Dedicated web hosting

Dedicated web hosting refers to the type of hosting where you, the client or customer, leases a server of your own from a hosting company.  The server is not shared with anyone else. Dedicated servers are typically a lot more expensive than standard shared hosting packages, for obvious reasons.

When deciding on which of the many dedicated server companies to sign up with, you should think about many factors, not just the cost, because all dedicated hosting services are not the same.  Make a shortlist of likely companies, and get answers to the following questions:

What do you have in place to guarantee the security of my data? Do you use mirrored drives to avoid downtime?

What bandwidth do I get?  If I go over my allocation for the month, what is the 'overage' charge?

What is the CPU speed of my machine and does it have multiple processors to improve speed at peak times?

What memory does my machine have?

What is your uptime guarantee?

What technical support do you offer and how quickly can you respond?

How long does it take you to put right a hardware failure?  (Hardware failures are much more common than you think.)

How do you respond to denial of service attacks and how can you protect me from them?

Another question you could ask is about the brand of computers that the dedicated hosting service uses.  Though the value of brand-name computer hardware can be over-emphasised, hosting companies who build their own servers from cheap parts are generally looking to save money, at your expense.

One cost consideration for those moving up to dedicated hosting would be the operating system for the server.  While Linux would be free as it is open source, a Microsoft operating system would incur additional charges, since the server software has to be licensed. In addition, applications like Microsoft SQL or Oracle will require further payments every month. 

If it is not clear on their specifications pages, get the dedicated hosting company to specify exactly what your monthly payment will be for the dedicated hosting and add-on software you need.