Have a big website? Worried about server load ?

If you have a big website, then it happened more that once to see it moving very slow. There is a way to do some testing and find out is the problems are caused by the hardware, or by the website itself.

Have we ever thought how big websites could be configured to handle massive amount of traffic? How thousands of businesses worldwide are facing challenges everyday to make sure there are no connection failures due to heavy load or congestion of traffic at the website.

The answer is straight, every organization will have to monitor and baseline amount of traffic by going for stress test to find out if the current hardware could be supportive enough to handle a specific amount of load. One such great software is the ?Web Application Testing? or WAPT, which is a great utility for any website?s sustainability. This software is load, stress and performance testing tool for web sites and intranet applications with web interface. WAPT is designed for MS Windows 2000/XP/2003 and Windows 98/Me operating systems. The question that should be asked is why should we consider WAPT or why should the organization consider Load or stress testing? We certainly believe, major performance issues would arise if stress test has not been performed. This could very well mean that after the server reaches a certain level of concurrent connection made by visitors, it would consume its hardware resources to process every visitor?s request. If there is a lot to process, the server might give priority to web application than its local resource ending up in a system crash.

Thus, the goal of WAPT is very simple; it helps the organization?s web servers to become active at every stage of stress, whether it?s a web development or website traffic processing power. WAPT can perform a stress test by simulating several thousands of concurrent connections to check the web server/website performance and if it finds any bottlenecks it would warn and suggest fixing this issue by recommending the very next thing.

There are lots of new features added in WAPT 4.0

- You can use multiple virtual profiles to test a single scenario

- There is support for IP spoofing where each virtual user can run with individual and unique IP address

- Each Virtual can be configured with different username and password and is compatible with Windows Integrated Authentication or Basic Configuration.

- You can see and configure the type of reports even a test run summary report is generated

- There is command line interface available

- There is a support for persistent cookies

- All the test scenario and profiles are stored in XML format

The Main features of WAPT 4.0

- You can have the application run and understand multiple languages

- There is cool recording feature which you can use to record any configuration and stress test simulations for later review or demonstrations as it supports playback of HTTPS/SSL 2.0 & 3.0 pages. You can also record the user connection speed using the keep-alive connections to a HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1 pages or even HTTPS/SSL pages.

- You can generate data for run-times on specific scheduled intervals by randomizing the delay between the page hits.

- It also has a support for proxy servers for HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 & 5 and supports cookies as well.

- All the authentication request can be handled using NTLM (windows Integrated Authentication) or using the basic authentication.

- If you would like to call the website by a different name, then you also have the facility to add custom host headers

- All this the scenarios can be configured using the user friendly Wizard

- You can choose the reports to be either graphical or in plain text along with full virtual server logs

A must tool for administrator or other user who would to maintain their website efficiently.

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Mircea Ionescu writes for CoreDownload, a shareware archive where you can find utilities like WAPT to test your server.

Why Do You Want A Good Web Design and Hosting On A Good Server...?

The answer is very simple for this question. Because a good web design attracts user and some time visitor loves the design and bookmark the same site for future visits or for future reference or might be interested in making the same web design for his clients or might be possible he/she will edit the same design. But this is true that your website must have a good design. Not only to attract the internet visitor but also helps in browsing the products & services, so that visitor can reach to the destination with the minimum number of clicks.

Web Designing - While audience creation, advertising and promotions drive traffic to a site, it's the design that either encourages visitors to explore or drives them away in frustration. A good design is, of course, aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, though, it engages visitors, makes it easy for them to navigate the site and compels them to explore the site further, purchase products and return another day. Attractive graphics that support the company's message are important. But large graphics that take a long time to load frustrate users. Many visitors won't wait long enough for the graphic to finish loading. Additionally, visitors are less likely to return to a site that has cumbersome or confusing navigational cues. Selection of a Web Designing Company is always a big game as far as your online business is concern. Web design differs significantly from design for other media. The most important difference is that the Web is interactive, incorporating hyperlinks and devices for immediate visitor feedback. Some sophisticated designs include dynamically generated pages that are custom-tailored to each visitor's interests, preferences and buying habits. To implement effective designs, our team of web designers and implementers has sufficient technical skills such as HTML coding, scripting and programming in addition to artistic skills. As the navigation reveals the structure and organization of the web site, It should provide a consistence and predictable way to find and focus on the information you want in the smallest possible number of clicks.

