Dedicated server hosting and Colocation services are two very common terms referred by webmasters. Both these types of services are usually preferred by large organizations and enterprises to carry out their mission critical business.Both share similarity from an operations perspective.The only major difference in these two is that, Dedicated servers offered by web hosting  companies are owned by the host. Whereas, in Colocation services,the server hardware is owned by the company/organizations/enterprises who have their website/s and other data placed onto the servers.
Dedicated server hosting also referred as Dedicated Web Hosting, is one of the highly secure types of web hosting services.Usually, this type of services are used by large businesses,organizations and enterprises.Highest level of data security can be availed with this type of web hosting service.
A Dedicated server can further be distinguished based on two of the highly popular platforms hence the services Linux Dedicated Server Hosting and Windows Dedicated server hosting in the Web Hosting industry.

If you sign up for a Dedicated Server Hosting package,you are the sole owner of the server and the server is not shared by anyone.It is similar to owning the server. With this server hosting package you get root or admin access of the server,which enables them to use the server as per your requirements.Further,you have the option to choose between Managed Dedicated Server Hosting solutions and Unmanaged Dedicated Server hosting. A managed dedicated server means that the critical part of hardware maintenance, data back-up, security,uploading patches etc.is taken care by the hosting provider. Whereas with an Unmanaged web hosting solution, the hardware maintenance, back up and other server administration tasks need to be taken care by you.In this the host offers plain server connected to the redundant network, power etc.

Unmanaged server plans are cheaper than Managed Servers.If you are a Web master and experienced with Server management,you may opt. for Unmanaged services, but it is suggested to choose Managed Hosting services,with it you can utilize your time and resources for other business while the hosting provider takes care of the server administration part.

A dedicated server offers optimum security as compared to other hosting types.You can get optimum performance of your website with this type of web hosting solution.With a dedicated hosting solution, one has the complete freedom to modify the server settings of sever hardware components and operating system as per your business requirements. You can also ask for customization of the server hardware.Inadition to these benefits, a web hosting control panel alongwith the server can add to the ease of managing the web hosting accounts. With a dedicated server, one gets complete administrative access to the server, with which you can install, uninstall, modify, delete, upload, download data,softwares of your choice.

The other type of web hosting service offered by Hosts is the Colocation Web Hosting service.Colocation which is also referred as “Colo”, is a Web server hosting service. In this type of hosting solution, you can place your own server hardware in the data center of the Hosting provider.To avail this service,you are required to have your own server hardware and software licenses to place in the data center. In this type of service, the customer has the flexibility to manage, secure and take care of maintenance of their servers. The host offers space for servers, security, redundancy,network connectivity, bandwidth etc.for your servers. Colocation service is one of the most expensive type of web hosting service.People with good experience in server administration use such services. Also, the maintenance, upgrades of the server is taken care by the owner of the server (though some web hosting providers do offer managed collocation services as well).

There are few advantages as well as disadvantages to both these types of services. With a dedicated server hosting you get the complete access to the server except that you are not the owner of the hardware. Whereas, in Colocation Hosting, the hardware is owned by you, therefore you need to bear initial set-up cost. In addition to that there is an additional charge for housing the hardware in the datacenter of the web hosting provider.Server hardware is expensive,therefore the investment cost is high.

Basically a web hosting company offers a home for your website/s. The web hosting provider offers you a storage space on the server. There you can save your web pages and transfer information electronically, which can be viewed by users on the World Wide Web. Such a Web space is important for any website to be viewed online, this is known as Web Hosting.

The web hosting service provider offer machines that are really powerful and ensure that your website functions smoothly. It is important that your website is hosted on a good quality branded hardware for  uninterrupted functioning. Depending on your budget and website requirements, you can choose an appropriate web hosting package. One of such a package is the Shared Hosting package. In this type of hosting solution, multiple web sites/ accounts are set-up on a single physical server. A Shared Hosting package is the cheapest of all the other types. You share a common physical server with other user accounts. This type of hosting is suitable for personal or small business websites. You do not have much privilege with Shared Hosting.

