a server. Servers chassis typically have redundant fans & power supplies. Server CPU's while they may be identical to their desktop equivalent there are slight differences in power consumption and design considerations to permit 24x7 operation for years on end. Server grade hard drives typically have more cache and improved firmware for better error correcting. They also are rated for continuous operation. Servers are able to run error correcting or buffered/registered memory while desktops cannot (different chipsets).
Choosing a Server
When comparing dedicated a servers, always choose based on whether or not that server meets your needs and then is the price in your budget range. If you find a dedicated server based on price first you will settle for something that may not do all you need it to do even in the short term not just the long term. The old adage really comes in to play "You Get What You Pay For" when talking about dedicated servers. There are many options you need to look at when comparing dedicated servers. And we will attempt to move you through them one at a time so that you can make the best decision for your specific needs. You have spent money and time optimizing your site and monetizing it. You do not want your dedicated server to ruin the business that you have spent sometimes years building.
The first thing you want to know
Is the company I am buying or leasing my server from reputable. Are they going to provide EXCELLENT support. You have the right to DEMAND EXCELLENCE form your hosting company. They work for you. Without you they are just unemployed geeks. Most Hosting Review sites are no more than paid advertising. They will list a top ten of the best hosting companies around. This list is populated not by who is actually the best but who can afford to pay the most per click through. The top ten list on almost every review site I have been to in the backend when listing your site you have the option to bid on clicks. To be placed in the top ten or editors picks list you will pay anywhere from 1.50 to 5.00 per click through. They will also give you a spend no more than this amount per day option on some of them. They are basically selling the advertisement for the hosting company. Also to go to a web hosting site and look at customer testimonials is not the best idea either. They are surely not going to put the customer on who says I had a bad experience. Nor will you see we had problems but they fixed it. The only way to find out how a company is truly doing is search them out. First have they been in business at least two years. There are a lot of folks who decide hey I would like to be a host. So they go out and find a reseller package and start a company. But then money doesn't come in fast enough to defray the costs or the support is not what it should be so customers write complaints about them. They get discouraged and quit. If a company has been around a minimum of two years and hopefully three to five is even better, then they are doing something right anyway. Then check to see if there are negative posts about them do a search for their domain name. Almost every forum post or blog post will come up usually and you can get a good idea of what type of company they have been, whether they are taking care of these issues or not. With the bigger companies whose names I won't mention. You will see a lot of positive and negative posts. Look at the dates of the posts to see if they are having trouble recently or if it is an ongoing problem. You will usually also see whether or not they have been taking care of these issues or ignoring them. Remember a dedicated server is a machine. All machines have problems from time to time it is how support handles those problems that will be important to you.
The Specifics of the Machine
- Machine Type
- Processor Speed
- Ram Memory
- Hard Drive size and speed
- Architecture
- Raid or no raid
- Port size
- Operating System
- Control Panel
- No Contract
- Managed or Unmanaged
Machine Type
The type of dedicated server you are getting is very important. You will want to make sure that you will have enough server to run your site properly. Dedicated Servers are set up in several ways. With a Single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core, Dual Quad Core, and several other configurations but this is the most widely used.
The way to think of these is to compare them this way. A single core is just that. One processor. Dual core is 2 processors in the same computer. Quad would be 2x2 and dual quad would be 2x4. The more processors a unit has the better able it is to process information. The job is spread out over more than one processor thus allowing information to be processed at a higher rate with less strain on the system.
Processor Speed
Clock Rate
Is the rate in cycles per second (measured in hertz) for the frequency of the clock in any synchronous circuit, such as a central processing unit (CPU). For example, a crystal oscillator frequency reference typically is synonymous with a fixed sinusoidal waveform, a clock rate is that frequency reference translated by electronic circuitry (AD Converter) into a corresponding square wave pulse [typically] for digital electronics applications. In this context the use of the word, speed (physical movement), should not be confused with frequency or its corresponding clock rate. Thus, the term "clock speed" is a misnomer.
A single clock cycle (typically shorter than a nanosecond in modern non-embedded microprocessors) toggles between a logical zero and a logical one state. Historically, the logical zero state of a clock cycle persists longer than a logical one state due to thermal and electrical specification constraints.
