What Precisely are Dedicated Servers?

When we talk about hosting web servers, there are 3 major categories - shared hosting servers, VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and dedicated servers. Shared web hosting servers accommodate many clients and so the resources per web hosting account are limited, virtual private servers offer more server configuration autonomy, but also affect other private virtual web hosting servers on the hardware node if used unwisely, and dedicated servers give you the independence to do everything you choose without intervening with anyone else.

Why would you need a dedicated servers?

Dedicated servers are usually much more high-priced than shared servers or virtual hosting servers. Why would anyone, then, want to use them? The reply is rather simple. If your company has a high resource-absorbing web site, or just has very specific server setup requirements, the most relevant choice would be a dedicated servers. For somebody who is prepared to invest in security and stability, the higher price is not an issue. You are given root-level access and can utilize 100 percent of the dedicated hosting web server's resources without anyone else utilizing these resources and messing with your sites.

Hardware architectures

The majority of web hosting vendors, incl. us at Socalwebs Domains and Hosting, provide several different hardware architectures you can pick from based on your requirements. The configurations include different kinds of microprocessors, a different number of cores, different RAM and server disk drive sizes and different traffic allowances. You can pick a web hosting Control Panel, which is a handy user interface if you wish to utilize the dedicated servers for website hosting purposes only and prefer not to resort to an SSH terminal for all the changes you will be making. We offer 3 types of hosting CP software - Hepsia, DirectAdmin and cPanel.

The hosting Control Panel of your preference

If you are a confident Linux user (our web hosting servers are running on Linux or other Unix-based Operating Systems), you could administer your dedicated servers via a Secure Shell client exclusively. That, however, could be awkward, even more so if you decide to give root privileges to somebody else who has less technical skills than yourself. This is why having hosting CP software installed is a brilliant idea. The Hepsia hosting CP software that we provide does not give you root-level access and is mainly appropriate for someone who has lots of web pages that swallow lots of system resources, but desires to administer the websites, databases and email mailboxes via a user-friendly Control Panel. The DirectAdmin and cPanel hosting CPs, on the other hand, give you complete root access and offer three levels of access - root, reseller and user. If you plan to resell hosting accounts instead of using the dedicated servers only for yourself, you should pick one of these two.

Web server monitoring and backup services

Last but not least, there is the matter of monitoring the dedicated servers and of backing it up. In case of a problem with your hosting server, such as a non-responsive Apache or an outage, it is useful to have some kind of monitoring system activated. Here at Socalwebs Domains and Hosting the system administrators monitor all dedicated servers for ping timeouts, and, if you order a Managed Services upgrade, they monitor the separate services on the dedicated servers too. Backups are also an additional option - the web hosting solutions provider offers you data backups on our own backup web servers. You could select a type of RAID that would allow you to keep the same data on two server hard disk drives as a precaution in case of a hard drive failure, or in case someone whom you have ranted access erases something unintentionally.