Web hosts provides us with different kind of servers for hosting our sites. A dedicated hosting service or dedicated server, which is one of them, is a type of Internet hosting in which client lets an entire server not shared with anyone. A service provider monitors the computer’s hardware, network connectivity, and routing equipment, while the customer generally controls and maintains the server software. This is more flexible than the shared hosting as organizations have full control over the dedicated servers, including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service. Dedicated servers are most often used by those who’ve outgrown typical hosting accounts and now require massive amounts of data space and bandwidth, those with mission critical web sites, web hosting companies, or those who have special needs. These servers are most often housed in data centers, similar to collocation facilities, providing redundant power sources and HVAC systems. In contrast to collocation, the server hardware is owned by the provider and in some cases they will provide support for your operating system or applications.

With Dedicated Linux Servers, you may get operating systems like Linux, Free BSD, CentOS and Debian. It may also offer 1 GB RAM and 80 GB HDD. Other features might include an IP address and data transfer in the realms of 25-50 GB. Dedicated Windows Servers are a trifle more expensive but offer wonderful scopes to website owners.

Two types of dedicated servers are available now a days : Managed Dedicated Servers & Unmanaged Dedicated Servers. In Unmanaged Dedicated Server the management control is given to the purchaser and customer can perform software update on his own as well as security monitoring, software installation and other operating system restores. While service provider do the hardware repair, network monitoring etc. That’s the major difference between managed and unmanaged dedicated servers.

In Managed dedicated servers the software and hardware applications as well as all the security and network control issues are handled by the service provider. This type of server works well for the consumers with limited experience of managing the server or limited time in being able to execute the functions compulsory to keep a server running.

The question arises; How to choose a dedicated server? Things to be considered while selecting server are: Operating System, Hardware options, Space & Bandwidth. Large number of server operating systems is available including Linux & windows based software. Hardware options like amount of memory to be installed firewall options and size of hardware must be up to the task/requirement. A certain amount of bandwidth is generally included when renting or leasing a dedicated server.

Dedicated servers are the preferred method of hosting game servers for most PC-based multiplayer games. Massively multiplayer online games run on dedicated servers usually hosted by the software company that owns the game title, allowing them to control and update content. In many cases they are run on clustered servers to allow huge environments and large player counts.