CPU manufacturers typically charge premium prices for CPUs that operate at higher clock rates. For a given CPU, the clock rates are determined at the end of the manufacturing process through actual testing of each CPU. CPUs that are tested as complying with a given set of standards may be labeled with a higher clock rate, e.g., 1.50 GHz, while those that fail the standards of the higher clock rate yet pass the standards of a lesser clock rate may be labeled with the lesser clock rate, e.g., 1.33 GHz, and sold at a lower price.
CPU cache
Is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations. As long as most memory accesses are cached memory locations, the average latency of memory accesses will be closer to the cache latency than to the latency of main memory.
When the processor needs to read from or write to a location in main memory, it first checks whether a copy of that data is in the cache. If so, the processor immediately reads from or writes to the cache, which is much faster than reading from or writing to main memory. The larger your cache the faster your system processes information.
Bus Speed
Setting a FSB speed is related directly to the speed grade of memory a system must use. The memory bus connects the Northbridge and RAM, just as the front-side bus connects the CPU and Northbridge. Often, these two buses must operate at the same frequency. Increasing the front-side bus to 450 MHz in most cases also means running the memory at 450 MHz.
In newer systems, it is possible to see memory ratios of "4:5" and the like. The memory will run 5/4 times as fast as the FSB in this situation, meaning a 400 MHz bus can run with the memory at 500 MHz. This is often referred to as an 'asynchronous' system. It is important to realize that due to differences in CPU and system architecture, overall system performance can vary in unexpected ways with different FSB-to-memory ratios.
In image, audio, video, gaming, FPGA synthesis and scientific applications that perform a small amount of work on each element of a large data set, FSB speed becomes a major performance issue. A slow FSB will cause the CPU to spend significant amounts of time waiting for data to arrive from system memory. However, if the computations involving each element are more complex, the processor will spend longer performing these; therefore, the FSB will be able to keep pace because the rate at which the memory is accessed is reduced.
So when you see a system that has
2.40GHz - 4MB Cache - 1066MHz FSBM
You know the clock rate is 2.40GHZ the l2 cache is 4 mb and the bus speed is 1066 mhz. The larger each of these settings the faster your machine will process information.
Ram Memory
Random Access Memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order (i.e., at random). "Random" refers to the idea that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data.
Hard Drive Size and Speed
This is pretty much self explanatory. The size of the hard drive determines the amount of information you can store on it. Multiple hard drives allow for more storage than a single hard drive. The speed of a hard drive determines how quickly data is processed by that hard drive.
Architecture
A bit is short for "binary digit". It is basically how a computer stores and makes references to data, memory, etc. A bit can have a value of 1 or 0, that's it. So binary code is streams of 1's and 0's, such as this random sequence 100100100111. These bits are also how your processor does calculations. By using 32 bits your processor can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295 while a 64-bit machine can represent numbers from 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Obviously this means your computer can do math with larger numbers, and be more efficient with smaller numbers.
Now see, that description wasn't too bad, but the question is how does this affect you, the average PC owner? The largest benefit will go to academic institutions and private companies, where large calculations are being performed, huge databases are being accessed, and complex problems are being solved.
Everyone that doesn't fall into that category will see some benefit of using 64 bit processors over 32 bit processors, but not much in today's marketplace. The AMD Athlon 64-bit processor is completely backward compatible, meaning you can currently use it with 32-bit operating systems and software programs. You will see some benefits by using this setup, but because the programs weren't written to take advantage of the extra power, they won't use much of it.
The true benefits of this set up don't come from the amount of bits, but by the improved structure of the 64 bit vs 32 bit processor's older structure. A 64-bit processor is made with more advanced silicon processes, have more transistors, and faster speeds. This is currently where the true benefit of switching to a 64-bit processor lays.
As for 64-bit operating systems and software, many are in the works, but nothing is in final version. Microsoft has released a beta version of Windows XP that takes advantage of the 64 bit technology, but there are still issues. The problem is when you run 32-bit software programs in the environment of a 64-bit operating system. Many programs won't work properly, such as Adobe Acrobat and Windows Media Player, for example. Another issue is RAM. You really need about 4 GB of RAM to take full advantage of the capabilities offered by a 64-bit processor, while most PC owners have less than 1 GB under their computer's hood.
Raid or no Raid
RAID Level 0 - a.k.a. disk striping, is where a stripe of data is written equally across a group of disks. If one of these disks should fail, all of the data on the group of disks is lost. While not a safe way to protect data, it does deliver higher performance compared to an equal number of independent disks. RAID Zero is rarely used alone but is frequently used with other RAID levels to provide faster performance.
