Shared or Dedicated - What Sort of Host Will You Need?

When you are setting up a business website, you are going to face a number of questions.

One of those is likely to be from your hosting services provider and it will relate to whether or not you wish to have a shared or dedicated server.

If this all means little or nothing to you then read on.


Where is your Internet site actually sitting?

When your customers access your Internet site to look at your products and propositions, they will be accessing software and databases that clearly must sit 'somewhere'. That 'somewhere' will also need to be connected to the Internet or your customers will never be able to see what you have to offer in the first place.

The traditional name for the box that your system actually sits on is called 'the server'. That name has its origin in the fact that the box and the software on it will be servicing connection and access requests from the outside world asking to look at your site.

The first big question you may face, if you are starting from scratch, is whether or not that server should physically sit in your premises or in what is called a 'hosting service' physically based in another location.

Local or hosted?

For many small to medium sized businesses, the idea of having a large and fairly sophisticated server PC on their premises, as well as its surrounding Internet communications paraphernalia, is a rather intimidating one. That's with good reason.

The advantage of having your server on your own site is that it gives you the ultimate in physical security and control of your IT environment. That though, is where the good news stops for many organisations.

On the downside, it means that you will have to become a sort of scaled-down IT operation. You will need to put into place things such as standby and backup facilities, uninterrupted power supplies, communications infrastructure and so on. You'll also have to either develop your own technical IT skills or pay for external business IT support services consultants to come in and do it all for you.

For all those reasons, smaller operations and those with a limited technical skills base tendto put their website up on what is called a 'hosted service'. In other words, a hosting service provider allows you to install your website and software on their system and they will attend to all of those IT support and maintenance issues for you.

Shared server or dedicated?

Assuming you've decided to go with a hosting service, you may face the choice of selecting either a dedicated server or one that you share with other clients of the hosting services provider.

Typically having your own dedicated server will be more expensive but it will guarantee you, if all other things are equal, a higher level of technical machine performance in support of the delivery of your website to the Internet.

However, for the vast majority of small to medium size businesses, it may be much more cost-effective to share a server. In many cases, any performance considerations are likely to be so small as to be unnoticeable in the general scheme of things.

If you're worried, the idea that you are sharing the server means nothing in terms of your security and confidentiality. No other companies who have their websites on the same server can in any way see or access your website and its data.

Summary

By and large, shared hosting services are the preferred solution for many small to medium sized organisations who want to concentrate on running their business rather than becoming IT experts.

It may also prove to be the most cost-attractive solution too.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8910518