Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Managed Hosting For The Technically Challenged

One of the reasons behind using dedicated hosting is to ensure websites are constantly available to customers and users.  But with the evolving business needs, many webmasters end up finding it difficult to address the challenges associated with the technical aspects, such as software, hardware, control panel and other things.

In recent years, dedicated hosting providers began developing a “managed” hosting model, which removes all the operational burden, enabling webmasters to invest their energies into running their businesses.


The two types of dedicated hosting are: Managed and Unmanaged.

Managed hosting is nothing but “dedicated” hosting that is “managed” for you.  If you need dedicated hosting but are not sure you can handle the responsibility of overseeing the technical aspects, you don’t have to worry – managed hosting is exactly what you are looking for.

Your next question would be, “who is going to manage my dedicated hosting for me?”

The hosting provider that provides dedicated hosting takes care of managed hosting too, ensuring things work as they should.  With this, the responsibility of everything, right from the hardware to software lies with the hosting provider.  They basically take care of anything “server-related” as well as help with the day-to-day operations.

Managed hosting includes but is not limited to:

Securing your server
Continuous monitoring, where the problem is taken care of even before the webmaster submits a ticket to report it.
Installation of firewall, configuring it and making modifications if requested
Updates for the operating system, control panel, common third party applications etc. as and when required.
Patch updates
Ensuring the configuration files are optimized.  The  hosting company keeps tab of this through their continuous monitoring.
Balancing the loads (traffic) and managing them
Script debugging
Uploading files
Custom firewall configurations
Filtering of spam and virus
Script installation
Managed DNS
Local data storage, remote storage as well as backups
Zero downtime
24 x 7 support
Instant response to support tickets
This is not all, some hosts even have separate support teams dedicated to different accounts.

Basically, with managed hosting, the client only needs to build their site and the hosting company does everything needed to keep it online and making it accessible to the increasing traffic without any issues, such as slow loading etc.

Several managed hosting plans come fully-equipped with high levels of security. It has to be said that getting a fully managed dedicated hosting affords complete peace of mind to the webmaster and may also lead to lesser overheads, depending on the company size.  These hosting plans deliver all-round support and care for the infrastructure that is needed for growing businesses.

The only downside if any is that you may lose out on the flexibility of having your own software which you could have, if you were to manage your dedicated hosting yourself.  With managed hosting, the hosting company provides the software and maintains it.

Armed with this knowledge, feel free to look through the various managed hosting providers.  There is no hard and fast rule for what makes a reliable managed host.  You must decide based on your business by choosing options that will keep your website always up and running, while being highly secure.

Oh! Managed hosting is not only for the technically challenged, but is also a great option for those with limited time to maintain the servers or businesses looking to reduce overhead costs.

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