Dedicated Servers & Co-Location

 

 

Dedicated Servers FAQ

What is a Dedicated Server?
- Dedicated Servers are servers that are "rented" out to you on a monthly basis. It allows you to manage
your own server.

What's the difference between Shared Hosting and a Dedicated Server?
- Shared Hosting is when the customer has a certain amount of space given to them,
other customers are also on the same server and they do not manager the server
at all. However, Dedicated Servers are when a customer managers a whole server
by there self, no other customer's files will be on that server, it's owned by you.

What is the standard operating system installed?
- Redhat 7.3 Linux is the standard or "most common".

Do servers normally have control panels installed?
- The most common control panel is "cPanel" (www.cpanel.net) which provides everything you need to
manage a dedicated server.

What is an uptime guarantee?
- It's the amount of time the company promises that the server will be up and running. Most company's say you get 99% uptime a year - basically that means that your server will not be down for less than 99% a year.

Does my service have it's own IP addresses?
- Some companies allow you to purchase IP Addresses to use with name servers. Most companies give you 2-5 for a basic server package.

Would my server be monitored?
- It depends what company you are with. Most companies monitor your server but other companies don't. Always check the features.

How does a dedicated server benefit me?
- The advantages of a dedicated server include performance, security, and increased control. There are cost savings for server maintenance. You cut costs on the Internet connection, router, security, redundancy and network administration. You can host as many sites as the web-server can handle because you do not have to share a server. You can install third party background software that is restricted on shared servers.

What happens if hardware fails on my server?
- The company should replace the piece of hardware - again, check the
feature list.

How long does it take to get a server up and running?
- Most companies have say 24-48 hours depending on the server features.

Can I administer my own server?
- Yes! That's what Dedicated Servers are all about.

Will I have Root Control?
- Yes, you will have complete access and control over your server.

What is a Data Centre?
- Within the web hosting industry a Data Centre is a facility used to store and manage websites and other Internet information. These Data Centres contain computer servers connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are secure facilities that may also contain a network operations centre (NOC) used for monitoring server activity, Internet traffic and network performance.

What is the difference between a Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) and a Dedicated Server?
- The virtual dedicated server technology is pretty incredible and a huge step up from conventional shared hosting. Nonetheless, it is still "virtually" dedicated and doesn't have the same level of security and performance that you would get with a Dedicated Server. For instance, even with Virtual Dedicated Servers, you still could see slower speeds if someone were to maximise the bandwidth resources to an individual server.

A dedicated server also allows for a custom OS, custom hardware, custom backup utilities and options, etc. It is quite simply COMPLETELY independent and COMPLETELY dedicated.

I have never managed a server before?
- We would suggest that you do have atleast a little information before purchasing a dedicated server. However, if cPanel is already installed on your server it will make life alot more easier - it pratically sets up everything!

Should I choose Unix or NT/Windows 2000?
- Unix is a very versatile and stable platform that serves a number of Internet functions well. It is great for email, live or canned streaming of audio and video, web page servicing and as a test-bed or scripts, programs or security measures. Unix is the cost leader as its cheaper to operate and maintain. Over 80 % of the world's web servers are unix-based Unix is very versatile in the fact that there are thousands of free applications available on the Internet.
NT/Windows 2000 GUI makes it the most user-friendly as it provides a familiar feel and operation like that of your desktop office machine. It integrates well with other Microsoft applications and there are tons of commercial applications available for this platform such as MS SQL, Exchange, Access and Microsoft Office. NT/W2K is less stable that Unix and cost more to license and operate. With our ServerMonster administrator controls on the Unix side, Dyntex's Unix-based servers are as easy to use as a NT/W2K box.

I've seen "RAID5" on a feature list - What is RAID5?
- RAID Level 5 distributes the parity among the drives. This can speed small writes in multiprocessing systems, since the parity disk does not become a bottleneck. Because parity data must be skipped on each drive during reads, however, the performance for reads tends to be considerably lower. RAID Level 5 is n-1 meaning you lose the disk space of one drive in order to stripe data across the drives. A minimum of three drives is required for RAID5.

What's name-based hosting?
- Name Based hosting allows you to serve multiple virtual domains from a single IP address. Name based hosting does not affect the performance or appearance of the domains hosted. The advantage of using Name Based hosting is that it is much easier to administer a single IP address. It also means that number of sites you host is not limited by the number of IPs you have available .

What's the difference between IP and name-based hosting?

- IP Based

* Each domain has its own unique IP number.
* Domains have access to multiple Telnet/FTP Accounts.
* Ability to register a domain-specific secure certificate.

- Name-Based

* Multiple domains share the same IP number.


* Domains have access to ONE Telnet/FTP account, the balance are all POP accounts.


* Inability to register a domain-specific secure certificate.

Can I add my own software?
- Most dedicated server provides say yes. You have root access and hence the ability to add any software required to operate/enhance your business.

What's a DNS/BIND Name Server?
- A Name Server is a computer that maintains a database of domain names and their corresponding IP addresses. The domain name system (DNS) is the way that Internet domain names are located and translated into Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. It has name resolution software that translates domain names into IP addresses, and vice versa. Because domain names are alphabetic, a DNS must translate the name into the corresponding numeric IP addresses for the Internet.

BIND - stands for "Berkeley Internet Name Daemon", and is the Internet de-facto standard program for turning host names into IP addresses. The BIND DNS Server is used on the vast majority of name serving machines on the Internet, providing a robust and stable architecture on top of which an organization's naming architecture can be built. The resolver library included in the BIND distribution provides the standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for translation between domain names and Internet (IP) addresses and is intended to be linked with applications requiring name service.

What are the benefits of having my own DNS/Bind Name Server?
- Complete control over domains.
Ability to park domains without an additional fee.
Ability to make MX record changes without an additional fee.
Real name servers provide greater anonymity.
Through our Bind/DNS software, you have access to an intuitive web-based interface to make any changes/modifications.