Every hosting provider needs to supply reliable, flexible services based on virtualized infrastructure, ranging from virtual dedicated servers to flexible infrastructure on demand, or “Cloud Computing.” As businesses increasingly outsource services and clouds rather than deploy dedicated hardware, hosting providers are well equiped to extend service lines to most advanced Hosting Solutions-at price levels that are attractive to their customers and profitable for the hosting business.
Microsoft’s latest develped Hosting Services aims at helping hosting providers enhance their businesses. By combining good value in server virtualization based on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, with the physical and virtual management capabilities of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft and its partners cloud computing concept can help deliver cost savings and enhanced services and administration models.
Microsoft Hosting Solutions are designed to provide the following key benefits:
- Reduced total cost of ownership by maximizing hardware and space utilization, and reducing power consumption
- Rapid deployment with real-time provisioning
- Numerous configurations and deployment options
As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, selecting your web hosting is a crucial part of any business, the same applies to your personal sites too. You will on most cases not require managed hosting or dedicated servers but you will want the best available for the best price. Web hosting deals come in all sizes and varieties, most with an unimaginable amount of add-on’s available. So how can you know which is the best to choose when there are so many offers out there? Well help is at hand with sites that provide the best website hosting reviews.
Reviewing what other people think of their hosting is often the best way to judge how good it is, the site will always hit you with the great discounts and introductory offers but reading reviews like the ones on upperhost.com will give you a great idea as to what hosts such as bluehost, hostmonster and web hosting pad are really like.
When checking out reviews be sure to see how many people have reviewed the service, the more the better, but also remember 1 bad review in 50 is sort of expected. Read what people are saying particularly about the services/add-on’s you will be using and don’t get tempted in to adding additional upgrades that you don’t need.
1-800-Hosting
If you have a major hosting requirement for your next project, or maybe you are looking at changing hosts after unacceptable down time, then 800hosting.com offer a wide range of
dedicated hosting plans. The offer a huge range of products and customer service is what they are all about. Imagine having them call you for a change, surely that is what managed hosting is all about. Them taking care of your needs.
Some of the great packages the offer include:
Grid Hosting – also known as Cloud Hosting, allows you to use enterprise-class VPN’s (Virtual Private Datacenters). These are not shared between clients, they are dedicated solely to you, giving you full control over the set up and spec to meet your requirements.
Database Hosting – is a necessity for any medium to large scale business that runs anything from a web store to a client database. The database hosting offered is in either Windows or Linux forums and uses MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server.
If you have hosting needs then be sure to check them out before making your final decision.
Managed Hosting
When it comes to selecting the correct managed hosting for your business or project there are a lot of factors to take into account. As this could prove the breaking point of any application or site it is worth putting in the time to make sure you get the best deal available. Here are some tips to help you when selecting your managed hosting:
1 – Support & Care – For anything as important as your hosting you should make sure that you can contact the supplier at ease. Look in to the details of the agreement, find out what kind of support is offered whether you will even have an account manager responsible for your server. Gain feedback from other users of the service and make sure that there is someone on the end of the phone number listed.
2 – Facilities – Once you know you can get hold of the people you are trusting your business with you need to find out the details of the facilities where your servers will be placed. Check the specs of the data center, make sure to double check for security and safety features and make sure these meet your needs. Thinks to keep an eye out for are room temperatures, room security and backup facilities.
3 – Backups – Speaking of backups, make sure that the responsibility of data backup is with the company providing the managed hosting. Check their procedures for time of back up and also the location of multiple backups. Although you might not want to consider this option it is always worth asking about their disaster recovery strategy and policies.
4 – Flexibility – If you are looking into something like managed hosting the chances are you will need to to be flexible to meet demands, if this is the case make sure your hosting company can help you meet these demands in a way that will not inconvenience the end user and cause as little disruption to the service/site as possible.
Well there you go, 4 tips to help you when choosing managed hosting. If you can think of any more feel free to leave a comment below.
