From Shared Hosting to Colocation Servers
Making the move from shared hosting to colocation servers (unmanaged dedicated servers that you purchase, stored at a hosting service or other data center) will prove to be a large jump for any company. In terms of web hosting, making the jump from a shared hosting server account to a colocation web hosting server solution is the largest single jump any company can make.
Considering resources, capabilities, services and security, transitioning from a shared hosting account to a colocation server solution could prove to be a wise step for your business.
Shared Hosting vs. Colocation Server Resources
Without question, the single largest difference you will experience between a shared web hosting account and a colocation server hosting plan, aside from the pricing, will be resources and how they are allocated.
Within shared hosting, your account is shared with other accounts, all being run off the same server. To use a visual, think about shared hosting and colocation dedicated server solutions in terms of a pie. Taken as a whole, a shared hosting account is a single slice of a bigger pie wherein each slice is occupied by another tenant. This deployment, sometimes referred to as multi-tenant hosting, means while each account has its own resources, another user has the possibility of maxing out their resources, causing the entire server (pie) to crash and burn.
On the other hand, with a colocation dedicated server solution, the entire pie is now dedicated to your resources and needs. Whereas a shared hosting account shares the pie as a multi-tenant deployment, colocation dedicated server hosting uses the entire pie for one client. This means the resources of your server and the security of your server are wholly dedicated to your needs. Another way of saying this is that with colocation dedicated web hosting, your resources are your own while also being more reliable.
Shared Hosting vs. Colocation Server Security
Keep the pie in mind. Another major difference between shared web hosting servers and colocation servers comes in the form of security. By its very nature, a shared hosting account is less secure than a colocation server account. As you might imagine, sharing a server with other tenants can cause your shared hosting account to undergo various security risks posed by those tenants. The other major security fault of shared hosting is the client has no control over the security firewalls and applications which are applied to their server – this falls squarely on the hosting provider.
On the other hand, colocation servers offer consumers high levels of security through both operating a standalone dedicated server and the ability to install/maintain any security applications/firewalls the client chooses. Because a colocation dedicated server is dedicated to one client, that client has the ability to install any security protocol he/she chooses. The standalone nature makes colocation servers more secure and stable than shared hosting accounts, and the ability to customize can provide additional protection.
Shared Hosting vs. Colocation Server Price
For anyone making the jump from shared hosting to colocation servers, understanding the difference in pricing is a must. Shared hosting accounts, by their shared nature and lack of resources, are cheap. Coming at dollars and cents per month, shared hosting accounts are the bottom of the barrel in the web hosting world. With limited resources, questionable security, unreliable stability and spotty performance, shared hosting accounts offer web hosting on the cheap.
On the other hand, colocation dedicated server solutions can cost a client anywhere from a few hundred dollars per month to a few hundred thousand dollars per month (largely dependent on a company’s needs). The reason colocation server hosting can be so expensive is because clients receive greater resources, better server capabilities, greater server security, and more reliable server access.
The above article was written by Bob Spiegel, COO of www.QuoteColo.com.