Managed hosting is like dedicated and co-located hosting in that your Web applications reside on their on their own physical server shared with no one else. But,unlike a co-located serve, a managed server is owned by the hosting company. Managed hosting is therefore more like dedecated hosting,but the former comes with enhanced services that may be critical for your Web business. You needa good deal of technical expertise in a dedicated hosting arrengement,because you have to administer the server you lease. Your expertise may be business, not technical. In that case, you want a managed hosting service because the host will administer or manage the server for you. Reporting and monitoring performance is one task a managed service provides. Load-balancing is another.Managing security, storage, complete with concierge service. Whatever you desire or need, you can generally ger - for a suitable price. Most hosting services have a tiered schedule of managed services plans, bundling popular sets of services under one fixed price. You may find all you need in such a package, or you may need to negotiate additional prices for a few extra services.
Here are eight reasons to consider managed Web hosting for your Web applications:
- Positive cash flow:You need not invest up front in hardware,operating system,management sotware,dedicated staff,installation of high-speed connectivity,etc. The hosting service privides this infrastructure and charges you a monthly fee for only what you use.
- Focus on the business not techinal issues:If you don't have a fulltime IT staff,managed hosting can supply the techinical expertise you need to maintain and impove your Web operations. Meanwhile, you need to maintain and you can concentrate on the critical business processes that make your benture a success.
- Reliability of dedicated server: you have a physical server and network connection all to yourself, so you need not concerned contend with others for bandwidth or server resources. This performance reliability is eapecially important in the case of e-commerce applications where customers are lost if they have to wait more than five seconds for a web page to load or a shopping cart to process a credit card charge.
- Physical sercurity: Your dedicated server can be physically accessed only by you and the hosting service provider's carefully screened staff. It may even be locked in its own little cage. That's in addition to the formidable physical security built into most hosting facilites.Your server will be taken offline far less often when it is unnecessary to install other tenants software or correct their problem.
- Personal hand -holding: Managed hosting typically comes with a dedicated customer service representative who acts as your human interface to the hosting provider's technical staff. This person can help you define your needs and get them satisfied.He or she should be available by phone or emil during normal business hours,and should serve no more than five or six customers at a time to ensure you get the attention and responsiveness you deserve.
- Lower Internal network costs: By separating your internal business network from the external nerwork needed for Web operations, you can keep the internal nerwork just the right size for your employees.You need not maintain excessive capacity to handle spikes in the web traffic. Security becomes silpler. Administrative response to empliyees needs improve because admins aren't wresting with Web issues.
- Better facilities management: Hosting facilites housing thousands of servers can afford the most sophisticated physical security, including environment control system, fire, flood and earthquake damage control systems,backup supplies, redundant multihomed Interner connections,and all the other things that make bulletproof infrastructure.
- More efficient staffing: Hosting service providers, with facilities all around the nation if not the globe,are able to tap broder talent markets and hire the best support staffl. Distribited workplaces enable around-the-clock converage of customer service channels.And you don't have the hassles of recruiting,screening,hiring, and training new staff ers.
