TrueGuide To Server Options
You're planning on building a website for your business. Great! Having an online presence is highly important these days. Everyone turns to the Internet to look for information before making a purchase or choosing a service provider. Sometimes, if your business doesn't have a website, it isn't even considered as an option. But what type of server should you choose? There are options, but how do you know which one is perfect for your business, whether big or small? Here's a rundown of different web hosting options so that you can be well informed when making the important server decision.
TrueGuide To Server Options
Shared Hosting
If you are a startup or small business, this is the smartest option. With shared hosting, the files for your website are stored on the same server as the files of other companies. You all share the same server, and this keeps costs low and affordable. If your website generates a low to average amount of traffic or you run multiple websites, this is the best choice. Rather than purchasing a hosting package for each of your sites, it's much more cost effective to put them all into one shared hosting package. The majority of hosting providers will allow unlimited domains with a single account, so take advantage of that. If you find your website is generating much more traffic than usual, you might find your site beginning to experience issues like crashing. This generally means it's time to rethink your hosting solution!
Dedicated Hosting
In this web hosting option, you rent a server to call your very own. No one else is able to share the space with you, which also makes it much more expensive than a shared server. Dedicated hosting is fantastic for large corporations with very busy websites, as it is fast and powerful. It's like having your own in-house servers, except you don't need to employ an IT team to deal with issues, or purchase the equipment upfront. Not only is this good for a website with heavy traffic, it's also the perfect solution for someone who doesn't want to run the risk of having their files sharing space with strangers. Don't have, nor do you plan on hiring, a webmaster to deal with administration of the operating system and hardware? Look into managed dedicated hosting. Managed dedicated hosting leaves the administration to the hosting company, saving you time and money in the long run.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting
If you take shared hosting and dedicated hosting and combine them, you get virtual private server hosting. With VPS hosting a physical server is partitioned into many virtual servers, meaning that although you are sharing space on the physical server, your stuff is in its own space that no one else can get to. This brings a higher level of performance than shared hosting does, and is the perfect logical step after shared hosting when your site begins to grow. When you start to see your blog posts going viral, being shared frequently across various social networks, or obtain many more visitors than you initially anticipated but you aren't quite ready for the costs associated with dedicated hosting, you should definitely give virtual private server hosting a go. VPS hosting is highly customizable, with many different packages available from numerous hosting providers. Be sure to look at your current and future needs in areas like RAM, bandwidth, and storage space to name a few, prior to making your choice. You don't want to limit yourself.
Cloud Hosting
This is probably the most difficult to understand of all the hosting options. Your files aren't stored on just one server, but actually across multiple remote computing sites. You could be pulling two different files from two completely different locations! This hosting option performs better than VPS, and is highly scalable. You can add resources as needed, in an instant. That makes this a great choice when your site all of a sudden explodes with traffic and you need a quick fix. Hopefully, this guide to understanding server options has made your decision a lot easier. At the end of the day, it all comes down to one simple fact: only you know the unique needs of your business and the type of server that would be perfect for the growth of your company. Does this make your decision easier? Do you still have some questions? Ask us, we'd be happy to help!