Web Site Development

When it comes to the website development, your Web Designing Firm must understand your business requirement and type of business or services you are offering to your customers. The quality of your services and the cost of the services or products. A good web design company can increase your web site traffic by offering a user friendly navigation in the web pages that facilitates user in finding the services & products. And once if user ready to purchase something from your website, my personal experience is, he bookmark the site. But only condition is he/she must got the best deal from your side. developing the web pages is might be a small task but arrangement or the content and intralinking of the web pages is always a important point. A Web Development Company first creates a complete rough website structure and then proceeds for the final structure which would be the best in nature with the design, pages, content arrangement, link color, and link names, CSS in the site, the color combinations and the use of the images. There is no question that when it comes to fast and efficient display of graphics on Web Pages, smaller is better. Techniques optimizing the color depth of the Web - friendly GIF and JPEG images for the fast download and applying simple height and width HTML tags are the secrets of our greatest site design. There are certain factors that search engines do not like. While keeping those factors into consideration, we will create an extremely search engines friendly website. The secret of great page design is to create a page grid, build tables, work with color and use type. Innovation & focus on the target visitor drives our creative team to custom design each site with a right combination of text layout, fonts, colors, backgrounds, pictures, animation?s, icons & bars. At UWS India we do not just develop web pages; rather we nurture your dreams into your website.

Web Hosting

Web hosting is like a supporting hand when it comes to any online business through a website. An excellent web server supports your website in term of web site speed, performance, executing queries, database queries sent by you or your potential customers, enquiry management with its security and best performance with maximum uptime. At any point of time if you or your visitor looks for your site or click on your site link form any location in the world, a good web server returns the response immediately that helps user to browse the site and choose the product & services he/she want. The identities of a good web server are... It must respond to each & every request sent to the server, minimum or limited domains hosted, updated with all new available features and all those features your site requires, security of the website and your database, maximum uptime, and all. You may choose a cheap hosting from any vendor if you are new in the online business through website but if you are a professional, you would not like your site to host on a discounted server with approx 2000 domain hosted or with bad performance. A good Web hosting Company can solve your this downtime, security, features, and performance problems.

Ultimate Web Solutions is an internet marketing company operating in New Delhi, India provides Website Designing, Website Development, Website hosting, search engine optimization, link popularity building and SEO friendly web design service, along with domain name registration. http://www.ultimate-websolutions.com/

Monitor the Uptime of Your Websites and Servers

Websites are nowadays used to do business and earn profit. If you belong to those who own such a website or just planning to start on-line business, you will have to monitor the uptime of your websites or servers. Do not let your clients to let you know about your downtime.

There are companies, which websites are essential for their business success, as they are generating the most or the whole of the company's revenue. Maybe also you belong to them. When this kind of website (server) is down, your business is affected. If your website is hosted by another company, you probably have some sort of "uptime" guarantee. Nevertheless, what exactly is uptime and how do you measure it. The basic definition of uptime is the period of time when your site is up and running, being accessible and able to satisfy customers.

The opposite, when your site is not accessible, it is down. And that is how you measure downtime. Faulty routers, malfunctioning LANs, or a loss of electrical power typically causes most of the downtimes; only rarely are caused by a natural disaster. Most often, it is caused by failures from the telecommunications company or an application failure, not a fire, flood or other catastrophe.

The cost of downtime calculation of course depends on many factors, like the products and services you provide, the size of your company, the number of online sales, etc. Even if you do not sell any products or services online, there is still a cost of downtime, but then in terms of damage of reputation etc. Calculate the cost of downtime is difficult and varies from one company to another. There is no "average business", so the statistics that quantify the cost of downtime for average businesses are not helpful.

