A server is a hard drive where electronic files are stored. A dedicated server is a hard drive that is been dedicated to a particular person or an entire company, or a specific function within a company such as an email server.
Small companies and even the freelancers who work from home office can also use regular desk top computer with a good amount of gigs as a server from which other computers run. This type of server runs on the same concept and accomplishes the same tasks that larger, off site, servers can accomplish.
Dedicated servers are commonly used by company’s for their website. Usually lots of small companies use off site servers and hosting companies on which they build their websites and blogs. These companies that own the servers are just providing the storage space for the web pages, just like Hotmail, who provides off site storage space for emails.
These companies usually gives the guarantee at a certain amount of “up time” and they will provide further stats on the maximum amount of bandwidth a company is allowed with the price paid for the web hosting services provided. The bandwidth refers to how active your web site is; if you have pretty good amount of traffic that’s great for you, but it may cause problems with your web hosting company/off site server if they will not be able to handle the overload.
A lot of times an individual or small company that is not comfortable with building a website from scratch, or not needing a site that includes a lot of bells and whistles like flash, video, or even shopping carts, usually go for an online source that allows them to build a website using a user friendly template format.
While using this type of web service, the servers are located at, and run and owned by the company that you are building your website at. For example, some web portals like Yahoo and MSN offers user friendly templates and dedicated server hosting.
As time passes and a company grows, it’s quite common to have their web hosting servers customized and brought in house. This requires a much higher level of technical expertise since owning your own server means taking the responsibility for all updates, changes, migrations, and problems that need to be addressed.
To keep your web hosting server off site where you have a higher level of security all around. A web hosting company already has different types of security in place against hackers, viruses, and even “acts of God” such as building fires, floods, tornadoes, etc.
Posted under Dedicated Servers
This post was written by on December 2, 2009
