Making the right server hosting choices, whether for an upgrade or a new website or application, is always a critical issue. It needs a reliable host and choice of the right configuration and resources. The cost is, of course, one of the most important considerations.
Here’s a brief guide to all the choices and considerations that need to be kept in mind while making said choices. The first thing to consider is whether it is feasible to look at dedicated solutions. If yes, it is always the best choice with exclusive use of a powerful machine, and complete control and flexibility to use resources and tools.
Further sub-selections within a dedicated machine include whether it needs to be managed or unmanaged. Managed hosting is a wee bit more expensive than an unmanaged one. But it does free the customer from administration while still allowing for the flexibility and control mentioned above.
Sometimes, a company or website may find itself in-between a cheap shared package and a powerful dedicated solution. This calls for an interim option like VPS hosting. It’s possible to get the same control and freedom with virtual dedicated hosting without having to bear the cost of a dedicated machine.
Way it works is that each customer is assigned one physical partition on a machine that caters to many such customers. What each customer sees is not a partitioned space, but a full machine. This is one of several such virtualized instances running on top of the same physical machine.
The allocation of resources on demand is managed by technology such as hypervisor. It allows for everything from root access to reboots and OS installations separately on each virtual machine. This means that it is just as good as a dedicated one, but with a lesser price tag since resources are shared.
There are other options like Cloud or SaaS hosting if the company does not want the hassle and cost of an in-house setup. SaaS is software as a service where a company can set up its product/software on a remote server. Instead of buying and installing it on the desktop, customers/employees can access this service/software via the internet on a browser, or a desktop application that connects to the internet or via a mobile device.
Regardless of these choices, some things are common to all the options. For instance, the company will have to choose the operating system, which can be Linux or Windows. It will have to choose between a metered/un-metered bandwidth option, and of course whether to have it managed by the host.
Also common to all the server hosting choices is a need to keep an upgrade option open which can be availed of without going through an extensive migration involving disruption of service. A growing company is virtually guaranteed to need a more powerful solution in the near future. So it helps if the host offers built-in redundancy and scalability without charging an arm and a leg for it.