What Exactly are Dedicated Servers?

When we talk about web hosting servers, there are 3 major kinds - shared hosting servers, VPS (private virtual hosting servers) and dedicated servers. Shared servers host numerous clients and therefore the resources per web hosting account are limited, virtual private server plans give you more configuration independence, but also influence other virtual web hosting servers on the hardware node if utilized heedlessly, and dedicated servers give you the independence to perform everything you like without meddling with anyone else.

Why would you require a dedicated server?

Dedicated servers are traditionally much more expensive than shared web hosting servers or virtual web hosting servers. Why would anyone, then, use them? The explanation is very simple. If your company has a frequently visited website, or just has very specific server architecture requirements, the right choice is a dedicated server. For somebody who is ready to invest in safety and stability, the higher price is of no importance. You obtain complete server root access and can use 100% of the dedicated hosting web server's resources without anyone else utilizing these system resources and messing with your online portals.

Hardware specs

Most shared hosting service providers, incl. us at idomainHOST, provide several hardware configurations you can choose from based on your necessities. The hardware configurations include different types of microprocessors, a different amount of cores, different RAM memory and disk drive sizes and different monthly bandwidth usage quotas. You can select a hosting CP, which is a handy interface if you would like to utilize the dedicated web hosting server for website hosting purposes solely and choose not to resort to SSH for all the modifications you will be making. We provide three kinds of hosting CP software - Hepsia, DirectAdmin and cPanel.

The Control Panel of your choice

If you are a self-confident Linux OS user (our dedicated web hosting servers are powered by Linux or other Unix-based OSs), you could manage your dedicated server via a Secure Shell connection exclusively. That, however, could be inconvenient, particularly if you decide to grant complete server root access to somebody else who has less technical abilities than yourself. This is why having web hosting CP software installed is a splendid idea. The Hepsia hosting CP tool that we offer does not give you root privileges and is chiefly appropriate for somebody who owns lots of web pages that devour lots of system resources, but wishes to manage the web portals, databases and e-mail accounts through a user-friendly web hosting Control Panel. The DirectAdmin and cPanel web hosting CPs, on the other hand, give you complete root-level access and include 3 levels of access - root, reseller and user. If you plan to resell hosting accounts rather than using the web server only for yourself, you should select one of these two.

Web server monitoring and backup procedures

Last but not least, there is the issue of monitoring the dedicated server and of backing it up. In the event of a problem with your dedicated hosting server, such as an unresponsive Apache or a network downtime, it is advisable to have some kind of monitoring platform activated. Here at idomainHOST the system administrators monitor all dedicated servers for ping timeouts, and, if you have a Managed Services package, they monitor the separate services on the dedicated server as well. Backups are also a bonus feature - the hosting vendor offers you data backups on our own backup web servers. You could select a kind of RAID that would permit you to save the same data on 2 hard disk drives as a precaution in the event of a hard disk drive failure, or in case someone whom you have given complete server root access erases something by accident.