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A dedicated server is a powerful server that is just for your website or business and no one else. This means that your server is not shared with others like shared hosting is. It is ideal for those who need reliability, high performance, better security, and the websites that are being operated are at an enterprise-level. In other words, a dedicated server is for those who need a lot of power and have the money to spend.

There are several advantages to operating a dedicated server. These advantages are:

The website performs better
You dont have to purchase equipment
If other websites that share the same server have problems, your website is unaffected because you are not sharing.

The server is also owned by the web host, so you are more or less renting it from them. You do have the ability to customize your server based on whatever your needs are, but what it comes down to is the fact that the host owns it. This can be a good thing, though, especially if your business does not have the administration capabilities to take care of various tasks that you need performed.

Experience

Some companies may have the experience and others may not. If a business has the experience in-house, then that individual or individuals can take care of any changes that need to be made to the website. Some go to college to be able to do this and have no problem at all managing the server. Depending on the type of changes that must be implemented depends on what type of experience and individual should have.

Then again, there are some who just know how to manage servers without any schooling in the area and can do it. It is important to gage what type of tasks must be performed on the website, especially if it is a high performance website that requires a lot of maintenance and manipulations.

On the other hand, there may be no experience required at all. This is where you can choose managed web hosting through your provider. This is where they can maintain and monitor your operating system, dedicated servers, and applications. This way you can still have everything that you need without the experience to go along with it. Unmanaged dedicated hosting may be a cheaper solution for some businesses, but if the experience and knowledge is not there, then managed dedicated hosting is the way to go.

Is it the right decision?

Whether or not your business has the experience to manage a dedicated server, it is important to make sure the business needs it. If you are prepared to take on the cost that is associated with using the hosts equipment and you know that they can provide you with the necessary technical support, then it may be the right decision. It is just important to make sure that your website or potential website is large and powerful enough to require such a server. However, many business websites are and using a dedicated server allows them to make their website even more powerful. If that is you, then dedicated hosting could be the right decision whether you have the right experience or not. Dont let the lack of experience deter you because there are solutions to that problem.

In the day and age where the website defines the company, choosing a dedicated server and using unmanaged or managed hosting can be a large decision. If you dont know where to start, simply ask the various companies offering dedicated hosting and see who is more willing to help you understand. That can be a good indicator that you may be starting a nice business relationship.

Fully Managed Hosting with complete end-to-end management of your mission-critical data will help your business achieve more up time culminating in greater revenues and success. http://www.fusepoint.com

Managed hosting offers many benefits to a business wishing to expand their operations or make themselves accessible to their customers online. By having an online presence, a business can increase their exposure to a local, national, or worldwide audience.

Nevertheless, a business that has a website is a business that can accomplish a lot more because they are allowing customers to learn more about them and gain wider access to what it is they have to offer.

There are several definitions that describe what managed hosting is. The service that is provided really depends on the needs of the business and how they handle their managed hosting. These definitions are:
A single website hosted on a web server that is supported by a managed hosting provider.

A service in which the dedicated server is managed for the business by a managed service provider.

Managed hosting manages and maintains the dedicated server.

Managed hosting is performed by a web host in addition to providing many services for the dedicated servers that they provide.

The business doesn’t have their own dedicated server, but they are using the servers that belong to the host, which means the host is maintaining shared-servers. However, the business still maintains the privacy of its website although the servers are shared and receives all of the benefits they would have and possibly more than if they had their own dedicated server.

It is easy to see that there are many different forms of managed hosting. Depending on the needs of the business the MSP provides services to, different services can be provided. Not every business has the money to hire IT professionals and train them or train existing employees to take care of their web hosting. That is why it is feasible to outsource the jobs to managed hosting. It is actually cheaper to outsource because there is a fixed monthly rate in which the company pays that usually does not add up to the monthly salary of a single employee.