The other type of hosting solution is the VPS Hosting or Virtual Private Server Hosting. It is one of the most preferred types of web hosting. With this you get much privileges than shared hosting. You get root or admin access to the server, which means you can use the server as you wish and can install applications and software of your choice. On top of that, you get to experience a Dedicated like environment. Plus VPS hosting package are fairly cheaper and can be afforded by most users. It offers greater level of security and privileges.

Lastly, the Dedicated Server Hosting solution is one of the highly preferred and most secure type of Hosting solution. A dedicated server hosting solution is usually preferred by owner of large businesses and those who have large websites. You are the sole owner of the server, and have the privilege to use the server as per your needs. Yours is the only account on the server and no one else can host a website on it until you intend to do so. You can even create reseller accounts or VPS accounts and resell it to your customers.

You get two platforms for Web Hosting purpose viz. Linux and Microsoft Windows.

With the different types of hosting services, choosing an appropriate web hosting service provider is equally important. You must follow certain guidelines to choose an ideal web hosting provider.

You can refer : Key Aspects to Consider when Choosing a Web Hosting Provider.

Any Linux Dedicated Server Hosting or Windows Dedicated Server Hosting you choose, you are assured to get maximum uptime and high level of security. A dedicated server hosting plan can be the most appropriate web hosting option to gain success in your online business. But, as a matter of fact, it may be more expensive than the rest of the hosting solutions. But, you would get much greater advantages and  server resources to use than any other hosting solutions. There are two web hosting options available in the category of Dedicated Server Hosting ie. Linux Dedicated Server Hosting can be by the one’s who wish to use the technologies other than Microsoft, whereas if you wish to use Microsoft technology, a Windows Dedicated Server can be available at affordable prices.

In this category of Dedicated Server Hosting, you would find two more sub-options viz. Managed Dedicated Server and Unmanaged Dedicated Server. Once you decide to opt for a Dedicated Server it is important for you to choose one of the sub-options as stated above. Most of the Web Hosting providers offer Managed Web Hosting solutions which means that the web host is responsible for the upgrading the security patches, back-ups etc. But, if you are a Web master or have an experience on server management you can choose to have an Unmanaged Dedicated Server. A Managed Web Hosting service provider is the widely preferred by users. Most of the reputed and well established Web Hosting providers offer customized Dedicated Servers, this helps you to get the configuration as per your requirements and get a good value for money. If you face a problem with your Managed Dedicated Server, the web host would take care of the issue. Most of the time, issue is resolved within an hour unless there is a major flaw or hardware failure. But there are technologies available that can cope up with this problem too and such failures does not affect the performance of your website.

There are incomparable benefits of having your website/s hosted on a Dedicated Server. The biggest benefit is that you have the privilege to use the server as you want. You can install, uninstall, deploy etc. software`s and applications of your choice. The only account on the server would be yours. That means the server resources are not shared between any other user/s. With this type of Web Hosting, you get maximum amount of reliability. You are free to use all the resources allocated to the server.
Security, which is a major concern these days can be easily achieved with a Dedicated Server. It is necessary to know the server restrictions when choosing  an application to  install, which you can know from the Web Hosting provider.

Security: Security is one of the major factors that is being taken very seriously these days due to the ever increasing online threat. People usually upgrade from a Shared Hosting or VPS Hosting to a Dedicated Server for this purpose. The reason being , there are multiple hosting accounts created on a single physical server when you choose a VPS or a Shared Hosting solution. This increases the risk of threats and intrusions. But, with the dedicated server you need to worry about such issues as yours is the only account hosted on the server, plus you are free to deploy additional security measures.

Reliability: This is the most important factor that is considered when choosing a server. Hence, people prefer to opt for a Dedicated Sever as Shared and VPS hosting solutions cannot meet the level of reliability offered by this server. The better the configuration the better is the reliability obtained.

Freedom: With a Dedicated Sever you have the freedom to install almost any application and software required for your mission critical online business. You cannot find such option available with any other type of hosting. Ofcourse, you must check for whats not allowed on the Dedicated Sever offered by Web Hosting providers. This is another reason why people upgrade to a dedicated server.

