For complete control of the web server hosting your web site, you will need your own dedicated server hosting. You choose what runs on the server and how secure it is. Different dedicated server operating systems are available and the main two operating systems used are Linux and Windows.

Linux Dedicated Server Hosting

The free operating system of Linux is installed on these servers, as the name implies. Cheap linux dedicated server are typically used with an Apache web server, PHP and mySql configuration. On these servers, you will be given root access to control all aspects including php setup configuration, operating system patches and apache add on settings. Linux servers are typically cheaper than the windows servers, as the operating system does not cost the service provider anything.

Windows Dedicated Server Hosting

As the name of a Windows Server implies, this will be running a Windows Server operating system on the server. You will normally see the newest version of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 running on these servers. Unlike the Linux server, these are typically running IIS as the web server and SQL server for the database side. A Windows dedicated web server is able to run a WAMP (Windows, Apache, mySql, PHP) configuration. Windows servers do typically cost more because windows is not a free operating system, like the Linux OS is.

The owner of the server will ultimately need to decide if they would like Linux or Window on their dedicated server, as it depends on their server needs. Different requirements will lead to different server selection. From a price standpoint Linux dedicated server plans will be more inexpensive than a Windows server. Anyone running open source PHP applications will almost always want to select a Linux server as their first option. Windows server is the only way to run .Net applications that are built to use a SQL Server database. In the end, the choice of what server you pick will be based on your own web site hosting requirements.

You will need to decide if you want a managed or unmanaged dedicated server after selecting a server operating system. If you want to handle everything including patches and configuration, you will want to go with an unmanaged server leaving all the responsibility with you, while a managed server will take care of this for you, including server backups for a lot of them.

Tags: dedicated server hosting, linux dedicated server hosting, windows dedicated server hosting

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 4:32 am and is filed under web hosting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.