What this does is maximize profit and allows the business to focus on their customers satisfaction rather than having to spend time managing the website. If a business only had time to manage their website, they would not have time to serve their customers. In the end, there would be little impact on person-to-person sales. The idea is for the website to enhance both person-to-person sales and Internet sales, if applicable.

Other benefits

There are many more benefits of managed hosting such as security and up-time. It is very important that the website stay secure so that people with malicious intentions are unable to disrupt business on your website. Malicious activity can result in many hours of trying to bring the website back up and this also results in down-time. There is nothing more aggravating than going to a website with poor up-time either because of security breaches or issues with the server.

Managed hosting performs continuous security scans and also continually checks for issues that may interfere with the sites up-time. That is why many websites that are managed by managed hosting have 100% up-time.

So if you are not sure whether or not you need managed hosting, ask yourself these 5 questions:

How would my business benefit from a website?
Does my business have the money to operate and maintain a website?
Do I have the manpower to continually monitor a website?
Do I have the money to hire and train additional employees?
How much would managed hosting cost me compared to doing it on our own?

Asking yourself these questions will put you on the road to finding the best solution for your business.

Fully Managed Hosting with complete end-to-end management of your mission-critical data will help your business achieve more up time culminating in greater revenues and success. http://www.fusepoint.com

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS levies requirements on credit card merchants to safeguard consumers’ credit information from malicious behaviour from identity thieves.

The payment card industry providers such as VISA, MasterCard and American Express are now enforcing PCI compliance. Non-compliance can result in fines, restrictions or possibly permanent expulsion from card acceptance programs. If your business depends on accepting credit cards, then you have no choice than to become PCI compliant.

The new Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards are network security and business practice guidelines developed by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover Card. They were developed to establish a ‘minimum security standard’ with regards to the protection of cardholders’ account and transaction information.

What are PCI DSS requirements?

The PCI Data Security Standard represents a common set of industry tools and measurements to help merchants and credit card processors that store, process or transmit cardholder data ensure the safe handling of sensitive cardholder information. The standard provides an actionable framework for developing a robust account data security process that includes preventing, detecting and reacting to security incidents.

What are the benefits of working with a PCI Compliant Service Provider?

By working with a PCI compliant service provider you can ensure that cardholder account data being processed across your technical environment is protected. PCI DSS protects cardholders and minimizes the risk to your business.

The main benefits of implementing the PCI CSS for your organization and working with a provider that is compliant are:

- Protecting customer personal data
- Increasing customer trust by demonstrating your commitment to the security of their personal information
- Protecting your business from financial penalties
- Leveraging a hosting provider’s existing PCI DSS compliancy investment i.e. your technical infrastructure resides in a data centre that has already been audited
- Potential savings starting at $100,000 in capital expenditures by outsourcing to a managed service provider that is PCI compliant

Who has to comply?

The credit card companies have made it clear that ANY entity that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data regardless of their transaction volume, are required to comply with the PCI requirements. Failure to comply with the PCI security standard may result in substantial fines or permanent expulsion from card acceptance programs.

Recent studies on financial fraud have indicated that hackers are increasingly targeting small, commercial Web sites, increasing the need for all merchants and service providers to become fully compliant with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS).

What do I need to do to meet the PCI standards?

The PCI standard comprises two basic steps:
1. Pass quarterly remote vulnerability scans conducted by a Visa and MasterCard “Qualified Independent Scan Vendor”. Scans are required for all Internet connection points whether they are office networks or home/office connections (dial-up, DSL, cable or wireless) or permanent Internet servers such as your web site and email server, etc.

2. Successful completion of a security self-assessment questionnaire. The self assessment questionnaire asks specific questions about your internal security practices, both on your web site and in your office.

