Dedicated hosting is for the serious webmasters and businesses. An entire server is dedicated to one customer (and hence the name) and all the disk space, memory and the bandwidth alloted to the server is at the disposal of the user. This type of hosting gives the maximum flexibility to you as you are free to install any application or framework required by your websites to work. However, it is also your burden to make sure that your server is well protected from hackers and security loop holes. Thus it becomes necessary to install firewalls, anti-virus software and the like. Admittedly, there are two popular variations of dedicated hosting: unmanaged hosting and managed hosting. In unmanaged hosting, the web host provides the server and all the connectivity infrastructure but it is up to you to manage and maintain your server. In the managed hosting option, the web host does a lot of server maintenance and protection on your behalf while you get to take care of your websites and web applications. Needless to say, managed hosting costs more than unmanaged, but if you aren't someone who knows the ins and outs of server security, going for a managed package can save you tons of headaches.
Dedicated hosting has many advantages. You won't have to bother about other users' applications making your website slow. You can install whatever is required for your website to run. If you have ever used shared hosting plans and have wanted to write and host your own Java application (or something similar), you would more than know about the limitations because most shared hosts don't allow Java applications on their shared accounts. Similarly shared hosting doesn't facilitate busy video and audio streaming sites as these type of sites can hog the bandwidth and CPU and thereby pose website problems for the other users on the shared account. Most dedicated hosting companies (at least the good ones) provide a service level agreement (SLA). If they don't uphold their 99.9% uptime (it is standard in the dedicated hosting industry) guarantee then they would compensate you by some means.
However, for someone moving from shared hostng to dedicated hosting, it is easy to miss a few things and get lured by the cheap looking hosting plans that later turn out to be costlier than the cheap ones. Why is this so? Each provider has his own plan whereby he provides custom features like the number of IP addresses, support for a particular software and the like. Some providers include licence fees for cPanel/Plesk/WHM (control panels), Fantastico (scripts that make installing many popular frameworks, CMS or software with a single click. For e.g. phpBB, Wordpress etc) and some kind of basic firewall and anti-virus protection software in their fees. Others just provide you with the basic server infrastructure and charge you a montly fee for each of these. Of course not everyone requires Fantastico or cPanel, but if you do require them then take that into consideration when comparing the dedicated hosting plans from various providers.
Quite a few people fall for the "cheap hosting" trick. They think they have managed to get the best deal based on the price, but know one thing: you will only get equivalent of what you pay and in the world of dedicated hosting, $30-$50 per month is usually pretty less. Most of those providers who give you that kind of a monthly fee probably won't give you good service or your site would keep going down every now and then. On a average, the good entry level dedicated hosting should cost somewhere starting from $70-$180 per month. Keep in mind these are the entry levels plans (which are usually aimed at individuals or small businesses). Corporate dedicated hosting plans from good companies costs a few hundred dollars per month (something like $250-$1000).
Another thing to look for while looking out for dedicated hosting is top technical and customer support. If you are planning to get a one a plan from some company, contact their live chat support or phone support and see how quickly they answer and how useful their answers are. The great companies in dedicated hosting typically answer chat in a couple of minutes and technical questions get answers within a couple of hours, often with in half hour.
Some suggestions for dedicated hosting companies. If you search on the net, you'll get hundreds of companies offering dedicated hosting. It can often become tiresome to contact each and every company. LiquidWeb and SingleHop are two of the good companies to host your site with.
You should also remember that sometimes if you are just starting out, you can also do so with a Virtual Private Server (VPS) plan that gives you many of the benefits of dedicated hosting (like installing new software) but costs you much lesser. Once your web assets grow beyond a VPS plan, you can shift over to a dedicated hosting plan. LiquidWeb is a good company in the VPS plans too.
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