What do you do when you’ve got created a successful website, one that is so successful that your current hosting plan just isn’t up to the task and your hosting company aren’t too happy with you?

It’s a nice dilemma to own, but a dilemma just the same!

When customers start finding that they can’t get access to your site since it’s been taken offline due to high resource usage, or that the response time is glacially slow, they often give up, visit your competitors website and buy from them instead.

When that happens it is time to begin exploring dedicated web hosting!

Before you dive straight into dedicated web hosting the first thing you should do is to take a sensible look at your existing web business and do a thorough analysis of both your current needs and your projected future requirements. Clearly you may be anticipating growth over the coming years, so make sure that you consider the expected increase in demand when working out your requirements.

You may be wondering why you mustn’t simply opt for a bigger and better shared hosting plan? The problem is that with shared hosting your site is sharing the same hardware resources as numerous other sites, so if those sites are using a lot of system resources then your site is going to suffer. Do you actually want to be in competition with the other sites on your server for precious resources that you need to keep your web site running smoothly? Or would you rather have them all to yourself, guaranteeing your customers the best experience and making certain that your web site will keep up and running 24/7?

Of course with dedicated hosting there are more advantages, like having so much more control over the environment that your site runs in, the ability to install and run your own software, and not having to fret about what you utilize your disk space for.

But while a dedicated server might be the best solution for any business that is serious regarding it’s internet presence it’s not without it’s drawbacks. For example, there’s the price issue. Historically a dedicated server has been an expensive option that only huge firms or the successful and profitable businesses could afford. Fortunately that’s not the case, and whereas there are still a lot of high-priced dedicated hosting packages on offer there’s also a lot of companies offering cheap dedicated hosting as well.

Perhaps the most important drawback is that of support. A lot of dedicated server packages provide you with the server and leave you to run it as if the server was in your offices. This means that you’re responsible for pretty much every technical facet of running the server, and if you’re not technical then this can be a problem. There are a selection of solutions to this problem including recruiting someone to assist you, or, choosing managed server hosting, where the hosting company will handle technical aspects for you, but typically at an increased price.