RAID Level 1 - This RAID level is where the same data is written (or mirrored) to two disks. If a disk fails, data is read off the mirrored disk. When the failed disk is replaced, the data on the surviving disk is used to recreate the mirrored pair. All of this happens with no loss of data for the host applications. RAID Level 1 is one of the most commonly used RAID levels and performs very well for reads and writes.
Raid Level 5 - One of the most popular RAID levels, RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more drives. It is similar to RAID 4 except that it exchanges the dedicated parity drive for a distributed parity algorithm, writing data and parity blocks across all the drives in the array. This removes the "bottleneck" that the dedicated parity drive represents, improving write performance slightly and allowing somewhat better parallelism in a multiple-transaction environment, though the overhead necessary in dealing with the parity continues to bog down writes. Fault tolerance is maintained by ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on a drive separate from those used to store the data itself. The performance of a RAID 5 array can be "adjusted" by trying different stripe sizes until one is found that is well-matched to the application being used.
RAID Level 6 - Can be thought of as "RAID 5, but more". It stripes blocks of data and parity across an array of drives like RAID 5, except that it calculates two sets of parity information for each parcel of data. The goal of this duplication is solely to improve fault tolerance; RAID 6 can handle the failure of any two drives in the array while other single RAID levels can handle at most one fault. Performance-wise, RAID 6 is generally slightly worse than RAID 5 in terms of writes due to the added overhead of more parity calculations, but may be slightly faster in random reads due to spreading of data over one more disk. As with RAID levels 4 and 5, performance can be adjusted by experimenting with different stripe sizes.
Raid Level 10 - Provides high availability by combining features of RAID 0 and RAID 1. The DS6000™ series supports RAID 10 arrays. RAID 0 increases performance by striping volume data across multiple disk drives. RAID 1 provides disk mirroring which duplicates data between two disk drives. By combining the features of RAID 0 and RAID 1, RAID 10 provides a second optimization for fault tolerance. RAID 10 implementation provides data mirroring from one DDM to another DDM. RAID 10 stripes data across half of the disk drives in the RAID 10 configuration. The other half of the array mirrors the first set of disk drives. Access to data is preserved if one disk in each mirrored pair remains available. In some cases, RAID 10 offers faster data reads and writes than RAID 5 because it does not need to manage parity. However, with half of the DDMs in the group used for data and the other half used to mirror that data, RAID 10 disk groups have less capacity than RAID 5 disk groups.
Raid Level 50 - Is a combination of RAID level 5 and RAID level 0. RAID 50 includes both parity and disk striping across multiple drives. RAID 50 is best implemented across two RAID 5 arrays with data striped across both disk arrays. RAID 50 breaks the data into smaller blocks, and then stripes the blocks to each RAID 5 raid set. RAID 5 breaks up data into smaller blocks, calculates parity by performing and Exclusive OR on the blocks, and then writes the blocks of data and parity to each drive in the array. The size of each block is determined by the stripe size parameter, which is set when the RAID is created.
Operating System
Operating system choices for your dedicated server are varied according to the seller and the user. CentOS is the latest standard for the Linux industry. Stability of the OS is crucial for your dedicated server. CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. The list of available servers below is not conclusive but represents a variety of available choices. The type of OS you choose may also affect the dedicated server price.
- CentOS
- Fedora
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- FreeBSD
- Vyatta Core
- Asterisk
- Citrix XenServer
- Microsoft Server 2003
- Microsoft Server 2008
Control Panel
Server hosting control panels are designed to make managing your dedicated server or virtual private server much easier through point and click simple interfaces. Server hosting control panels automatically set up and manage multiple applications that are customized to fit most everyone's needs, such as a web, mail, FTP, and database server, complete with an easy-to-use web browser interface. Control panels provide web browser interfaces which allow you to set up accounts for staff, friends, customers, and manage all aspects of your server without having to be an expert on computers or web servers. The server hosting control panel will provide you with the ability to manage mail boxes, features, domains, users, and view reports, alerts, and statistics about the server and any domain names you set up.
