How do I select a dedicated server hosting company?
We recommend a step by step approach that aims to produce a shortlist that enables you to select a viable dedicated server website hosting company. Although this sounds easy, you need to be aware of the complexities of buying in this marketplace:
- there are a very high number of viable hosting companies;
- arbitrarily excluding contenders is not scientific;
- selecting on the basis of brand is likely to be emotional;
- it is hard to find out who all of the contenders are in the hosting marketplace;
- it is difficult to get a recommendation for a good hosting company from someone else because they are unlikely to be buying hosting right now, and their needs are probably slightly different to yours;
- there are too many factors when selecting between vendors to come to a simple decision.
What steps do I take to select a host?
The selection of an appropriate business class dedicated server hosting provider in the UK is a mission critical process so we recommend this six step process, each step of which can be broken down into component parts:
- Assess the marketplace and create a long list of vendors;
- Dismiss all vendors who fail to satisfy your minimum criteria;
- Assemble a shortlist of at least three dedicated hosting vendors;
- Obtain competitive quotes;
- Obtain re-quotes based on information learned during the quoting process;
- Sign agreement for minimum acceptable period.
The hosting selection system described above is a modified version of a general model of the buyer decision process:
- Want recognition;
- Search of information on products that could satisfy your needs;
- Alternative selection;
- Decision-making on buying the hosting product;
- Post-purchase behaviour.
Trying to avoid bias in your decision making process
You should make yourself aware of the biases can affect your decision making processes, calling into question the correctness of your decision of which hosting company to use:
- Selective search for evidence – when gathering evidence of which hosting company to use you need to make sure that you don't just gather evidence of features and service levels that support certain conclusions but disregard other facts that support different conclusions. This means that you shouldn't exclude some factors that affect your host selection early on.
- Prematurely stopping your search for information. This means that you need to set a period aside for research, and not come to an early conclusion. Maybe one method to think about is to set a target of researching fifty dedicated web server hosting companies.
- Conservatism and inertia mean that you might be unwilling to change your thought patterns that you have used in the past to select vendors when new circumstances emerge.
- Your experiences in the past may make you unwilling or unable to consider new hosting alternatives because you reject the unfamiliar.
- You make a personal decision to screen out information that you do not think is relevant to your research.
- Wishful thinking or unrealistic optimism tends to make you see things in a positive light and this distorts your perception and thinking. So for example, one particular dedicated server hosting vendor might have a brand that you find very compelling, or they might state up front the one biggest concern that you have about selecting a vendor, making them move ahead beyond their natural place in the ranking of hosting vendors.
- You are more likely to place a stronger emphasis on new information that you uncover, discounting older information because it is not so fresh in your mind.
- If you hear the same message from hosting companies over and over again you start to believe it, or give it extra credibility.
- Initial information tends to create a framework that tends to shape your subsequent research.
- Peer pressure from a group of people tends to affect your thinking.
- You might reject some evidence because you are personally biased, and this can have positive and negative benefits. You are likely to be more willing to accept evidence about hosting performance from a source that you like.
- Make sure you apply the same criteria to all of the hosting companies that you are assessing.
- Realise that uncertainty plays a part in your assessment. This might mean that you take a more risk averse approach to your selection of host, or you might opt for a shorter contract period.
Look for the following options from your dedicated hosting provider:
Central Processor Unit:
- Intel CeleronD 2.8 GHz CPU
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz CPU
- Dual Intel XeonE 2.8 GHz CPUs
- AMD Athlon 64 3200
- AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 3800
- Dual Intel XeonE 3.0 GHz
- Dual XEON 3.06HT Ghz
- Dual AMD Opteron 246 2.0 Ghz
RAM:
- 512 MB DDR2-553 RAM
- 1024 MB DDR2-400 ECC RAM
Hard Drive:
- 160 GB SATA Hard Drive
- Dual 250 GB SATA RAID1 HDDs
Data transfer levels:
- 1000 GB Monthly Transfer
- 1500 GB Monthly Transfer
- 2000 GB Monthly Transfer
Firewall:
- (Netscreen) Firewall services (sometimes free with managed services)
IP Addresses:
- 1 2 or 3 Free IP addresses
Other hosting services:
- Unlimited Free Reboots
- 24/7 and 24/7/365 support
- Domain name registratio