The cost of downtime include direct costs such as the labor charges for a team of technologists who had to resolve the outages. The indirect costs are much more difficult to calculate and include potential lost revenue, reductions in worker productivity, damaged reputation with customers and in the marketplace, lost future sales and the cost of storing unsold goods. Financial analysts and accountants at your company can help you come up with the factors for your particular business.

If your website is generating profit for your business, you will for sure monitor it by an external monitoring service. The on-line market offers you to choose from different services to get uptime reports, statistics and get notifications as soon as your website is down. You can not let your customers to inform you about your own downtime.

To understand the importance of being aware of downtime, and to be alerted as soon as possible when a problem occurs, have a look at these numbers:
- According to a report by Cumulus Research Partners website downtime, caused by problems such as network failures, costs European businesses more than ? 5 billion a year.
- In the automotive industry downtime is often worth some $1.000 a minute.
- According to a recent study conducted by ARC Advisory Group, accounting for nearly five percent of total North American production, more than $20 billion is lost each year due to unscheduled downtime. Clearly, the traditional "fail and fix" approach to maintenance is no longer a viable MRO strategy.

Many hosting providers guarantee 99 % uptime. 99 % uptime sounds good, but means that your site could be down more than 3.5 days a year, and in today's Internet that is unacceptable. Comparing to that, 99.9 % uptime is much better, but with 8 hours and 45 minutes of possible downtime do not have to be always enough. The table below shows the percentage of uptime and the related downtime per year.

99 % ........ 87 hours, 36 minutes (more than 3.5 days)
99.9 % ...... 8 hours, 45 minutes, 36 seconds
99.99 % ..... 52 minutes, 33.6 seconds
99.999 % .... 5 minutes, 15.36 seconds
99.9999 % ... 31.68 seconds

As you can see, a 99 % uptime may not sound too bad, but it can cost you quite a lot of loss in revenues.

There are more than 30 uptime monitoring websites worldwide, while some of those have also affiliate partners. Among those are: Alertra, AlertSite, Dotcom monitor, InternetSeer, Jaguard, RedAlert, SiteUptime, WatchMouse, WebsitePulse and others. Almost all of them offer some prepaid packages based on monthly fees, varying by number of possible monitored sites (servers), additional services and by the complexity of the service. The price of their basic prepaid package is $5 - $40 per month. For this price you can monitor only 1, or maximum of 3 devices, choose from quite a lot of protocols, allow to send notifications to multiple contacts via e-mail, IM, pager or SMS, allow to choose between daily, weekly, or monthly reports by email and of course uptime performance and statistics available on-line. The Professional packages can go up to $180 per month or even higher.

There are just two completely free 24/7 monitoring services: Montastic and mon.itor.us.

Montastic's (http://www.montastic.com) biggest advantage is simplicity of the service, while it offers just basic service including real time monitoring and alerting by e-mail one contact person - the registred user, or by RSS feed, when the website is down and when it is back again. It allows to monitor only http websites, limited to the number of 100 (what is not a limit at all), checking it every 10 minutes from two different locations.

Meanwhile mon.itor.us (http://mon.itor.us) provides network, website and server monitoring service supporting 11 protocols with possibility to monitor unlimited number of devices and alert unlimited number of contact persons by e-mail, RSS feed, IM message, pager or SMS. There are also other remarkable features as personalized interactive interface, where you can add server performance and availability tests, set daily, weekly or monthly reports sent by e-mail. Tests are performed from 3 geographically distributed servers, and they are always adding more interesting features as they are still in beta version.

Peter Cernak works at Sourcio (http://www.sourcio.com). The company develops mon.itor.us and offers a wide range of IT services and Open Source solutions for small and medium-size businesses

Website Updates are a SNAP With Server Side Includes

If you ever had to make a change to your website that needed to be carried onto every page, you know what a tedious job it is.Well, have I got news for you. It doesn't have to be. Welcome to the world of Server Side Includes, also known as SSI. The best part about SSI is that it will make your life as a site owner 'oh so sweet.' You're going to want to kiss me after I give you the lowdown on this little beauty.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a site with over 50 pages and you need to add another link to your navigation bar. Can you imagine how long it would take you to open each page and update it? By putting your navigation bar into an SSI file, you would only open up that one file and update that -- and the change to your navigation bar will show up site wide. See how simple that was? By editing one file you have updated your entire site instantly.

