Your Own Dedicated Server
Another option for a small e-commerce site that has heavy traffic, needs high availability, or serves dynamically generated pages is to contract for a dedicated server.
With a dedicated server contract, instead of sharing a server, you run your website on one of the web-host’s servers, which is configured for, and dedicated to, your website’s needs.
This lets you take advantage of the web-hosting service’s high-speed connection to the Internet, technical support, and redundancy systems, but allows you to have, at your command, the full capacity of an individual server.
A dedicated server is the right option if a virtual hosting service plan doesn’t offer enough data transfer, disk space, CPU power, and/or flexibility. With a dedicated server your website has the whole server to itself.
That means high data transfer limits, hard drives with gigabytes of free space, 100% of the CPU power, root access, and the ability to run whatever programs you wish.
Dedicated servers usually come preloaded with an operating system, web server software, control panel, and some basic services. Anything else to be loaded onto the server is up to you.
Most dedicated servers are rented by the month and pricing usually includes a monthly bandwidth limit and at least one IP static address.
The downside of this choice is that the cost of running your website on a dedicated hosted server can be significantly higher than using a virtual server. Also, you need to know how to manage a server.
That includes monitoring, installing and upgrading programs, configuring programs, dealing with hack attempts, troubleshooting and fixing problems, etc.
Or you could hire an experienced system administrator to handle such tasks.
Another option is to let the web-hosting service provide your server management needs.
For an extra fee you can get a managed dedicated server — many Internet hosting companies offer leases for individual computers with the same management options as a virtual hosting contract.
Another option for a small e-commerce site that has heavy traffic, needs high availability, or serves dynamically generated pages is to contract for a dedicated server.
With a dedicated server contract, instead of sharing a server, you run your website on one of the web-host’s servers, which is configured for, and dedicated to, your website’s needs.
This lets you take advantage of the web-hosting service’s high-speed connection to the Internet, technical support, and redundancy systems, but allows you to have, at your command, the full capacity of an individual server.
A dedicated server is the right option if a virtual hosting service plan doesn’t offer enough data transfer, disk space, CPU power, and/or flexibility. With a dedicated server your website has the whole server to itself.
That means high data transfer limits, hard drives with gigabytes of free space, 100% of the CPU power, root access, and the ability to run whatever programs you wish.
Dedicated servers usually come preloaded with an operating system, web server software, control panel, and some basic services. Anything else to be loaded onto the server is up to you.
Most dedicated servers are rented by the month and pricing usually includes a monthly bandwidth limit and at least one IP static address.
The downside of this choice is that the cost of running your website on a dedicated hosted server can be significantly higher than using a virtual server. Also, you need to know how to manage a server.
That includes monitoring, installing and upgrading programs, configuring programs, dealing with hack attempts, troubleshooting and fixing problems, etc.
Or you could hire an experienced system administrator to handle such tasks.
Another option is to let the web-hosting service provide your server management needs.
For an extra fee you can get a managed dedicated server — many Internet hosting companies offer leases for individual computers with the same management options as a virtual hosting contract.