Why You Should Consider Dedicated Hosting
July 2008 (More monthly articles)
Is your organization in need of a new server? With budget season almost here for many non-profit establishments, a discussion about whether to buy your own servers or rent them from someone else seems in order. Purchasing one could easily cost $10,000 after hardware, software, operating system, raid configurations, labor, and other costs are factored.
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For about $3,000 per year, you can rent a server from a data center. In return, you get a brand new server already configured with the software you need installed, dedicated to the sole use of your organization. What’s more the server is completely managed with 24/7 support, backup, and data recovery. After three years, you’ll get another new server if you continue with the lease program.
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Consider the advantages of dedicated hosting. For starters, you won’t need to create your own on-site data center. An on-site facility needs plenty of power and cooling to adequately handle just two servers. The amount of heat generated by two servers, an uninterruptible power supply, video monitor, router, switch, and KVM device is amazing. If the servers become overheated you could have a serious problem on your hands. A dedicated hosting package eliminates this concern.
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Organizations purchase servers for a variety of reasons, such as managing email, storing data files, housing a website, managing a database, authenticating users, and more. When a new server is purchased, it frequently comes with the latest operating system, messaging and collaboration tools (e.g., Microsoft Exchange), database suite, or backup software. Someone on staff needs to be familiar with these products in order to properly install and manage them. Dedicated hosting nearly eliminates this headache as well. Furthermore, if you include the software in your lease, it will be upgraded every three years along with the server.
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Another advantage of dedicated hosting is that you can access the server’s resources from anywhere with an Internet connection. Need to print a document? You can configure the server to handle print jobs and print them back to your work environment, whether the main office, a satellite location, someone’s home, or even all three. Need to check email? You can configure your email client (e.g., Outlook) to talk directly to the server for email, calendar, and contacts. Need access to Microsoft Office documents? You can configure the remote server to actually run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint so that users simply log onto the server where they can create, edit, and print documents. You might even have a member / donor database that you place on the server where you can log on and manage it.
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Today, the cost of dedicated hosting is becoming so inexpensive that organizations could be missing out on huge savings by not investigating this option. What criteria should you use to find a good hosting provider? Here are some points to consider when evaluating a potential vendor:
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| Cost (fixed monthly amount plus any extras)
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| Server details
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| Type of access
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| Support hours
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| Applications Supported
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| Data transfer rate (1gb or better)
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| Data bandwidth from the server to the Internet (1gb or better)
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| Details of managed services (backup, restore, performance monitoring, intrusion detection, and anti-virus at a minimum)
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| Security (physical and remote access)
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While the cost of dedicated hosting has become affordable for many organizations, it may not be the right solution for you. Placing your data on a hosted server puts it at risk should the provider go out of business. If your organization or the provider doesn’t have sufficient bandwidth for passing data back and forth, connection speeds could be too slow for your environment. You should also be aware that with a dedicated hosting package, you are typically locked in for a period of time. If you become unhappy with the service, you may not be able to walk away from the deal without hefty financial penalties.
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Who provides dedicated hosting? You can find a plethora of hosting companies. Simply performing a Google search on the term “dedicated hosting” generates more matches than I care to count. One resource you should check out is a website called hostreview.com. This organization continuously ranks the best server hosting vendors in the U.S. I also have two favorite vendors worth mentioning. One is called Edge Web Hosting (www.edgewebhosting.com) and the other is Digital Networking Systems (www.dns-ny.com). Edge Web Hosting has at times made the Hostreview.com top ten rankings. Both of these vendors provide great service at a very competitive price. Even if you don’t hire any of these companies, they should provide a baseline to use as a comparison with other vendors or even your own in-house costs.
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