The most common use of an include file is for your top navigation, your bottom text navigation, copyright, logo or any other piece of info needed to appear on all pages of your site.

So how do you create an SSI file? Glad you asked! An include file can be an HTML file or a simple text file. It should be whatever HTML coding you need for that element of your site, minus the or tags which should remain on your individual pages.

An easy way to make them is to design your web page and cut and paste the code you want into individual files and name them things like topnavigation.htm or bottomnav.htm. By giving them descriptive names, you'll know at a glance which file is which when it comes time to perform those updates.

After creating the files you plan on using as your includes, you'll need to open your web pages and insert a line of code where you want the SSI information to show up in your documents.

The code looks like this:

If your includes are located at the root level on your web server your path would look like this:

That's it. Pretty simple, really. After you get the hang of it you'll wish you would have learned about them years ago. They really do make global updating a snap.

Here are a couple of good sites to learn more about SSI:

Big Nose Bird-
http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

CGI Resource-
http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Documentation/Server_Side_Includes/

New Breed Software
http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/unix/www/ssi/

Web Reference
http://www.webreference.com/programming/ssi/intro/

Before you start implementing SSI you need to ask your web host if they support them (most do), and also if they will need to be named with any special extensions. Some servers may require you to give them specific extensions like .asp (if it's NT) or .shtml (for many Unix servers). Although the majority won't, it's always better to ask first. Better safe then sorry.

By designing your website with server side includes you'll save yourself a ton of headaches when it comes time to updating your site. SSI is a Webmaster's best friend, so I suggest you spend some time getting acquainted.

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What Kind Of Dedicated Server Is Right For You?

I've thought about this question many times as well when trying to decide between various dedicated server specs. This should be all based on the intended use of the server. Is it being used for hosting clients? Is it being used to host your own sites? Do any of the sites being hosted have the potential for using large amounts of CPU, or perhaps bandwidth? These are the types of questions you should be asking yourself when deciding which server you should select. For example, if you're using your server to host an image hosting or file hosting website, then those are known to grow very quickly. Within a few days your hard drive space, and bandwidth being transferred can literally go through the roof. The next thing that occurs is your server starts to slow down, and the other sites hosted on the server also slow down, and you have to be looking to upgrade the server.

It's usually best to try for a medium. Not too much and not too little. It doesn't make sense spending $300/month for a server and your hosting a site that transfers little to no bandwidth, and doesn't use much of the resources. If that's the case then you should consider a Virtual Private Server rather than a dedicated server. On the other hand if you're going to be hosting multiple active websites then by all means choose a server that's good from the start that exceeds your current needs which will allow it to grow without issues.

I should note that if your running MySQL, Mail, DNS, and Apache or IIS all on the same server, then it's wise that the server has a healthy set of ram, hard-drive and a powerful CPU. Each of those applications can be very intensive and will try to dominate each other for the resources. Do not expect to purchase a server with only 256 MB Ram and try to run all those applications on the server. You'll need a lot more than that to keep the server stable. This goes out mainly to anyone looking to start hosting client's websites using the server. You can have many angry clients if your server slows down tremendously based on packing too many applications on a server with poor specs.

In any event, be smart. Only you will know the reason why you're looking for a dedicated server. Key in on the question points I mentioned. Weigh the pros and cons, and you'll make the right decision.

More insightful articles and information can be found at http://www.dedicatedserversearch.com

Five Steps To Choosing A Dedicated Server Host

I'll like to first point out that each step listed below is not necessarily in the order of importance as I deem each point to be just as important as the other. Choosing a dedicated server host is a very critical aspect of your business online. To put it simple, it could make or break you. Issues ranging from downtime, slow support, a very slow network can all kill your website and revenue FAST! I've outlined five points that you should consider when selecting a host for your dedicated server.

