A dedicated server, in the world of web hosting, is a server, owned by the web hosting company that is provided for the use of a single customer. Most often, these dedicated servers are made to order, the web hosting company building or ordering the hardware and software load outs to meet the company needs. The advantages dedicated servers have over shared environments are a higher level of available resources (an entire server) and more direct control over the administration of the environment. The advantages of a shared environment over hosting it in-house in a given company is access to a higher level of computer-dedicated infrastructure in a facility designed for web servers ( a collocation center or a data center), and, depending on the webhosting company and the service plan, a managed server environment.
A managed dedicated hosting environment entails a level of technical support in the administration of your dedicated server. There isn’t an industry standard for what exactly is included in managed hosting, but generally services like off-server backups, operating system and application updates, intrusion detection and firewall services, and hardware and software service monitoring. Some or all of these services may be included as part of a web hosting plan, or may incur an additional cost, depending on the dedicated server hosting plan.
Often, as part of dedicated hosting, a customer is provided administrative control on their server. Using utilities such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or Virtual Network Computing (VNC), customers can have direct access to the management of the server, and thereby change configurations or install applications. Also included can be Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections to work closely with your office network and the web server and to ensure security between the two. Other options include server reloads to bring it back to a basic configuration quickly and easily.
Unmanaged dedicated hosting requires the customer to take full responsibility for the upkeep and administrative functions for a server. Things like software configuration, application updates, and operating system maintenance are left for the web hosting customer. However, the web hosting company still typically manages the infrastructure of the facility and the server, ensuring network security and availability.
Dedicated web servers are generally geared toward higher end web applications and websites that receive a lot of traffic or deliver a lot of content. Dedicated servers are able to perform better than a shared hosting environment, and almost always better than a virtual private server. Depending on your level of technical savvy, you may need to look for a managed dedicated server hosting plan, using the hosting support technicians to help administer your server environment. However, if you are comfortable with and have the time to maintain the server yourself, you can often save some money on the hosting plan by going with an unmanaged hosting plan.
Also See:
What is SSL?
PCI Compliance - An Overview
What are the different PCI Compliant Merchant Levels?
The Basics of Server Security
