Best Hosting Deal

Managed hosting is one of many types available on today’s web hosting market, geared towards businesses that require more personalized care for their web presence. As the name suggests, the provider takes on a great deal of the management aspects, freeing the client of grueling responsibilities and thus allowing them to be more productive. There are numerous advantages that come along with managed hosting and below we have listed the top nine.

1.) Simplified Administration – Managed hosting gives you an additional level of support that stems beyond what the typical hosting service can offer. This often includes server administration and various other management tasks.

2.) Cost Effective – Though it is more expensive than most types of web hosting, managed hosting can be a very cost effective option due to the fact that it can free up time and help an organization be more productive.

3.) Enhanced Security – In the ideal arrangement, managed hosting provides an added layer of security with features such as critical system updates, disaster recovery, and data backup. Companies that are truly reliant on their web presence will benefit tremendously from a service that takes the necessary measures to ensure they are protected.

4.) Extensive Monitoring – Managed hosting typically provides an environment that is monitored 24/7. This often includes monitoring of the hardware, systems and the network itself. With such extensive monitoring, you can better assure superb performance and availability as any problems will be addressed as soon as they are detected.

5.) High-Performance – The hardware you get from a managed hosting provider usually towers over what is provided in a shared hosting arrangement. This is because you normally receive high quality dedicated equipment and are not forced to share with other customers. In the ideal environment, managed hosting can deliver performance that puts its shared counterpart to shame.

6.) Increased Reliability – Many new customers who upgrade to a dedicated server incur a significant amount of downtime because of all the technical challenges. Managed hosting can help you elude these crucial periods of downtime by putting the technical burdens on the shoulders of trained IT experts.

7.) Guaranteed Resources and Features – While all types of web hosting tend to offer great feature and resource allotments, managed hosting tends to give you significantly more. For example, you get more disk storage and bandwidth as well as more flexibility with features like programming languages, web applications, and services.

8.) Cost Savings – Managed hosting can be so advantageous that it eliminates the need for a full-time system administrator. Since the web hosting company is taking care of the bulk of administration, you can save the money that would normally be needed to pay someone to maintain your systems.

9.) Personalized Support – Because managed hosting is modeled around the concept of dedicated support, this sort of arrangement often makes it much easier to obtain the assistance you need. Almost all managed hosting services offer 24/7 support, ensuring that you can reach the IT experts when you need them.

Source: http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/12/01/nine-unique-advantages-of-managed-hosting/

You may have noticed that most web hosting providers boast either a 99 or 99.9% uptime guarantee, a percentage that refers to how often the service will be up and running.  As a customer, these numbers look very impressive as they are not that short of perfection.  However, after learning more about these calculations, you may think twice when encountering a seemingly respectable uptime guarantee.

What is Covered in the Guarantee?

In most cases, the uptime a web host refers to only covers the servers and not the network.  When it comes to network issues and general maintenance, downtime is something that can heavily outweigh the advertised uptime guarantee.  This is why some customers running mission-critical operations look for SLAs (service level agreements) that compensate you in one way or another if downtime exceeds the agreement.  Unfortunately, several of the leading hosting providers usually do not make such an offer available.  The situation becomes even more complex when considering the potential downtime you could experience during the course of a year.  When doing so, the near perfect 99% doesn’t look so attractive.

Let’s work with a few examples.  A 98% uptime means that over a 12-month period, your website could be down for 175 hours and 19 minutes, which translates to about a week.  99% isn’t much better as your site could be unavailable for approximately 87 hours and 39 minutes over a one year period.  This is still a lot of time for someone running a busy website.  Most providers try to uphold the 99.9% uptime guarantee because it translate into the most reliable.  This is far more respectable as it means that you will only endure about 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime over a 12 month period.  Sadly, downtime usually exceeds this number by far.  Even worst, many customers are in a no-win situation, forced to suffer from unavailability without being compensated for the excessive downtime.

Recognizing a Respectable Uptime

The best way to approach the perplexing issue of uptime is to select a hosting provider with a good reputation in the industry.  Downtime is unavoidable but it is much better when dealing with a company that will not try to manipulate the numbers and do all they can to ensure the highest availability.  Look for a host that provides good support so if something does happen, you can get in touch and find out how and when the service will be restored.

As far as the uptime guarantee goes, it is something you should look into if you are truly concerned about the availability of your site.  Read the fine print, do some investigating and if possible, choose a company that bases their uptime percentage over a monthly period.  If the calculations are made over a year, you could have a difficult time getting accurate credits for any downtime incurred.  Most reputable hosting providers take various measures to ensure reliability but things do happen.  When they do, you want a host that provides a fair playing ground with a guarantee that has your best interests in mind.

Source: http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/05/12/making-the-most-of-uptime/