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Shared hosting is the most sought after entry level platform for majority of websites. The shared hosting plan is the most affordable one and hence it is a preferred option for websites that are about to make their mark in World Wide Web.
Once the website takes off and starts its journey on a growth track, there comes a time when the resources offered by shared hosting plans are not able to support the functioning of websites anymore. In short, one needs to make sure that the hosting plan should adapt to the resource requirement and must grow along with the website.
Whenever a website outgrows the resource allocation provided by shared hosting plans, website owners and web administrators should think of shifting to either VPS hosting plan or a dedicated hosting plan.
Rationale of moving away from shared hosting
It is logical to choose shared hosting plan in the initial phase of website launching because a shared hosting plan is the most affordable option among all standard hosting solutions. While enjoying the benefits of affordability of shared hosting, users have to compromise with certain basic attributes of hosting, including resource availability, privacy, flexibility, and control.
There can be no two opinions about the relevance of shared hosting as the starting point for any website. That being said, we need to understand that every website goes through a typical life pattern and needs to be nurtured during its growth phase with uninterrupted supply of vital resources.
Businesses can suffer heavily due to possibility of downtime on account of inadequate resources in shared hosting environment. This can be very common during instances of traffic spikes or high demand as the result of special campaigns and festivals. In addition to this the hosting needs are subject to changes in response to business growth plans and necessity of adding new applications.
Let us examine the two most logical options while moving away from shared hosting plan.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
Virtual Private Server is a step in between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. The intermediate option of VPS hosting is appreciated for number of reasons. It is offers remarkable privacy and controls that are almost at par with dedicated hosting.
The most striking advantage of VPS hosting is economy. Since a Virtual Private Server is product of a physical server that is partitioned into multiple instances of Virtual Servers that are independently capable of rebooting with individual operating systems.
VPS hosting allows you to customize server configuration and enjoy flexibility of installing applications of your choice with full server control. In addition to this, users can deploy their independent instant firewalls and other security solutions including anti malware and anti-virus applications.
Conventionally, VPS hosting is delivered as an unmanaged service. Users are therefore expected to look after server administration tasks requiring them to have technical capabilities for efficient management of various aspects of application management server maintenance, upgrades, security patching and so forth.
Dedicated server hosting
Of all types of standard hosting solutions, dedicated hosting is considered to be the big daddy of hosting because users are offered control of an entire server and its resources exclusively for their individual use. There is no sharing of server space and the whole arrangement is called as a single tenant solution.
Most of the large enterprises including big e-commerce stores, BFSI institutes, healthcare or insurance providers, government agencies, and enforcement organizations prefer to use dedicated server hosting for handling huge amounts of traffic securely as well as efficiently.
These plans are also the most expensive among all versions of hosting and therefore users must ensure that they are able to consume the available resources of dedicated hosting to their fullest capacity.
Websites can be empowered to have blazing fast page loading speeds with dedicated hosting with unhindered supply of resources including storage, compute power, and bandwidth for maintaining consistent presence of our websites.
There are multiple flavors of dedicated hosting offered by different service providers. Fully managed dedicated hosting is comprehensive bouquet of services provided by hosts that involve software upgrades and installation of software just to name a few. It also covers server configuration as well as maintenance.
Medium level management of your dedicated server is offered to users who avail semi-managed dedicated hosting. The details of such services are usually discussed and agreed upon by user and service provider. The service requires availability of technical staff to take care of server operations and maintenance. Businesses may hire such expert staff exclusively to look after these tasks.
In managed dedicated hosting, users are not allowed absolute sever control and the hosting service provider may exercise control over user’s data while shouldering total responsibility of modifications to dedicated server.
If you are using self managed dedicated hosting, then all server operations need to be handled by your own support staff. There will be a limited customer support offered to you by the host.
Unmanaged dedicated hosting is the option available to users who are confident of handling everything on their own without any support from the host.
VPS as well dedicated server hosting solutions need availability of expert support staff to take care of day to day server operations. Dedicated hosting is an expensive option in comparison with shared as well as VPS hosting.
Choosing the right option
VPS hosting and dedicated hosting solutions are far superior then shared hosting plans. Users need to study their requirements, technical resources, and budgetary aspects before finalizing right hosting option. Ideally decision to choose between VPS or dedicated hosting must be taken much in advance, before the website outgrows shared hosting resources.