With the benefits, there are also some disadvantages of having your site hosted on a Dedicated Server. The biggest reason why most people are bit reluctant to use this is the cost. Dedicated servers are costly in comparison to the other hosting solutions. But, if used correctly, it can be the only server options that can give you the best value for money. Server management can be a tough job people who choose an Unmanaged Dedicated Server Hosting plans. It’s a 24×7 task and require dedicated and technically sound people to carry out the crucial tasks.

A Dedicated Server Hosting can offer you a Good Value for Money. It can add to the success of your online business.

Server Uptime has the maximum importance in the Internet world. Getting a Dedicated Server mirrored can help you stay online at any given point of time. Dedicated Server Mirroring is a concept that has been preferred by large business to carry out the mission critical tasks.

“Server Mirroring” the name itself gives an idea of the technology. In this the data is mirrored or duplicated on two servers that share the same configuration. In this type of hosting service you can opt. between, Mirrored Dedicated Linux Servers and Mirrored Dedicated Windows Servers. This technique is a type of file or data synchronization and is widely preferred due to its reliability. In the Mirroring architecture, two systems are linked together. When there is a data transfer, the data is transmitted to either of the servers, but, the same data is duplicated on the other server/s as well. Encryption is possible too on the mirrored servers. This technology can be applied to WAN as well as LAN architecture of servers.

In this type of architecture, the web hosting provider, sets up the servers of similar configurations on different locations ie. different racks, different geographical locations, different datacenters etc. Usually, it is suggested to keep the servers in the same datacenter to avoid a delay in the delay in mirroring of the data. One among the servers is a Master and other as Slave or Secondary Server. If due to any reason, the Master Server fails to respond/ work, the Secondary Server takes over and starts operating as a Master Server, this avoids the possibilities of the downtime of website/s. FAM and RSync modules are used in the Mirroring architecture. When the Secondary server works as Master server, the process is called as a Failover Process.

Once the Master Server is replaced or repaired and re-installed to the network, the Restoration process gets initiated. In this the latest changes on the Secondary server that has taken place when the Master Server had failed, is now restored. Now, when the Master servers functionality has been resolved, the website data again starts getting resolved from the Master Server.

This kind of architecture proves to be an effective way of avoiding the downtime of websites. The Mirroring architecture helps in preventing the loss of data. You can avail this service from Web Hosting providers on request.

Now-a-days, Load Balanced dedicated servers are one of the highly demanded server architecture solutions in the world of Web Hosting. Large enterprises and organizations prefer load balanced dedicated servers than any other web hosting solutions, due to the reasons explained below:

To understand the benefits of Load Balanced Dedicated Servers, it is important for you to understand its Architecture. You can refer the following link to educate yourself about the load balancing architecture. Load Balanced Server Architecture

Load Balanced Servers for Increased Stability

It may happen sometime that a server hardware may face some problem or at times even fail to operate, in that case if it is load balanced, the other dedicated server/s can take over and act as a Primary Server enabling website/s to be online even after the failure happens. Once the problem is rectified and the server is brought back online, the website data is again fetched from it. In such cases depending on the severity of the problem, the server hardware is either fixed or replaced. Incase if  the server wouldn’t have been into a load balanced architecture and had it failed, the website would not had been accessible until the problem was sorted.

Load Balanced Servers for Increased Response Time

Load balancing is nothing but different servers that act as a single server. It is important that the website or the content is available for a visitor all the time. From a visitors point of view, it is important that the website is accessible whenever required. A bad or slow response time can be a major reason to loose a customer. Anyone would expect a faster load time of the website, this expectation can be easily satisfied with a  Load balanced architecture, as it speeds up the response time as more than one servers are active, each processing the request. A load balancer is used to distribute the load of the server.

Understand Why or When do you need a Load Balanced Dedicated server solution

One must first know the load time of one’s website/s. If you realize that the response time is slow though you have a faster processor with fair enough RAM, you should think of an option of load balancing the servers. Even if you have a mission critical website and you simply cannot afford to keep your website offline for even few hours, Load Balanced Dedicated server is the perfect solution. You can log into the server and check the CPU utilization, incase you aren’t sure of if you actually need a Load Balanced Server architecture, you can get in touch with our Sales team for assistance.

Load Balanced Architecture can be provided with Linux Dedicated Server Hosting as well as Windows Dedicated Server Hosting solutions.