Right now I'm on a shared hosting plan and its fairly easy to use. At some point I'd like to switch to a dedicated server - but how much do you need to know about web server administration to run your own dedicated server. Are they managed just as a shared account, but it is just on its own server, or is there more administration that has to take place?

And what are the real advantages to having a dedicated server vs. shared plan, or a vps?

Managing a server is not anything like managing a shared hosting account.

For those who don't have the skills to manage a server on our own, there are always fully managed dedicated servers, and server administration services to be hired.

I see no advantage to having a dedicated server over managed VPS.
That being said it all depends on where you get your server.

A good VPS provider gives you all the benefits of a shared account with the space and root ability of the VPS>

True, and a good dedicated provider does the same.

The real advantages to having a VPS or Dedicated is the control and privacy you have. After that, it's really a matter of how much power you need to run your sites. If you can run everything off a VPS, do that, if you need more resources, get a dedicated server.

You know much depends on your budget. If you don't have much money you'd be better to buy a VPS. You may buy a dedi - managed or unmanaged leter when you have enough money for it and skills.

Honestly, even on a managed VPS its not easy to get everything up and running. I would suggest buying a dedicated server and hiring a server management company to assist you.

I can't understand you. I think that better will be to get managed dedicated server.

You can get a third party management service, it all comes down to your budget as previously mentioned.

Dedicated server its all you, dont have to worry abotu someone else brining down your server. Sounds like you need a managed server, or a unmanaged+management.

Dedicated servers give you more freedom for your business.

As hostdoom has said you have total control of the server, the usage is fully at your disposle and how you distribute the resources.

If your on a budget; and with the popularity of VPS in 2007... if you are looking at $45.00 small servers by particular companies (No names added ) I would consider looking into VPS's at the same price-range because larger VPS's are better in performance than a entry level server.

Yes what are you trying to day here. It would be the same. A mangement company will assist you with a VPS or a dedicated server.

When buying a Dedicated server if you have no server administration experience you need to be selective on who you choose. Some places call all their servers managed but you actually have to do a lot of the work. It sounds like to me you would need a fully managed server. Meaning you would need someone to do OS updates any work that needs to be done from the command line or os level. Some control panels offer a lot of this like Interworx and cpanel.

The advantage of having a dedicated is that you will get a lot more resources to yourself a VPS or shared plan you are sharing server resources like RAM, Harddrive space, Bandwidth, etc. It will be all yours on a dedicated server. Some people never move away from shared for the simple fact they dont want to manage a server. I guess you need to figure out whats best for you.


Good luck!

When buying a Dedicated server if you have no server administration experience you need to be selective on who you choose. Some places call all their servers managed but you actually have to do a lot of the work. It sounds like to me you would need a fully managed server. Meaning you would need someone to do OS updates any work that needs to be done from the command line or os level. Some control panels offer a lot of this like Interworx and cpanel.
Actually this is not true at all. This depends on how the company sets up the hard node that the VPS servers are on. You can get a garunteed RAM commit and with SLM this pretty much the same as what you would get with a dedicated. You can also get a garunteed CPU % which is yours and yours alone. The disk space is yours to so depending on how the VPS is setup it can be exactly the same as a dedicated and in many cases better than a low end dedicated server is VPS proivder uses quality hardware nodes and they do not oversell them.

Just about any Hsphere host can create a custom plan that takes the resources of a dedicated server and assign them to a custom plan. The end result is the client ends up with a standard end user control panel and the full resources of a dedicated server, but the server is managed just like any other server in an Hsphere cluster.