Dedicated Servers

A dedicated server is a single computer a reserved for serving the needs of the network. For example, some networks require that one computer be set aside to manage communications between all the other computers. A dedicated server could also be a computer that manages printer resources. Note, however, that not all servers are dedicated. In some networks, it is possible for a computer to act as a server and perform other functions as well.

In the Web hosting business, a dedicated server is typically a rented service. The user rents the server, software an Internet connection from the Web host.

What is BandWith?

- 1) In electronic communication, bandwidth is the width of the range (or band) of frequencies that an electronic signal on a given transmission medium. In this usage, bandwidth is expressed in terms of the difference between the highest-frequency signal component and the lowest-frequency signal component. Since the frequency of a signal is measured in hertz (the number of cycles of change per second), a given bandwidth is the difference in hertz between the highest frequency the signal uses and the lowest frequency it uses. A typical voice signal has a bandwidth of approximately three kilohertz (3 kHz); an analog television (TV) broadcast video signal has a bandwidth of six megahertz (6 MHz) — some 2,000 times as wide as the voice signal.

2) In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rate - the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second). This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it’s expressed as bytes per second (Bps). A modem that works at 57,600 bps hastwice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps. In general, a link with a high bandwidth is one that may be able to carry enough information to sustain the succession of images in a video presentation.

It should be remembered that a real communications path usually consists of a succession of links, each with its own bandwidth. If one of these is much slower than the rest, it is said to be a bandwidth bottleneck.

What is Co-location and Why Would You Choose it for Web Hosting

Learn Why We Chose Colocation for Our Web Sites

Introduction

While many large corporations have the Internet infrastructure to host their own web servers and have a team of IT professionals to manage and design the site, individuals and small companies do not. There is a wide range of options available from simple hosting up to running your own web servers off of a dedicated Internet connection. One such option is collocation. In the first part of this series, we will examine why one would chose colocation over the other options.

What is Colocation?

Colocation allows you to place your server machine in someone else’s rack and share their bandwidth as your own. It generally costs more than standard Web hosting, but less than a comparable amount of bandwidth into your place of business. Once you have a machine set up, you take it physically to the location of the colocation provider and install it in their rack or you rent a server machine from the colocation provider. That company then provides an IP, bandwidth, and power to your server. Once it’s up and running, you access it much like you would access a Web site on a hosting provider. The difference being that you own the hardware.

Advantages of Colocation

1. The biggest advantage of colocation is the cost for bandwidth. For example, a low cost limited bandwidth business grade DSL line generally costs around $150 to $200, but for the same price or less a single server can be placed in a collocation facility that provides higher bandwidth speeds and better redundancy for the network connections. These savings can be even greater if the only dedicated network access is a more expensive full or fractional T1 lines.
2. Colocation facilities have better outage protection. During a long ice-storm last year, my office was without power for three days. While we have a backup generator, it wasn’t powerful enough to keep the server running that entire time, so our Web sites were down during that outage. At a colocation provider, we are paying for power generators and backup power to protect against that type of situation.
3. We own the server machinery. If we decide that the machine is too slow or doesn’t have enough memory, we can simply upgrade the server. We don’t have to wait for our provider to get around to upgrading it.
4. We own the server software. I don’t have to rely on my hosting provider to install the software or tools I want to use. I simply do it myself. If I decide to use ASP or ColdFusion or ASP, I just purchase and install the software.
5. If we move, we can leave the server up and running the entire time. When we host our own domains we have to either pay for two lines for some time, to move the domains to the new location or deal with outages while the servers are moved to the new location.
6. Colocation providers provide additional security for your machines. Your server is stored and maintained in a secured environment.
7. Most colocation servers offer a service where they will manage and maintain your server for you for an extra cost. This is especially useful if you don’t have IT team members or your office is located far from the provider.

Disadvantages of Colocation

1. Colocation providers can be hard to find. You want to find one near where your office or home is located, so that you can upgrade and maintain your server when you need to. But unless you live near a large city with major network hubs, chances are you won’t find many colocation options.
2. Colocation can be more expensive than basic Web hosting. This is especially true as you have to maintain and manage your servers yourself, so when the server needs to be upgraded, you need to purchase that hardware and install it.
3. Physical access to your server can be difficult, because you have to travel to their location during your colocation provider’s service hours.
4. If you move out of the area where your colocation provider is, you have to either move your servers to a new provider or leave them there and pay for a maintenance contract.
5. Another drawback to collocation can be fluctuating prices. Since one of the factors in the monthly rate of collocating a server is the amount of data transferred via the server in the monthly period, an unusually large amount of traffic in a monthly period can cause the bill for the service to jump dramatically.

Is Colocation the Way to Go?

This is a question that is difficult to answer. For individuals who run small sites for personal use or blogs probably do not need the level of service provided by collocation and are better off with Web hosting. If however, the server is needed to be more robust than what is provided by standard Web hosting, collocation is often times the best next option. It is also a very good option for small businesses that want to have a fairly large Web presence but don’t want to have to deal with a large amount items such as network connections.