Dedicated Hosting

What is dedicated hosting and why would I need it?

In number, the vast majority of websites on the Internet come from web servers (a computer setup with a primary purpose to hand out website content) that are shared amongst lots of users, they generally contain hundreds of websites.

This is the case because for the most part, the task of hosting the most common websites isn't all that difficult or very hard work for a computer. By sharing the resource amongst many sites it means web hosting can be made cost effective and affordable for business and individuals.

Some websites do need their own server though and for this we have dedicated hosting. There are two primary reasons to use dedicated hosting instead of shared web hosting:

Your site is so complicated or has so many visitors that it really DOES need a lot of computer power and hence its own machine, or multiple machines to run it.
The nature of the application or the content on the website is such that it can't be made to work in an environment shared by other users. We'll explain why below.

A large part of the cost of providing a hosting service is the routine maintenance that goes into ensuring the servers that hold the website keep working, without ever stopping, 24 x 7.

When you use dedicated hosting, as a client you have to absorb all of these maintenance costs on your own. In shared hosting, the costs are spread amongst other users. This is a large part of the reason for the higher costs.

How will I know when my site is so big it needs dedicated hosting?

You can be sure that your hosting company will tell you. As the name suggests shared hosting must meet the requirements of all the users, if any one of those users starts to consume too much of the available computer power, they unfairly degrade the service for the other users.

As a hosting company we closely monitor this and will always give you fair warning when you need to look towards dedicated hosting.

When will the "nature of my application" mean I need Dedicated Hosting?

It's difficult to answer this question without getting at least a little bit technical. Common reasons include:

The data being stored is so security sensitive that it's too risky to put on a machine that other users have access to.
You want or need to be able to have root/administrator level access to the server to make configuration changes by yourself.
Your website/online service has been developed in such a way that requires non-standard customisations or modifications to commonly used applications.
It has been developed with the very latest version of an application which isn't supported in a shared environment.
Requires the installation of modules or programs which cannot be installed in a shared environment.
The optimal performance of your site is critical, under no circumstances can you tolerate the slight changes to the responsiveness of your application which may occur in a shared envinroment as the result of the activities of other users.
The uptime of your site is critical. As a shared environment needs to meet the needs of hundreds of users and the reality is that maintenance is higher. The chance of something going wrong with the server as a result of the actions of any of the users is higher. These deviations from perfect uptime are for the vast majority of sites perfectly acceptable, but if your uptime requirements are very high and the financial implications of downtime are very real then you may need to be in a dedicated hosting environment.

Is Unmanaged or managed Dedicated hosting for me?

All dedicated hosting services have one thing in common, you get your own server. After this they're all different. The differences include:

The speed of the network connecting the server to the Internet
How fast the server is, or how much work it's capable of, depending on the components
How much monitoring is done on the server to make sure everything is always working
How much maintenance is being provided by the hosting provider to stop things breaking
Whether you are responsible for configuration changes or whether your hosting provider is

All of Anchor's dedicated hosting solutions connect you to the same fast network.

We work with you at the sales level to make sure you start off with a server that will be capable of handling your loads for the first 12 months (after that it's usually cheaper to upgrade later on).

The big question is Managed or Unmanaged?

Managed servers are for customers that:

Don't know what systems administration is or what it means
Or those that do know what it is but aren't really interested in doing it
Don't have the human resources to respond to problems when they occur, 24 x 7
Demand a very high level of reliability that comes wih a professionally managed and monitored server

If this is you, please see our fully managed dedicated servers E & F. You can also get basic levels of management on A, B, C & D servers.

Unmanaged servers are for customers that:

Are happy to apply updates and security patches to their server to keep it secure and stop it from getting hacked.
Are happy to make configuration changes (ie adding new email accounts, new domains, new users) themselves or would rather pay on a case by case basis when they need help.

If this is you, please see our range of unmanaged dedicated servers A, B, C & D