For e-commerce sites that involve online credit card payments, this PCI DSS certification will provide greater security features for business and customers. PCI compliance service providers assure that your confidential data is totally protected.http://www.fusepoint.com/english/html/pci.html

Acquiring a dedicated hosting server is a great step toward getting the most out of your website. First of all, you increase the amount of traffic to your site, you can create a more impressive site than ever before, there is more disk space, and there is more bandwidth to work with. Second of all, the return on investment is considerably better than that of a shared server and credibility amongst browsers is enhanced.

The benefits of having a dedicated server are rather extensive in that the company can avoid many of the variables that interfere with the reliability of the server. Things such as overload, bad scripts, and bad codes are not really too much of an issue. The dependency on the web host is alleviated as is the lack of services and hardware that can be used to enhance the website.

In terms of hardware, it is important to choose suitable hardware that will enable the site to run efficiently. When choosing suitable hardware, consider these tips when doing so:

- Do research on what is a suitable processor to get the job done. How the processor is chosen is based on the amount of memory that is desired, what firewall options are required, and how big the hard drive needs to be. In other words, the choice of processor is going to be what controls the amount of space and protection that is provided to the website. Doing research on the internet to see which processor others are saying is best will ensure a good choice.

- Keep in mind that a Pentium 4 processor will perform better than a Celeron if hosting a number of powerful applications. The reason behind this is that the Pentium has a larger cache. However, Xeons may be the best bet because they actually perform better than the Pentium. Then again, choosing the AMD option may outperform Xeons by 30%, depending on the applications being powered. In other words, it is best to stay away from Celeron processors when choosing a processor.

- As for hard disks, keep in mind that hard disks do fail at some point. That is why it is good to have a second hard disk available for backup and even contact the hosting company regarding the costs associated with off-site backup. If your company decides to invest in a secondary backup system, try going with a SCSI because they have a lower failure rate. But it is inevitable that a hard disk will eventually fail. Again, do research on the internet to find the best hardware.

The processor and the hard disk are going to be the most important pieces of hardware acquired, aside from the actual computers. As for the actual computers, dedicated servers allow customers to choose their operating systems, so deciding which computer to purchase is not too difficult.

The dedicated hosting services also allow the customer to choose their own hardware, so it is important to do all the necessary research to find the best fit for your particular business. Every site requires different amounts of memory and different speeds, so base the decision upon what is best and what it is you require.

We provide managed IT services including: Managed and dedicated hosting, Disaster Recovery and Professional Services. http://www.fusepoint.com

Load balancing, by definition, is the process of spreading the amount of work that is conducted by a computer system between a number of different computer systems to increase the speed that the work is completed in. There are several different methods in which load balancing can be accomplished by and the technique can use many different types of computer components, including both hardware and software applications. Load balancing is typically completed using a cluster of computer servers that may or may not be located in the same location.

There are many different companies that see the benefits of using this process and implement the procedure for their companies. Companies that conduct business transactions in large numbers using the internet are prime candidates to use this method to ensure that all of their clients and customers will be able to conduct their transactions quickly and accurately. Companies that need to network a great deal of computers for individual users also typically use this to ensure that all computers will work properly and have the right amount of power to be able to perform the functions that they are intended to perform. It also ensures that the company will still be able to do business if one server becomes corrupted or goes down for an extended period of time.

There are several different methods that are widely used for load balancing. One of the most popular methods is Global Server Load Balancing. This technique distributes the incoming tasks to a group of servers in a particular geographic location. This technique is widely used by companies that have a global presence and have a need to satisfy customers or employees in many different geographical locations. Using Global Server Load Balancing ensures that the work load is distributed throughout the entire server system in an easy to manage manner and ensures that all geographical locations are obtaining the correct information from the correct set of servers.

Another load balancing technique that is commonly used is called Persistence Load Balancing. This technique assigns each new client to a different server in a round robin type of allocation. This client is then assigned to this specific server for the future of their relationship with the business. This ensures that no one server is overloaded with a particular type of client, such as those in a certain geographical area or use a specific type of service and ensures that the clients are distributed evenly through out all of the servers that the business possesses. These server assignments are typically monitored by using the customers IP address as the customer’s unique identification code.

