Below are listed those dedicated hosting companies who we have awarded a Bronze Medal. To find out the full meaning behind the medal, please see our Quality Medals guide. For other providers of dedicated hosting services please see the 'Related Pages' links on the right.
What is dedicated hosting about? Well unlike shared hosting where you share a server with many other websites, with a dedicated server hosting package you are exclusively renting an entire server or set of servers. Often you can choose the hardware configuration and always the installed operating system and software. The hosting company owns and manages the hardware. It is responsible for maintaining the equipment, connections to the internet and for replacing defective parts, (at no extra cost if required).
The niceties of who is responsible for what are usually laid out in a service level agreement (SLA). You would normally negotiate this with the hosting company and try to obtain guarantees for the services you required, such as response times for support requests, uptime, etc.
You will need to know enough to choose which operating system you want to run on the server, how much storage space your site will need now and in the future and what level of support you will require. This might well be 24x7, 365 days a year.
Managed hosting is where your dedicated server would be administered by the hosting company leaving you to run your website or business.
Unmanaged hosting is where you would be responsible for administering your server yourself. The hosting company would provide a server and the infrastructure; power, rack space, communications lines, security etc. It would be much like having a co-location service except you would not own the server.
Does your site get a high number of visitors? Then its time to start thinking about moving over to a dedicated server. Some say 5000 visitors a day is the tipping point. If you have a large website with active forums and several intensive scripts, then start preparing to make the move.
More generally, if your use of server resources becomes excessive or more sophisticated, then you would be better off with your own server; better for you and better for the other websites sharing the same server as you. If you require higher reliability, increased performance, greater security, exclusive use of the server and/or network resources, then start preparing.
For instance, consider a dedicated server if;
There is a steep learning curve when moving from shared hosting packages to a dedicated server. You may need to administer the server software; could you keep on top of the critical updates? Do you have the technical expertise to do the job? Do you have the time to do the job? Being able to answer these questions will help in deciding if you need a managed or unmanaged dedicated hosting package.
The big advantage is performance. Often you can specify what hardware you require and its all yours for the use. Your site's performance will not be degraded by the potentially high traffic of other websites. While you may be able to specify the hardware, you are not purchasing it, thus you do not own it or have to maintain it. The hardware and connections are the responsibility of the host.
You do have full control and ownership of the application software and contents. On top of this you also have;
Last updated on Friday 25th May 2007