1) Reliability

This is not something you can actually know by just looking at their website, so you'll have to do a bit of research. It's always a good idea to do a search about the host to find any reviews from past or current clients. To do this, simply search using Google for keyword phrases using the company name. For example, Rackspace review or EV1Servers review, or you can even take a step further, by reviewing the support forums of the host if they have one. There you can easily find as much information as you need. How does this help with regards to reliability? Simple, it can show how fast they respond to complaints and issues by reviewing what past or current clients have said, and postings in the forums can show how they handle customer feedback.

2) Cost

We are all looking for a cost effective deal. It's important that we factor in quality over cost when choosing a dedicated server host. Selecting a $29/month server may not be the best option if it's backed with poor support and perhaps your server built with recycled hardware. Take note, this is not saying that cheap dedicated server hosts produce low quality service, but I'm saying that in 8 times out of 10 you do get what you pay for. Do price shopping and take note of each host's price along with their server specs, bandwidth, network, and support guarantees. Review each and then you'll be able to figure, which one is truly the most cost effective. Is it really worth it to have a $29/month server with only 256 MB RAM which may be slow and unresponsive if hit with a spike in traffic? It's going to be up to you to weigh those options.

3) Support

This is crucial for issues such as downtime, ddos attacks and general issues dealing with your server. It is important that you communicate with the support team before purchasing a server. Why? Simply because you want to test their response before investing any funds. If you would rather not send an email or call before making your purchase, if the site you're thinking about has a support forum, you can register and post your technical question there or review the questions asked prior to get a better idea of how solid their support technicians are with regards to answering questions.

4) Longevity

This is usually not listed as a priority as many startup dedicated server companies are solid, but it's usually a best bet to track the length of time that a company has been in business. You can do a whois of the host's domain name to see how long a host has been in business. It can be a good indication that they're in for the long haul if they've been around for awhile. This is not to discredit choosing a new company, as many solid server hosts are started regularly who go on to be huge successes. Simply use your best judgment when reviewing if to go with a host that's been around for years instead of one that's now getting started. I should point out here, that in some cases newer hosts will fight harder for your business and give you an overall better support in the beginning in some cases as they really treasure your business. It's really a toss up here, that's where your natural instincts for decision making will have to be the deciding factor.

5) Network

A fast upline provider is very important. Unfortunately not all networks are fast, secure and of high quality. When choosing your server host, it is important that you find out who is the backbone provider, i.e which company is feeding their connection to the internet. Not only do you want to know which company, but you also need to know what's the speed and maximum burst that can be achieved. Many networks have crumbled due to starting with too small of a connection causing all the servers hosted to literally crawl when traffic spikes occur. In addition, you'll need to find out if your server will be automatically behind a firewall or if that's an optional service. Every network should offer the ability for firewall protection but not all offer it as a standard inclusion. Do not overlook this, as if any attacks on your server do occur, and you are not behind the firewall your server can crash.

This is obviously not a total guideline, but a brief overview of what you should look for when choosing a host. In most cases, just using common sense and asking questions will help you make the right decision. Above all else, when choosing a host, if you follow the steps above, you'll be making an informed decision instead of taking the gamble just based on what you've read on the host's website.

More information can be found at http://www.dedicatedserversearch.com

Using dedicated servers has its advantages

A Dedicated Server is a server provided by a web host for you to rent.

It is a different from normal virtual (shared) hosting. In fact, having a dedicated server is completely the opposite, every aspect of that server, as well as the network connection is dedicated only to your website.

Of course, a semi dedicated server is one which is shared by few clients.

A dedicated server is the next step up from a shared hosting environment and is used for many business, management and development purposes.

It is usually needed for a website (or set of related company sites) that may develop a considerable amount of traffic or when they expect considerable amount of visitors.

A dedicated server is yours to use exclusively, so you have 100% of the processor and 100% of the available disk space working for you.

