For most, moving to a Dedicated Server will be a major project. Depending what the current web hosting services is used for, there may come a time where the current service doesn’t offer enough and resources are being pushed to there limit. If considering an upgrade to a Dedicated server from your current set up, you should consider the major advantages:

Uptime – The major draw to a lot of clients is the uptime of their site/sites. A typical shared hosting solution has many factors that can affect ones site and cause a loss of downtime, rogue scripts, poor coding or even an extremely busy page. All of these can contribute and effect fellow sites on the same server with detrimental effect. Having a Dedicated Server means having sole access to a physical server which only you have full control of.

Flexibility – A Dedicated Server will allow you full root access (SSH) into the server so you can fully configure and control everything that runs. This means you can choose what applications are installed onto it and how they run.

Security – One of the many advantages of a Dedicated Server is security. As the server isn’t shared with anyone else, you don’t have to worry about other people breaking it from the inside, if a website on a server gets hacked, it’s possible others will also. This limits any security issues to the outside and increases the security of your site/sites.

Aside from those major advantages, one must take into consideration the additional costs to undertake such a change. The obvious price increase is due to the fact you are paying for a physical piece of hardware owned solely by yourself. You also must be aware that regular monitoring and maintenance is a must with Dedicated Servers as various bug fixes and patches become available all the time for Operating Systems and the various software that is running on them. Many hosting company provide a maintenance option. Daniel Foster, the Managing Director of 34SP.com, a web hosting company based in Manchester, UK tells us “Our Customers require the highest skilled technical support possible, this is why we have customers that come back time and time again and are not shy in recommending us”.

A good hosting company should be able to facilitate an upgrade to such a server and some will even manage the migration from the current hosting account. So if you need a hosting package which will give you full control, great uptime and plenty of resources so your site runs as efficiently as possible, a Dedicated Server is the path to take.