Fusepoint is a full suite of managed IT services including: Managed Hosting and Infrastructure, Application Services, Disaster Recovery and Professional Services. Fusepoint sees the benefits of using load balancing and implement the procedure for their clients.

http://www.fusepoint.com

One of the most popular software packages for businesses today is Microsoft SharePoint Server. It is a very popular program for businesses, because it helps to improve business processes without the requirement of extensive training beforehand. The suite supports a large number of programs and is built to be an effective content management platform for business use. It is also designed to streamline many different types of business applications, allowing the users to be more effective in their day to day functions. Many different types of users would be able to use this software effectively and the platform allows for easier control of many business processes.

One of the largest benefits to using Microsoft SharePoint Server is the ability to manage and control the content that is entering or leaving your business. Every business owner knows that one security breach or hacker can cause a great deal of damage to the company and even put the company out of commission for a period of time. All electronic content can be tracked and many business processes can be streamlined using the tools available with it. The platform can also be used to access documents and workspaces that need to be shared among a number of individuals, such as databases and commonly used forms. The applications can also be used to create online content such as webpages, wiki’s, and blogs.

Microsoft SharePoint Server also gives users the ability to organize and edit their documents quickly and easily. Documents can be organized using any number of different criteria and collaborative editing is also possible using the applications available with the software. It also includes updated navigation features and the ability to search documents using a number of different methods. Other applications available with the program include to do lists, contact management databases, workflow planning, discussion boards, and programmable alerts. This allows the employees to manage their work processes much more effectively and increase productivity across all departments.

Microsoft SharePoint Server is easily integrated with Microsoft Office applications and can host a number of libraries effectively. There are a number of ways that this software can increase productivity and streamline businesses processes. Many companies have found that the addition of this business platform to their common applications have allowed employees to manage their documents more effectively and bring projects to completion at a much quicker rate.

A Managed SharePoint Hosting Solution is designed to deliver a turnkey collaboration environment with all of the features of Microsoft SharePoint technologies. http://www.fusepoint.com

Many websites are hosted by a shared hosting site when they are first created, allowing the individual to have quality web hosting for a low price. This allows the individual to slowly grow their website without having to pay a great deal of money to have the site hosted.

This is especially important for start up businesses, as the business may not see a profit for the first six months to one year after the business has been started. So how does an individual or a company know when it is time for their websites to move from shared hosting to a dedicated server? There are several indications that can alert the individuals when this move may be necessary.

Moving to a dedicated server is the next logical step from having the website hosted by a shared hosting environment. Having the information on a dedicated server gives the individual total control over their site and allows them the freedom to expand their site as quickly as they want. It also reduces the possibility that the server will be slowed down or crash due to the actions of the websites of others. With shared hosting, there are often many different websites, sometimes hundreds, which are being hosted on the same server.

If any one of those sites starts requiring additional bandwidth, then all of the sites hosted by that particular server will begin to run slower or may even crash due to the unexpected strain on the server. Even though a shared hosting environment is less expensive, if reliability is needed the individual will be better off moving to a dedicated server.

Moving from shared hosting to a dedicated server will also allow the individual to install software and hardware that would otherwise be restricted by the shared hosting site due to concerns about security and additional hosting costs. Included in this list is the additional memory that will be needed to help your website grow.

Moving form shared hosting to a dedicated server also allows the website to run more calculations and more processes at the same time without having to worry about the server crashing. If the website suddenly increases in popularity, there is less chance of the site running slow or not running at all due to the increased number of individuals that are using the site.

There are a number of web hosting companies available that will allow you the use of a dedicated server for a nominal fee and this may just be the best business move that you can make.

Fully Managed Infrastructure services offers complete end-to-end management of your mission-critical IT environment. e are a leading provider of managed IT solutions for companies worldwide. http://www.fusepoint.com