Being like your own server, you do not have any restriction on the bandwidth or the CPU utilization.

So it's ideal for advanced users who want maximum freedom and flexibility.

One advantage in having a dedicated server is that, you can create customized control panels for managing your server.

Furthermore, the certificate services are the backbone of your organization's security.

In the Web hosting business, a dedicated server is typically a rented service, leased from a hosting company.

Although it's more expensive than a virtual one, the cost to set up your own dedicated server is still quite low.

Getting started is always a little laborious and tandard setup time for a dedicated server is usually 24-48 hours after your order has been verified.

Lim Zheng Yang has compiled the latest news and resources at his sites: http://best-dish-network-guide.info/ , http://best-internet-service-guide.info/ and http://dedicated-server-guide.info

Dedicated Servers and Shared Servers

Are you looking for hosting server? But not sure what they are, searching for dedicated or shared server but don't know what is the difference, either way this articles helps you out to find best hosting service for your sites.

Mainly hosting servers are of three types free servers, dedicated servers and shared servers. Free servers provide limited space, with limited features. While most popular are dedicated and shared servers. Shared servers are those in which you will share space with other users. Your website and other people will share the same server. With a shared server, the host typically takes care of administration of the server, which requires little technical skills.

A dedicated server is a single computer on a web-hosting network that is leased or rented, and dedicated to just one customer. A service provider monitors the computer's hardware, network connectivity, and routing equipment, while the customer generally controls and maintains the server software.

But before deciding weather you want dedicated or shared server you should consider level of website, if you operate a small business or a simple website of 5-10 pages dedicated server is not a best choice for you. It is important to understand your space need, bandwidth and budget before choosing dedicated web hosting servers. Dedicated server is the best option for the people who want huge amount of data space and bandwidth. These servers offer complete control on entire network. Major advantage of dedicated servers is that it provides each and every service at the small cost. These servers offer ability to manage firewalls and password access due to security purposes.

A small business, with minimal traffic, will likely want to stick with shared servers because dedicated server cost you a great deal more than a shared server.

Finally it is important to understand your space need, bandwidth, and budget prior choosing hosting server. Generally a large website with lots of traffic and need bulk bandwidth choose a dedicated server while a small business with less traffic will stick to shared servers.

Offshoremode.com offers offshore dedicated server and bulk email server in Malaysia.

The author David is owner offshoremode.com offers offshore dedicated servers in Malaysia for more information Visit http://www.offshroemode.com/ today

Virtual Dedicated Server-When Dedicated is Still Too Much for Your Wallet

A virtual dedicated or private server is a pseudo server running on a dedicated server. Virtual servers typically have their own dedicated operating system that can sometimes vary from the operating system of the server they are on. To a virtual server the rest of the server does not exist. Ten virtual servers on one dedicated server cannot see each other or the server they're on.

Because of this encapsulation or insulation from other hosting accounts on the server, virtual accounts offer a great deal of flexibility where configuration is concerned. A typical VPS or VDS account might come with a certain control panel for example. If you wish to use a different control panel you can simply install one through root access. If PHP, MySQL or other modules are behind the times then you simply upgrade them.

Note also that you are the server admin. With a shared hosting account the server is upgraded by the company and security is maintained by them as well. The same can be said about the server that your virtual dedicated server runs on but not about your virtual dedicated server. Software and security are all your responsibilities making you a miniature server admin.

One way of looking at this is that there are things you just have to learn some times. A good virtual server account does usually come with software installed and a certain level of stock security. As long as you do not need to upgrade many times you will be just fine working from a control panel to create new web sites.

One can easily pay $120 to $300 a month USD for a dedicated server. If your site is just starting out many times you won't even come close to using those resources for a bit. If you have the budget for a dedicated server than it's the way to go but if you need a price break then consider virtual server hosting. You can find a decent virtual server account for just under $35 a month USD. If your coming from a typical shared hosting account you will appreciate the difference in performance and flexibility

Dedicated Server Hosting: The Features And Benefits Of Using Dedicated Servers

You?ve come a long way from your fledgling website that only got two hundred hits per month. You now have a three hundred page monster on its way to getting millions of hits per month. You?re going to need a better hosting plan than you had before. A much better hosting plan.

