Hosting

Differences between Shared, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting

by jujuhost

Differences between Shared, VPS, and Dedicated Hosting

With all the different types of Web Hosting available, it can be confusing as to which one is right for you. Do you choose shared hosting, a VPS, or a Dedicated server? In this article, we will cover the basics of the different types of Web Hosting plans so you can find which type is the right one for you.

Hosting Platform Analogies

Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is very similar to living in an Apartment Complex. All residents are in the same location and must share the available resources with everyone including the pool, parking lot, and playground. In shared hosting, all accounts must share the available resources with all the other accounts on the server. These include CPU time, memory, and disk space. Our System Administrators monitor all of our shared servers 24/7.

VPS Hosting
VPS Hosting includes our 4GB, 6GB, and 8GB plans and is similar to owning a Condo. While you still share things on the property, you are ultimately responsible for maintaining your own property and repairs inside the condo. There are also significantly fewer residents per building.

On a Virtual Private Server, not all resources are shared. The overall CPU time and memory are shared across all accounts on the machine, but at the same time, portions of those resources are always dedicated to each account. This allows for more power and flexibility than being on a shared account. (Click here to download a PDF with more information.)

Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated Hosting includes our Essential, Advanced, and Elite Dedicated Server Hosting Plans. Dedicated Hosting can be compared to owning a house. You have access to all the resources available on the machine and no one else’s account resides on the machine (your house). (This PDF gets into the nitty gritty of Dedicated Hosting.)

Apartment living to Condo living

Upgrading from Shared to VPS Hosting

Shared accounts are great for most users as you can host all sorts of applications on them (such as WordPress) and there are plenty of email accounts to go around. If you compare Shared Hosting to Apartment living, a need for an upgrade may arise if you have:

  1. A Growing family: If your family grows more than what your apartment can handle, then it may be time to upgrade. In shared hosting, if your website becomes popular, you may need to upgrade to VPS Hosting for more CPU and Memory for your account. This will allow you to handle all the new traffic coming to your site.
  2. Customizations: If you love the color red and want to paint your walls red, you may not have permission to paint any walls if you live in an apartment. Moving up to a Condo gives you more ownership of your space, allowing you to paint and decorate however you choose. If you require software that is not available in Shared Hosting, uUpgrading to VPS hosting will allow you to install any software that you would like!

Condo Living to Single Family Home Living

Upgrading from VPS Hosting to Dedicated Hosting

Keeping with the Condo analogy, you have a lot of control, but you don’t have complete control. There are many reasons that a Condo was great for you at one point in your life, but you’re at the point where you have a big family and there’s a lot going on every day. You may decide to buy a single family home, where you’ll have plenty of parking and extra bathrooms.

VPS Servers are great for mid-sized businesses because you have a virtualized private server that you can setup and tweak exactly the way you want. A VPS Server is not a Dedicated Server, however, so you are still on a server with other users and your actions can negatively affect them. For example, if you have a very busy website, dominating the server’s CPU time and memory could cause performance issues with other users on the same server.

Hosting

What is Dedicated Hosting

by jujuhost

What is Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is a term used to describe web hosting packages that provide a dedicated server with dedicated resources to a single client. Dedicated hosting plans are ideal for WordPress websites with very large number of visitors. Many WordPress hosting service providers offer Dedicated Hosting plans along with shared and VPS hosting plans.

For example, in a shared hosting plan, a client is sharing a computer with many other clients. In the case of a VPS hosting plan the clients are sharing a machine but not the resources with other clients on the same computer. However, on dedicated hosting plans a client leases a whole server with all of its resources. Web hosting companies offer different packages of dedicated hosting plans. Prices of theses plans are based on the clients choice of hardware and resource allocation.

Dedicated hosting plans are ideal for large organizations or websites with much higher traffic. The clients get full control of the server which allows them to configure it to meet their own needs. The dedicated plans also come in managed and unmanaged forms where the hosting center can manage the server for the client in case of any problems. Dedicated Managed servers are generally more expensive. The pricing is also influenced by the amount of resources needed such as bandwidth, storage space, and amount of RAM, amongst other things. Additional expenses for dedicated servers also include the software packages needed to run the server. Such software can include licensing for Windows, if desired, cPanel, if desired, and other paid software. Free alternatives to most of the paid software packages are available but are not generally preferred due to issues with stability of the software. The main exception to the preference for paid vs free software is the widespread use of Linux over Microsoft or other paid OS on servers.

Hosting

What is Dedicated Hosting?

by jujuhost

What is Dedicated Hosting?

Dedicated hosting is a hosting configuration in which a server is devoted to a single organisation or for a single purpose, such as a website. This is in contrast to shared hosting, in which a server acts as a host to multiple clients. A dedicated hosting service is sometimes referred to as a dedicated server and can be set up in-house or externally as a service from within a data center. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits.

Customisation – Dedicated hosting grants a certain freedom and control that other hosting solutions are unable to provide. The fact that the server is dedicated to one client and there are no cohabitants means that the server (and overall hosting solution) can be tailored to the specific needs of that client. This ensures that they can select and pay for the features that they require.

Uptime – In a world where convenience is everything and consumers aren’t used to waiting, it is vital to ensure that a website, for example, is functional at all times; site downtime could lead to customers moving on to competitors. Dedicated hosting allows for high performance and stability to ensure that websites and other business functions are operational virtually 100% of the time (usually upwards of 99.4%). To this end, providers should offer server monitoring and back-up facilities alongside support services (described below) to keep functions running as seamlessly as possible.

Congestion – Server congestion is much less of an issue with a dedicated server, especially when compared to shared hosting options. With the latter, you often run the risk of congestion due to the traffic and usage levels of other websites or applications hosted on the same server, competing for bandwidth, disk space and CPU usage. The very nature of dedicated hosting ensures that this isn’t an issue. It also works the other way; if the website in question is resource heavy then dedicated hosting may be the answer to ensure that other websites aren’t disrupted.

Security – Clients using a dedicated platform will be able to deploy security measures, such as anti-virus and firewall configurations, that are more tailored to their own functions; whilst also avoiding the security vulnerabilities that can otherwise be introduced by the activities of neighbouring clients on shared hosting platforms. In addition, dedicated servers located within data centers can benefit from the physical security measures that such facilities often put in place, including, for example, biometric authentication, security guards and mantraps.

Support – Some dedicated hosting services come with a certain level of support. This is important as a high percentage of dedicated hosting customers use the service to host mission critical or important computing functions or websites. Effective support ensures that site disruption is kept to a minimum. A fully managed hosting provider, for example, may offer support 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

Details of support levels, as well as information regarding reliability statistics can usually be found in the service level agreement (SLA). These documents can often provide an insight into the quality of a particular service and should be consulted carefully when going through the process of choosing a provider.

If opting for a dedicated service that does not come with any support, it is important to ensure the presence of the necessary knowledge to manage and maintain a server effectively.