Cpanel
Cpanel with WHM (Web Host Manager) is considered to be the industry standard in server control panels. Filled with more features and options than any other control panel on the market today, Cpanel is the premier control panel for web masters and web hosting companies. Cpanel is ideal if you plan to resell web hosting, or manage multiple staff, friends, and customer accounts all on the same server. If you plan to install customized versions of php, mysql and apache, Cpanel is your first choice, with its easy-to-use software version support and installation system. The web interface is filled with many options so expect to take a few hours to become familiar. Cpanel is the most powerful and flexible control panel available today. You can install an unlimited number of domains (no license limits) on this control panel.
Plesk
Plesk 9.x for Linux is among the most stable and solid control panels in the industry. Plesk is the easiest-to-use web interface of any on the market today. While not as many features compared to competitors like Cpanel, Plesk 9.x's streamlined interface makes it a champion for small businesses that want an easy-to-use yet robust system. Plesk 9.x for Linux includes up to 30 domains in the base license and can be increased to 100 domains or unlimited.
Helm
Parallels Helm is a Microsoft windows control panel solution, empowering hosting providers to control, automate and sell virtually any product or service. Helm allows service providers to keep their operational costs down and serve their customers better, resulting in efficient service, improved revenue and greater levels of customer satisfaction. Helm has the flexibility to support any sized web hosting company by being able to provide its full range of services across thousands of servers or all on just one single machine. Adding and removing servers as you grow is easy and Helm has the ability to distribute your web sites across multiple servers insuring that they are used as effectively as possible. By streamlining server-to-server communications, the next generation of Helm is faster, more flexible and more secure.
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
Targeted as the new high volume Windows Server product, Enterprise Edition supports 4-8 processors, 32 GB of RAM, and up to 8-node clusters. A 64-bit version with different specifications is also available. Enterprise Edition is a superset of Standard Edition, adding Meta directory Services Support (MMS) and Terminal Services Session Directory features, and support for hot-add memory and Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA).
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
Optimized solely for serving and hosting Web pages, Windows Server 2003, Web Edition supports 2 processors and up to 2 GB of RAM. Web Edition supports the .NET Framework, IIS 6, ASP.NET, Network Load Balancing (NLB), IPv6, Distributed File System (Dfs), Encrypting File System (EFS), Shadow Copy Restore, Print Services for UNIX, IntelliMirror, Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP), Windows Instrumentation Management (WMI) command line features, Remote OS installation (but not RIS), Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), and Remote Desktop. Web Edition can be a member server in an Active Directory (AD) domain, but cannot be a domain controller, and thus does not contain the advanced management infrastructure found in the other editions. Designed for dedicated Web serving and hosting, Windows 2003, Web Edition, delivers a single-purpose solution for Internet service providers, application developers, and others who use or deploy specific Web functionality. Windows 2003, Web Edition, takes advantage of improvements in Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, Microsoft ASP.NET, and the Microsoft .NET.
As I stated above this is not a complete list but will give you an idea of the Control Panels available to you. Our personal preference is the Cpanel Control Panel.
Managed or Unmanaged
If you have the knowledge of Operating Systems and servers then a less expensive mode of operation is available to you. Unmanaged servers will still usually come with 24x7 reboots. And a few other services. However hardening and installations as well as the daily maintenance of the server would be totally on your shoulders with an unmanaged server. Some managed servers will say per ticket response. What you want to be looking for in management is proactive support and not reactive support. You want a company who is monitoring your server for issues and fixing them before they become issues for you and your customers. Good server management will save you a lot of headaches and free your time to better care for the business you have created.
What All this means to you?
Armed with the information above and information you may have already known. You have the knowledge to choose a Dedicated Server and Dedicated Server Hosting with no blinders on. You can decide for yourself what your needs are and not be "SOLD" something by a sales representative on a dedicated server hosting site.
With this information you can compare the different dedicated servers on any site you go to and choose the one that is right for you. You will be able to see that sometimes the lower price is not that much yet the dedicated server setup is a vast difference. A wise buyer buys and is not sold.
Remember this is your money this is your company and when you purchase this will be your dedicated server for the term of the lease or purchase. Make sure you are getting your moneys worth. Make sure that your dedicated server hosting company understands you are the customer and it is not their money unless you are satisfied. Do not accept mediocre support from your dedicated server hosting company. They work for you. "I Demand Excellence" should be your motto you are certainly paying for it. Demand Excellence from your dedicated server hosting company and Demand Excellence in the dedicated server you choose.