Sure, your shared hosting plan worked fine in the past. Ok, well, not counting those intermittent down-times and oh yeh, that other time when someone (one of your competitors, maybe, but most likely an ex-girlfriend) figured out your account password and deleted your entire website. But that simply will not do for your website as it is now. You?ve invested too much time and money into this project and its finally starting to yield some results. There is absolutely no question about it: you need to find and review dedicated server plans and choose the right one fast!

A dedicated server is itself, the physical piece of hardware that your hosting provider rents to you. It has its own processor, hard drives(s), Random Access Memory (RAM) and bandwidth capability. Your website and its associated software will be hosted exclusively on this dedicated server?s hard drives. Dedicated servers allow you to install and run almost any program. They additionally allow other users, whom you have given access, the ability to connect to your dedicated hosting server and use those same programs at the same time you do. This has made dedicated servers very popular amongst internet gamers. Dedicated gaming servers offer all the same features of regular dedicated hosting servers but they are intended for less serious pursuits.

But what are the other benefits of utilizing dedicated servers? That?s certainly a valid question considering that dedicated server hosting costs significantly more than shared or virtual hosting plans. But with the increased cost comes features and benefits that are significantly worth it.

There are many benefits of using dedicated server hosting for your high traffic, software intensive website or gaming application. We?ve listed the most important below to steer you in the right direction.

Customization: Most dedicated server hosting plans allow you to fully customize or build your own dedicated server. You can therefore select and pay for only the features which you will require. You often will get your choice of operating system software (Windows Server Edition & Linux Redhat being the most popular options). Your choice of such software should be informed by considering which system your web applications will run best on. A major selling point with dedicated hosting plans is also which control panel to use. Plesk and Cpanel control panels are the most popular choices. Both will allow the hosting of multiple domains and websites but Plesk control panels have proven more popular largely because of their ease of use and their ability to facilitate event management, Postgre SQL, Support Ticketing Systems, various Language Packs and advanced dedicated game server hosting.

Reliability: Because your website or application is hosted exclusively on this dedicated server, you don?t run the risk of the server being congested by requests for other people?s websites or applications. On a shared hosting plan, the speed at which your web application loads is dependent upon how much traffic other websites that are on the same shared hosting server are getting. This causes slow loading times for high traffic websites and other websites that share a server with them. Dedicated server hosting avoids all this by affording your web application exclusive bandwidth. Shared hosting is also risky because you have no idea who is uploading what to the same server that you are hosted on. John in Nantucket might be uploading a web application containing an as yet unidentified virus that deletes everything it touches. If your website resides on the same server as John?s, then, to put it technically, you?re screwed. Dedicated hosting avoids all this and lets you sleep a little easier at night.

Security: No one else has access to your server but you. You are responsible for all its contents so there is no possibility of viruses or other malicious software unless you put them there. Additionally, most dedicated server plans come with the option of an external firewall so you can better enforce your specified access rights.

Unique IP Address: All dedicated servers have their own unique IP address so the IP address of your domain points only to your website. Shared hosting plans assign 1 IP address to every domain and website hosted on that particular server. Website traffic is then directed by host-header-reading software installed on the server. This process is usually very quick but can be slowed down on a congested shared server. Your dedicated server will have its own unique IP address which can only point to your website or web application. No header-reading software is needed to slow down the loading process (unless you decide to host multiple websites).

Upgrades, Upgrades!: No doubt, your website will continue to grow and so will your budget. At anytime during your dedicated server hosting you can add more bandwidth, RAM and increase your processor speed. While some hosting providers will allow you to switch operating systems this is generally not recommended. Make your mind up in the beginning and stick to one OS. This will save you many hours of tedious software conversions and ?unexplained? downtimes.

