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How To Choose a Virtual Dedicated Server

Published on 12/2/2009 by
Choosing a good but affordable dedicated server can be complicated and time-consuming, so we’ve made it a little easier for you. Following below is a complete guide on choosing the best dedicated server, taking into account your technology needs, financial constraints, business requirements, with also reviews of dedicated server offers.
  • OS: if you use ASP.NET or MS SQL Server, you obviously need a Windows Dedicated Server. If you use an open source stack such as Apache/php/mysql or Ruby On Rails, a Linux server is the best choice.
  • Web Server and Database Server: depending on your technology stack, you might need a server with plenty of RAM, especially if the architecture builds upon Windows, Java or Ruby.
  • Performance: for SQL servers, video-transcoding severs, servers used for virtualization, or specialized servers such as game or chat servers, you need fast, multi-core processors or ideally multi-processors servers, such as dual xeon servers.
  • Bandwidth: if you plan to host images, multimedia files such as flash videos, or an Asterisk server, bandwidth provided by the hosting provider is a key criteria
  • Management: if you lack expert sys admins at hand to manage your server, you should look at advanced managed services. A good web hosting company should be able to offer you expert advice on how to do load balancing or web clusters, as well as good support.
  • Network: depending on the audience and geographical location of your web service, you should look closely at the location of the data center. How is the latency? How is the consistency and quality of uplinks?