Deciding whether to opt for shared or dedicated server hosting is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when it comes to choosing infrastructure. To ensure you make the right decision for you, it’s important to first understand how hosting works and the key differentiators between shared hosting and dedicated server hosting.
For many, the draw of shared hosting lies in its perceived affordability and convenience. But all too often these ‘perks’ come at a cost in the form of hidden expenses that make managing overheads challenging.
In this blog post we’ll get to the bottom of how hosting works and equip you with the information you need to choose between the various server hosting options. We’ll unpack the differences between shared and dedicated hosting and answer some common questions about dedicated server hosting.
Questions like “what is dedicated hosting and who needs it?”, “how does dedicated server hosting work?” and “is dedicated server hosting scalable?”.
But first, let’s lay some foundations and understand the differences between shared hosting models and dedicated server hosting. Starting with shared hosting.
What is shared hosting?
Hosting companies using a shared hosting model divide whole servers and their resources into portions. It’s like slicing up a pizza so that multiple people can enjoy a piece of the pie. In the same way, shared hosting allows multiple businesses to share in a ‘slice’ or ‘slices’ of a server. Today this process is often referred to as web hosting.
Following the dot com boom, shared hosting was a much-welcomed development. As more websites were created there came a requirement for more affordable hosting. Instead of investing in an entire server, shared hosting gave smaller companies the opportunity to rent out the exact amount of server resources they needed.
When we talk about shared hosting, we’re typically referring to one of three shared server hosting options: shared hosting (the easiest one to remember, as it helpfully has the same name as the type of hosting), virtual private cloud (VPC), and public cloud.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting makes it possible for multiple customers (or websites) to use a single server. Under a shared hosting model, the hosting provider creates separate user accounts on one physical machine. Each customer is assigned a set amount of server resources. And whilst this is usually sufficient for low bandwidth users, it can quickly start to crack under the pressure of high-volume traffic applications.
The biggest draw of shared hosting is the price. Shared environments are reasonably cheap and easy to set up. However, there are some notable drawbacks that cannot be ignored. Shared hosting accounts are not logically isolated from one another meaning that accounts are more vulnerable to security issues, and the possibility of your website or application slowing down if other tenants are overusing server resources.
Public cloud hosting
Public cloud servers use a hypervisor to divide and deliver server resources to multiple customers. Public cloud customers aren’t buying the rights to use a whole, or even part, of a physical server. Instead, they buy access to virtual machines – digitized software versions of a physical server that execute computing functions and run operating systems.
These virtual machines are spun up on a physical server or cluster of servers. The hypervisor manages the underlying shared resources and allocates them to each virtual machine. Scaling is practically instantaneous. Simply add another virtual machine and that’s that.
Virtual private cloud hosting
The virtual private cloud also uses a process of virtualization. In this case the hypervisor splits the server into multiple virtual machines that behave as independent accounts on the physical server. VPC creates a private computing environment on a shared public cloud infrastructure. Each virtual machine is logically isolated from all other tenants and cannot interact with any other virtual machines on the server.
That means server resources are allocated to their virtual machine in complete isolation from other VPC customers. As a result, VPC customers can separate their hosting environments from other users and customize their virtual machine, even though they’re sitting on the same physical server as multiple other virtual private cloud customers.
Much like public cloud hosting, virtual private cloud can be scaled instantly but it has the added benefit of augmented security since it sits in a logically isolated network.
With all shared server hosting options, even logically isolated networks, you’re still sharing a server with multiple customers. And this opens you up to the potential performance issues and security mishaps associated with multi-tenant server hosting options.
What is dedicated server hosting?
A dedicated server is a server in a data center that is dedicated to a sole user (a single tenant). In other words, dedicated servers host individual customers. A dedicated server host will never let more than one business run its application on a single server.
And that means there’s no cause for virtualization or setting up multiple user accounts on the server. Dedicated hosting providers spin up bare metal servers for individual customers who have complete administrative access over their machine. The server resources (RAM, disk space, CPU, and bandwidth) are solely for the use of the designated tenant.
Dedicated servers come in various standardized dimensions (or ‘form factors’) measured in units (U). Smaller servers (1U servers) take up less space and are less powerful. Larger servers (2U+ servers) take up more space and are more powerful.
https://www.servers.com/news/blog/how-does-dedicated-server-hosting-work
