There are many different ways that a business can get its web presence up and be running. If one is not looking on spending much money and does not mind a lack of flexibility, cloud hosting can be a viable option. For a good tradeoff between expense and features, virtual private servers are a decent choice. For a business looking at a vast IT infrastructure or just an extensive web presence, dedicated hosting is the most expensive but by far the most flexible of the options.
Cloud Hosting
A cloud hosting plan gives you the ability to run specific packages, such as WordPress, and access the files remotely. These plans do not generally allow you to install your software. However, not only are these plans typically very cheap, but they are also some of the easier ones to work with from a development standpoint. You don’t even need a web developer for a web presence. Just a few good writers who can write some available marketing material.
Virtual Private Server
Virtual Private Servers are much more flexible than cloud hosting plans. A VPS is essentially a VM running on a much more powerful computer. You will usually be able to get a “root” account which allows installation of packages or complete configuration of the installed environment. If you need to, for instance, install an enterprise CMS, that’s an option.
A VPS provides the ability to have a complete installation of any of the web technologies your IT department is familiar with, as well as have administrator privileges to the system itself and other backend software such as databases.
Say, you have a system based on a JavaScript server. You can host that on a VPS. It is one of the most flexible options because you have all the features you can find and aren’t relying on the hosting service having everything you need. However, there are some disadvantages. Using a VPS requires system administration skills, and if you are using a hosting service as a way to reduce the amount of technical support that you need, you may not be pleasantly surprised.
\It’s essentially just renting a server and bandwidth from the hosting company. Also, it’s going to cost a bit more than a Virtual Private Server, but buying computing power is cheaper in bulk. It’s also a bit more flexible than a VPS in a few ways. One, you can more efficiently allocate resources in a system that’s got a lot more computing power. Another is that you can run standard virtualization software on a dedicated server. The VPS gives the illusion of real hardware, but running a virtualized environment within that would cause some serious performance issues, and it might just refuse to run.
Dedicated Server
There are definite performance benefits to running on a dedicated server, as well. First, your processes don’t have to fight with other processes from other hosting customers. The VPS software generally manages those processes, but there’s no guarantee that the process management is perfect. There are, however, disadvantages that aren’t just price. First of all, dedicated servers often require hosting employees to perform maintenance. You might have to wait around for a system administrator to bring a dead machine up. This if you break the operating system. You are expected to have your system administrator, just as with a VPS.
ServerPronto offers the best affordable and secure hosting service in all dedicated server packages.
Photo credit Flickr / reynermedia
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