An Overview of Managed Hosting

After the design and development of a website has been completed, for it to appear on the Internet it needs to be hosted. There are thousands of web hosting companies out there with numerous packages available. One of these is Managed Hosting. Managed Hosting basically means the hosting of your site is managed by the hosting company. It will include technical support and is designed for those who don't want to or don't have the expertise to take control of the hosting themselves.

There are many different variants of Managed Hosting, from partly managed to fully managed. There is no industry standard as to what exactly constitutes Managed Hosting, so what is included and what is not depends on the exact package you purchase. With a Managed Hosting account your website is hosted on a dedicated server. This means it has its own server and is not shared with any other sites. It is more than just dedicated hosting though, as it also included a variety of other services and support. Your site will usually be constantly monitored by the provider. This will mean they are able to prevent major problems, and correct any issues that appear.

There are generally three main types of managed hosting; fully managed, standard managed, and under self-managed. Fully managed means that all your hosting is in the hands of the hosting company. This is for those who don't want to worry about the hosting of their site at all. This leaves the client free to worry about other things. It also means you won't have to worry about employing anyone to work on this aspect of your business. Standard management does not include the same level of support, but still includes a fair amount of support. Administering, updating and monitoring are all taken care of, and depending on the package certain other things are likely to be included. Some IT staff will be necessary to handle certain aspect of the hosting, although a vast knowledge will probably not be necessary. Under self-management is the most basic type of managed hosting. Some updating and monitoring will be included, but the amount of technical support will be limited. Some expertise will be necessary with this option.

Managed hosting is not the best option if you want complete control over your website. Access to make changes to your site will be limited. This means you will have to contact the host so they can make any changes for you. The upkeep of the site and hosting is the responsibility of the service provider. It is most useful for sites that receive a large number of visitors and need close to 100 per cent uptime. With managed hosting, your hosting should be in safe hand, and any problems should be minimal. The hosting should be of a professional standard, secure and reliable.

Managed Hosting - What You Need to Know

As a small business owner I have been looking into the different types of host packages and services available. I have decided to go for a managed hosting service. Managed hosting refers to a hosting solution for a website where the site is housed and managed on a dedicated secure server. The customer leases a server for their own use and therefore they do not have to share the server with other clients. Having your server has a number of advantages in terms of security and management. Below I have listed the five main areas I feel you need to consider before deciding on your managed hosting provider.

Operating System

One of the major advantages of having a dedicated server is that you can chose which operating system is used to manage and run the server. The operating system depends on personal preference, its worth talking to you web development team and asking them which one is the best for your website. Linux operating systems are often bundled in free with the hosting plan, Microsoft SPLA or other Red Hat systems may require extra payment. You need to ask the hosting provider if the package includes updates to the OS, service packs, patches and software upgrades.

Management

Managed hosting as the name suggests will include a degree of management but there is no industry wide standard to clarify what the management element will contain. For some providers it is having a full team of service engineers waiting to sort out any issues that arise for other it is simply having a control panel that you can access yourself. Depending on your own experience and skills in website hosting you need to ensure that the service level won't leave you in a blind panic if something goes wrong. Managed hosting is normally set at three different service levels:

Self Managed - This is the basic or bronze level package that would include some maintenance and updating but customers manage most of the services themselves.

Managed - The next level up, the silver level package would normally contain monitoring, updates and limited levels of support.

Fully Managed - The gold standard of management hosting. A fully managed service should be like having your own IT department. You should get monitoring, reboots, security, OS upgrades, customer support and software updates.

Security

Dealing with issues of security and keeping all the software and operating systems patched and updated is one of the great advantages of managed hosting. You shouldn't have to worry about the security of your site as the security measures provided by your hosting provider should be the most current. You need to check that security updates are included in the service level you have signed up to.

Software

Much like the choice of Operating System you can also chose the software that will run on your managed server. You can pick and mix your database software and other applications that might be required to run video and audio on your website. The choice of control panel software is important as these can be as simple of complex as you require them to be. They can be configured to allow you to control all aspects of the server remotely via a web based interface.

Bandwidth

You will also need to set and pay for the amount of bandwidth you think you are going to use. Purchasing bandwidth via a managed server provider often works out cheaper than attempting to purchase the service in isolation. Economies of scale allow managed hosting providers to get discounts on the base cost of bandwidth. There is no industry benchmark or pricing structure for bandwidth. It can be sold as part of the package or as add on depending on projected usage. It is worth setting the bandwidth limit higher than you think you will use as most providers will pile on the cost if you go over your allotted usage.

Once you have addressed these issue you can then think about making a choice about which managed hosting service provider best fits your requirements. You need to make sure you have sorted out which OS and software is running, how secure the server is, the level of management involved and the provision of adequate bandwidth. Take you time and make sure you are completely comfortable with the service. Don't be afraid to ask questions and get clarification on technical issues.

Does My Company Need Managed Hosting?

Managed hosting has many benefits to a business that is wishing to expand their operations or make themselves accessible to their customers online. By having an online presence, a business can increase their exposure to a local, national, or worldwide audience, depending on what kind of services that is provided. Nevertheless, a business that has a website is a business that can accomplish a lot more because they are allowing customers to learn more about them and gain wider access to what it is they have to offer.

There are several definitions as to what managed hosting is. It more or less depends on the need of the business as to how they go about their managed hosting. These definitions are:

o A single website hosted on a web server that is supported and managed hosting provider.

o A service in which the dedicated server is managed for the business by managed hosting.

o Managed hosting manages and maintains the dedicated server.

o Managed hosting is performed by the web host in addition to providing many services for the dedicated servers that they provide. The business doesn't have their own dedicated server, but they are using the servers that belong to the host, which means the host is maintaining shared-servers. However, the business still maintains the privacy of its website although the servers are shared and receives all of the benefits they would have and possibly more than if they had their own dedicated server.

It is easy to see that there are different forms of managed hosting. It depends on the business as to which is chosen because the business may already have their own dedicated server in place and they simply need the manpower to operate everything. Not every business has the money to hire IT professionals and train them or train existing employees to take care of their web hosting. That is why it is feasible to outsource the jobs to managed hosting. It is actually cheaper to outsource because there is a fixed monthly rate in which the company pays that usually does not add up to the monthly salary of a single employee. What this does is maximize profit and allows the business to focus on their customer's satisfaction rather than having to spend time managing the website. If a business only had time to manage their website, they would not have time to serve their customers. In the end, there would be little impact on person-to-person sales. The idea is for the website to enhance both person-to-person sales and Internet sales, if applicable.

Other benefits

There are many more benefits of managed hosting such as security and up-time. It is very important that the website stay secure so that malicious website hackers do not decide to have a little "fun" with the website. This can result in many hours of trying to bring the website back up and this also results in down-time. There is nothing more aggravating than going to a website with poor up-time either because of security breaches or issues with the server. Managed hosting performs continuous security scans and also continually checks for issues that may interfere with the site's up-time. That is why many websites that are managed have 100% up-time.

So if you are not sure whether or not you need managed hosting, ask yourself these 5 questions:

o How would my business benefit from a website?

o Does my business have the money to run the operation on its own?

o Do I have the manpower to continually monitor a website?

o Do I have the money to hire and train additional employees?

o How much would managed hosting cost me compared to doing it on our own?

Asking yourself these questions will put you on the road to finding the best it solution for your business.