Monthly Archive April 6, 2019

What is a Dedicated Server?

What is a Dedicated Server?

What is a Dedicated Server?

What is a dedicated server? Glad you asked! This page outlines what a dedicated server is, and explains the benefits of dedicated server hosting over shared hosting.

Dedicated server hosting refers to a type of web hosting plan where you are allocated a whole server to yourself. Therefore, a “dedicated server” refers to the “dedicated” server that you rent (or purchase) in order to host your website (or websites).

Dedicated server hosting can give you more control over your website. It can also help to ensure that other customers’ websites don’t impact on your website. Using dedicated servers is much more expensive than shared hosting, but if your site receives lots of traffic or you have other requirements (such as extra security requirements), dedicated server hosting could be for you.

With dedicated server hosting, you are able to log in to your dedicated server just as you would log in to your own computer. Once logged in, you can install and configure software as you wish.

Dedicated Server with Managed Hosting

Some dedicated server hosting plans are fully managed, meaning that your web hosting company performs regular administration duties, such as initial server setup, patching, anti-virus, security scanning, monitoring, and more.

Other dedicated server plans are self managed – you are responsible for the server setup, patching, anti-virus, etc

As you might expect, fully managed plans can be much more expensive than a self-hosted option. However, unless you have the time and inclination to look after your server 24/7, you might be better off looking for some sort of managed hosting plan.

Some dedicated server hosting plans are managed by default, others are self managed with an optional “service plan”, meaning, you pay extra for your web host to manage your server. Some of these self managed plans have various “add ons” that you can pick and choose. For example, you could add on a backup plan, a server maintenance plan, a security scanning service, etc. With these options, your web hosting company will perform these duties as outlined on a regular basis (for example, weekly or monthly) or perhaps on a one-off basis as required by yourself.

Example of Dedicated Server Hosting

To get a better idea of what’s included with dedicated server hosting, check out these dedicated servers at our partner site, ZappyHost.

What is a Dedicated Server – Another Definition

The term “dedicated server” can also mean a single computer within a network that is reserved for a specific purpose. For example, within a network, you could have a computer dedicated to printer resources, another computer dedicated to Internet connections, another computer serving as a firewall, etc. These computers would all be dedicated servers, as the whole computer is allocated for a specific task within the network.

What is a Virtual Dedicated Server?

A virtual dedicated server is a variation on the dedicated server concept. Instead of hiring the whole physical server, you hire a virtual server.

A virtual dedicated server is also referred to as a virtual private server (VPS). To learn more about VPS hosting, see What is VPS Hosting?.

What is Dedicated Hosting?

What is Dedicated Hosting?

What is Dedicated Hosting?

Dedicated hosting is a hosting configuration in which a server is devoted to a single organisation or for a single purpose, such as a website. This is in contrast to shared hosting, in which a server acts as a host to multiple clients. A dedicated hosting service is sometimes referred to as a dedicated server and can be set up in-house or externally as a service from within a data center. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits.
Customisation – Dedicated hosting grants a certain freedom and control that other hosting solutions are unable to provide. The fact that the server is dedicated to one client and there are no cohabitants means that the server (and overall hosting solution) can be tailored to the specific needs of that client. This ensures that they can select and pay for the features that they require.
Uptime – In a world where convenience is everything and consumers aren’t used to waiting, it is vital to ensure that a website, for example, is functional at all times; site downtime could lead to customers moving on to competitors. Dedicated hosting allows for high performance and stability to ensure that websites and other business functions are operational virtually 100% of the time (usually upwards of 99.4%). To this end, providers should offer server monitoring and back-up facilities alongside support services (described below) to keep functions running as seamlessly as possible.
Congestion – Server congestion is much less of an issue with a dedicated server, especially when compared to shared hosting options. With the latter, you often run the risk of congestion due to the traffic and usage levels of other websites or applications hosted on the same server, competing for bandwidth, disk space and CPU usage. The very nature of dedicated hosting ensures that this isn’t an issue. It also works the other way; if the website in question is resource heavy then dedicated hosting may be the answer to ensure that other websites aren’t disrupted.
Security – Clients using a dedicated platform will be able to deploy security measures, such as anti-virus and firewall configurations, that are more tailored to their own functions; whilst also avoiding the security vulnerabilities that can otherwise be introduced by the activities of neighbouring clients on shared hosting platforms. In addition, dedicated servers located within data centers can benefit from the physical security measures that such facilities often put in place, including, for example, biometric authentication, security guards and mantraps.
Support – Some dedicated hosting services come with a certain level of support. This is important as a high percentage of dedicated hosting customers use the service to host mission critical or important computing functions or websites. Effective support ensures that site disruption is kept to a minimum. A fully managed hosting provider, for example, may offer support 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.
Details of support levels, as well as information regarding reliability statistics can usually be found in the service level agreement (SLA). These documents can often provide an insight into the quality of a particular service and should be consulted carefully when going through the process of choosing a provider.
If opting for a dedicated service that does not come with any support, it is important to ensure the presence of the necessary knowledge to manage and maintain a server effectively.

What is SNMP and How it Works

What is SNMP and How it Works

What is SNMP and How it Works

If you’re a new network professional in the IT world, the term SNMP has likely come up a time or two. SNMP stands for “Simple Network Management Protocol.” It is an application layer protocol included in the Internet protocol suite, a set of the most commonly used communications protocols online.

SNMP originated in the 1980s at the time when organizational networks were growing in both size and complexity. Today, it is one of the most widely accepted protocols for network monitoring. Here’s a quick summary of what SNMP does, how it works, and why it matters to network professionals.

What does SNMP do?

All day, traffic is ebbing and flowing across your network as users conduct transfers, browse, perform downloads, and more. SNMP talks to your network to find out information related to this network device activity: for example, bytes, packets, and errors transmitted and received on a router, connection speed between devices, or the number of hits a web server receives.

SNMP works by sending messages, called protocol data units (PDUs), to devices within your network that “speak” SNMP. These messages are called SNMP Get-Requests. Using these requests, network administrators can track virtually any data values they specify. All of the information SNMP tracks can be provided to a product that asks for it. That product can either display or store the data, depending on an administrator’s preferences.

The Architecture of SNMP

In order to effectively monitor network activity, SNMP relies on an architecture consisting of the following:

  • Managed devices: From printers and workstations to resources like routers and switches, there are many devices within an organization’s network that have to be managed and monitored. Managed devices can be configured with SNMP nodes that allow them to interface with other network components.
  • Agent: Overall SNMP management relies on a system of local device information being collected and transmitted. This happens via agents, programs that are tied to local devices with the purpose of collecting, storing, and signaling the presence of data from these environments.
  • Network management station: This is the base that is shared between agents and SNMP managers, and it provides the memory and processing functionality to fuel network management.

Together, these components gather information to bring back to the network requester.

The Power of SNMP

Collecting this data can help IT professionals keep their finger on the pulse of all their managed devices and applications. Every device within the network can be queried in real time with SNMP, TCP, and other types of probes for their performance metrics. When thresholds for certain values are exceeded, software can alert system administrators of the issue, allowing them to drill in to the data and troubleshoot a solution.

For organizations’ IT departments looking to harness the power of SNMP, it’s imperative to have network monitoring software that is up for the task. Intermapper uses SNMP probes to query network devices for their management information base (MIB) variables. As a leading network monitoring software choice, Intermapper has 100s of built-in network probes to give you a wide variety of data about your network performance. Users also have the ability to create their own custom probes. The ability to create custom probes enables SNMP-speaking devices to deliver device status updates in a way that enhances the overall quality of network monitoring and management.