How Cheap Dedicated Server Hosting is Meeting the Budget of the Smallest Businesses

Article Summary: Server hosting services do not need to be particularly expensive. In fact, there is a range of services to match any budget, even those who may only require the simplest server hosting solutions. This article looks at how cheap dedicated server hosting is meeting the restricted IT budgets of even the smallest businesses.

The significance of the internet and having full access to it in the modern world cannot be underestimated. It is especially true for business, where ecommerce has developed into a major market in its own right, and company websites are amongst the most effective forms of marketing and promotion. Unfortunately, not every business has a large enough IT budget to purchase all of the hardware required, but the availability of cheap dedicated server hosting is a solution to that problem. There is no doubt that, in turning to service providers expert in server colocation or dedicated server hosting, UK businesses of all sizes have benefited greatly. IT costs have been slashed while access to the experience and knowledge of skilled technicians has ensured a higher level of technical reliability. Advice from professional technicians is obviously important to those not well versed in IT, who may not know how much rack space they require for their needs. They may need colocation services for just 1 rack unit, which is commonly abbreviated to the phrase 1u colo, or whether they need more. For those of us who are not particularly technologically minded, rack units are a measurement of the physical space that one server takes up. Each server is stacked on a rack vertically, and each one occupies a mere 1.75 inches in height, with a total of 42 fitting on a typical rack. A rack unit is generally represented simply by the letter u, with one rack unit written as 1u. This information is important, as colocation facilities have been made so affordable chiefly because of the per rack unit pricing system. What this means is that instead of selling services just by the range of entitlements, such as monitoring services, recovery services, or maintenance services, each individual server can be rented per month. So, if a small company only needs one server for its purposes, the cost of the colocation service is proportionate to the hardware being used. Perhaps a small art supply store or a curiosity shop simply wants their website to be hosted. In that case, one server should be enough and that is all that that business pays for. Competition in the market place means that every small business needs a website at the very least. For many, the amount of traffic into the site by online customers dictates the amount of rack space that is required. The hope is, of course, that in time the amount of business done over the internet will increase, ensuring more sales and leading to greater revenue and profits. Success should then breed more business, and if this proves to be the case then extra server space will be necessary. The scalability of the rack unit system means that the space rented can easily be expanded, without any dramatic increase in expenditure. The typical charges are also linked to the amount of bandwidth and power used by the server. For example, a colocation package using a processor of 1.8GHz, with a maximum monthly data transfer restriction of 3,000 gigabytes, is available at a lower price than a package using a processor of 3.0GHz and a maximum monthly data transfer of 4,000 gigabytes. However, it is also possible to avail of greater services than just affordable colocation or cheap dedicated server hosting services. The typical pricing structure reflects the power of the server itself, with economy and enterprise ranges available. The key difference is the effectiveness of each model and brand. But there are services relating to support and management that are also available. Of course, when choosing dedicated server hosting, UK businesses will expect 24 hour support services 7 days a week, with on site and on call staff able to attend to any server problems that occur. This is vital for most business owners because of their own limited knowledge and reliance on experts, regardless of whether 1 rack unit, or 1u colo, or more is being rented. But there is more available too, with disaster recovery services, downtime alerts by text or phone, guarantees of power and network uptime to ensure that their site never goes down. For such expansions of service, more will be charged, but well within the limits of even a modest IT budget.