Other Options:

o Hard Drive Arrangement: If you have opted to have two hard drives on your dedicated server then you can arrange them in one of two ways: Raid 1 or Raid 2. Raid 1 or disk mirroring, allows you to select one hard drive as your primary ?work from? hard drive while the other hard drive serves as an exact copy of the primary drive. This is very important if your web application will contain highly sensitive data relating to your customers or any other unique information. If you are not particularly concerned with this kind of back-up utility you may opt for a Raid 2 configuration in which there is a primary hard drive with the secondary drive being used once the primary storage becomes full. The Raid hard drive arrangements make dedicated server hosting many times more reliable than regular non dedicated server hosting.

o FTP Backup: The best dedicated hosting providers will additionally provide an FTP back-up account for your account. You can mirror vital content that is already on your dedicated hosting server in that account.

The benefits of dedicated server hosting are clear. Armed with this knowledge feel free to look around for the cheapest dedicated hosting providers. A reliable dedicated hosting company will provide you with all the above-mentioned options to ensure that your mega website and games are always up and running. Remember, choose only those options which you need in a reliable dedicated server. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes reliable dedicated servers : you must carefully decide which options are best suited for the applications which you intend to run. A low cost dedicated server that has all the bandwidth, space and security features to run your programs effectively is the perfect upgrade from a non dedicated server hosting plan. Your dedicated hosting server is yours to customize so do it wisely and cost effectively.

Brandt Fuller is the CEO of http://www.CHLD.net Chippy Hippie's Live Domains. They are web hosting experts and provide some of the cheapest domain name registration on the entire web. They have years of experience in the domain name and dedicated server hosting industries and give great 24/7 customer support with all their services.

Advantages to a Dedicated Server

If you're exploring hosting options, surely you've thought about dedicated hosting and you may have even thought that a dedicated server is a little pricey, but do you know all the benefits of dedicated hosting?

First let's face a simple fact; many websites are hosted on a shared web hosting server. The main reason is the cost. A shared web hosting server costs a lot less than a dedicated server. The number of sites on a shared web hosting server can vary between a few hundred sites to a couple of thousand sites. Although shared hosting is reliable and has few problems, there are advantages to hosting your sites on a dedicated server.

You should consider a dedicated server when you find that the traffic to your site has increased substantially and your site is taking too much time to load. An analysis of the traffic to your site will tell you whether you should go to a dedicated server. The main thing to understand is that when you have many users accessing your website, you should replace your shared web hosting with a dedicated server web hosting.

Since a dedicated server does not share its server with other websites (like shared web hosting), you will find that you have a lot more control over your server operation. One of the advantages with a dedicated server is you have greater control to make changes to the server i.e. upload programs, add extra features and general tweaking is a lot easier when you have your own server. The only obstacle is the cost. You are required to pay a lot more for your dedicated server as compared to your shared web hosting. Nevertheless, the facilities more than compensate for the cost.

A dedicated server for your web hosting allows you to have a server solely dedicated to your sites. In addition, a dedicated server will allow you complete authority to control and administer your server. When and if you decide on a dedicated server for your web hosting, you should have a fair understanding of dedicated servers. Although most dedicated server hosting providers will provide technical support, you will find it a lot easier if you have the technical expertise to manage the server yourself. However, if you find that you will not be able to manage your server by yourself, you may opt for a managed dedicated server. This option is especially for those who want to have dedicated hosting but do not have the required expertise to manage it. This service allows you to have an entire server managed by a specialized hosting company. The cost of a managed dedicated server is more expensive than an unmanaged server. Therefore, if you think that you can run and manage your website server by yourself, you should opt for an unmanaged dedicated server web hosting rather than a managed dedicated server.

When you choose a hosting provider, you should keep in mind that it should provide you good network stability, reliable operation, and the ease of operation of sophisticated applications. A dedicated server hosting provider can be the perfect solution for anyone who is serious about their online presence.

eHostInfo provides a web hosting directory which has details on a number of hosting companies and their plans. Please visit http://www.ehostinfo.com for more information.