Do I Need A Dedicated Server?

When you decided that you wanted to run your own website, you were faced with many options. Most likely you were offered many design choices, email addresses, blogging interfaces, and e-commerce choices.

Quite naturally, once you decided on all of the above, you had to make the decision about hosting and what types of hosting you wanted to have for your website. Most people start out small so they wouldn't need too much in regards to a hosting server, so many choose basic or deluxe shared hosting.

Shared hosting is when there are several, sometimes hundreds of other websites being hosted on that one server. Usually this is okay for any simple and small business owner.

But what if your business is picking up, or if you have confidential clientèle matters handled through your website? Or what if you are worried about someone hacking into your server and causing havoc on your website?

Is there a way to guarantee that no one else has access to your server and/or can view any files or databases? There certainly is. That guarantee comes in the form of a dedicated server.

Unlike an unsecured shared server, a dedicated server is different.

Shared servers are a popular choice when web hosting companies set customers up for hosting. Each customer on the server "shares" hard drive space and monthly bandwidth.

This method causes many security problems with people on that particular server. A dedicated server is the exact opposite.

There isn't anyone or anything on that server except you and your website(s). Your server is "dedicated" set apart solely for you and your usage. A dedicated server would be a good idea if you are running a highly confidential website such as a banking institution, doctor's website, high traffic ecommerce site, and anything with content-sensitive material.

Many financial institutions and medical institutions use dedicated servers to host their websites.

You can acquire a dedicated server simply by requesting one from your hosting company. But beware, unlike shared hosting, dedicated server hosting can be quite costly per month, because you have a complete server for yourself.

There isn't anyone or any other entity to split or share the cost with you. Check with your current hosting company to see what dedicated server plans they have to suit your website hosting needs.

Using dedicated servers have many advantages. One advantage that takes to the for is the issue of security. No longer do you need to worry about people hacking into your website.

The whole server and everything therein is yours. You have maximum storage space, more bandwidth, data transfer, and above all you have your own control panel.

Most control panels use Plesk Cpanel. And with the Cpanel come the many choices in software, for instance: Wordpress, PHPBB, Joomla (CMS), Drupal, Siteframe, phplinks, MySQL databases, phpAdmin, apache, and the list goes on!

However, as mention before dedicated servers can get very expensive. Sometimes it's cheaper to get a dedicated server as opposed to renting shared space per month and per year.

Take all these things into consideration and then ponder over them for a while. Before making your choice to switch to a dedicated server or to stay with a shared server, decide whether or not you can risk any compromises in your website's security.

If security is not an issue as much as lots of bandwidth, then maybe you could upgrade your shared server.

But if you deal with credit cards and other personal information on your site, you should really consider switching to a dedicated server hosting plan. It's better to be safe than sorry.