Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated Web Hosting is a business-class service for web hosting customers who need total commitment from their hosting provider. When you buy dedicated hosting, you get a whole machine to yourself, plus VIP priority from customer support. Dedicated web hosting customers often skip the first layer of support reps. Instead, dedicated hosting clients usually reach the server admin team for every question.

Some dedicated web hosting providers push the envelope on customer service very far. Some offer call-anytime access to qualified operators, with immediate response, for even trivial requests. Adding a new mailbox? A new app? Forgot the URL to your web stats? You can keep your private techie in the loop in any case, but with dedicated web hosting plans, you might not need to. The hosting company’s staff might take care of everything.

And then, there’s the core service itself…

Why buy dedicated web hosting? Aside from mind-blowing levels of customer service, dedicated web hosting clients get their own, dedicated, server machine. No VPS slicing, no sharing, no restrictions (beyond operating your web site within the law). You’ll choose the server, from a one or more makes and models, which the company is savvy at running. You’ll be the boss.

Because the hosting company’s staff is now your staff, dedicated web hosting implies free consultations as you select and use the technologies driving your website. Sometimes you’ll get free tech services simply because the staff would rather do a known, possibly automated, procedure – instead of letting your private techie muck around in their pristine, service-guaranteed server setups. But they’ll always yield to you, because you’re paying the big bucks.

Many, perhaps most, dedicated web hosting plans also come with an offer for dedicated connectivity. With that option, you get your own business-class Internet connection along with your dedicated host.

What to expect: Before buying dedicated web hosting, you should be ready to use at least a fraction of its capacity. Your website and business model should be rock solid and doing it’s job 24/7, within a month.

If you’re using a dedicated web host to develop your product, your plan needs be even tighter – development time lines almost always run longer than expected! In any case, you’ll want your techies ready to work from day one, and you’ll want better-qualified techies than might do on a VPS-grade operation.

Important! When you buy dedicated web hosting, you’re entering into a serious financial relationship with your hosting company. Before you make that commitment, there’s a detail you must look into: that detail is called peering.

Across the Internet, there are bulk data lines called ”trunks,” which connect to regional hubs. Each hub is the property of one or more telecommunications companies. Your web host’s distances to those hubs, and relationships with big telecom providers, determine your dedicated web host’s peering – how reliable and fast the connection is, to each of your websites’ customers.

Make sure to investigate peering quality before you invest in dedicated web hosting. If there’s bad peering between your host and the geographic areas you and your customers connect from, your site’s speed may be crippled!

Costs: Few hosting plans are more expensive than dedicated web hosting, or more versatile. Companies that offer a full range of dedicated web hosting plans might sell a slim web server to one customer, and an entire phone company worth of equipment to another. Extremely streamlined companies may offer dedicated hosting for less than US $100 per month; confident, time-tested firms offer price points starting above US $100, ranging through US $300 for their mainstream packages, and scaling much higher for unique clients with greater need.