Too Manage or not to Manage that is the question . . . .

What to look for in purchasing the best dedicated hosting plan?

Managed hosting or Unmanaged hosting; what’s right for you?

Ahh, the slings and arrows of a multitude of question. This is the second in a five part serious outlining how to purchase the best dedicated hosting plans for your needs.

Managed Dedicated Hosting

Under managed hosting you have a reduced access to your server (for example if you have a Linux Managed server you would not have root access, and if you have a Windows Managed server you would not have administrator privileges). You are however allowed to manage your data via FTP/ RDP or other remote management tools. Before you scream blue murder, as to it being your machine and how dare anyone reduce your access to your own machine that your paying good money to lease, the user is disallowed full access for a good reason namely that your hosting provider can guarantee (remember that’s what your paying for) a quality of service by not allowing you to modify the server or potentially unwittingly creating a configuration problem.

Unmanaged Dedicated Hosting

Now your thinking; actually I’d quite like/ need – delete as appropriate 😉 – to have full root or administrative access. Well in that case, unmanaged hosting is the path for you. You have total control but remember with great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes the hosting provider supplies you little more than your electrical connection, internet access and storage facilities for the server and effectively your leasing a collocated server. Other times, they may provide a basic level of management such as restarting your server if its down, and having their technicians visit the data centre for any hardware upgrade or changes. In short, you better know what your doing, cause your on your own, and are responsible for the well-being of your own server!

So deciding between managed and unmanaged hosting, really depends on your level of experience and whether you’d be comfortable being fully responsible for the well being of your own server or not!

What hardware kit should I choose for my dedicated hosting plan?