A reliable, efficient, and secure web-hosting provider is vital to business continuity in today’s web-based world. Choosing the right hosting provider for your business depends on a number of factors that range from bandwidth needs to budgetary concerns. Shared hosting is currently the most commonly utilized hosting service. For businesses with low traffic volumes and basic IT needs, shared hosting solutions offer affordable IT management and monitoring. As businesses grow and expand into global enterprises, their CPU, bandwidth, customer service, and security needs often outpace the services that a shared hosting provider can offer. For these enterprises, switching to Enterprise Hosting offers vital, high performance cloud-based infrastructure.
Understanding the limitations of shared hosting
In a shared hosting environment, a single server and its accompanying resources service a number of businesses and websites. All accounts in a shared hosting environment share CPU times, memory, disk space, and security processes. Price and hands-off IT management are the two main factors driving shared hosting buying decisions. Small- to mid-sized business owners looking for an affordable provider to manage, monitor, and service their business’s website flourish in a shared hosting environment. As businesses grow and expand, their IT needs often outgrow a shared hosting environment and the limitations of these service providers become apparent.
The two primary limitations of shared hosting include the following issues:
- CPU Usage. Companies in shared hosting environments share CPU times. For most small- and mid-sized businesses, this model offers adequate coverage. However, as the business grows and website traffic and data storage and transfer needs increase, the required bandwidth and power is unavailable.
- Lack of Customization. The server is designed to meet the most common needs of multiple users. Therefore, installing unique applications and modules is often not possible. If these applications are necessary to the day-to-day operation of your website and its scripts, this lack of customization ability makes shared hosting a liability rather than an asset.
Understanding Enterprise Hosting and its advantages
The primary difference between shared hosting and Enterprise Hosting environments is the fact that clients utilizing an Enterprise Hosting solution are provided with 24 hour/7 day a week customer service, full service hardware, and software management and support, and elite backup and security capabilities. With an Enterprise Hosting provider, clients are purchasing an entire server and all the accompanying capabilities. The services are uniquely theirs and not shared with any additional customers.
For businesses that have outgrown the capabilities of a shared hosting environment, Enterprise Hosting provides the following advantages:
- Lowered Costs. With an Enterprise Hosting solution, clients are not responsible for the purchasing or monitoring of their own servers. Therefore, companies are saving money on expensive hardware and software costs while reducing the cost of onsite IT personnel salaries. Furthermore, Enterprise Hosting solutions operate under a “pay as you use” model that allows companies to only pay for the services and applications they need. Customers are able to scale their service package up and down as their business grows.
- Customization and Scalability. Since companies are no longer sharing the server and available resources with other companies, they are given the ability to customize, scale, and build the high-performance infrastructure that best meets the needs of their business. Companies are given total power in picking and choosing which services are required and are given the ability to install their own applications and modules when necessary.
Determining the best hosting provider for your business
Small businesses, independent contractors, and companies with websites that see only a moderate amount of traffic are advised to contact a shared hosting provider. The affordable and basic services will adequately serve these companies. However, those with a sudden or expected expansion would be better served through a full-service Enterprise Hosting provider that is dedicated to creating the high-performance infrastructure required for successful expansion and management.
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