In today’s web-based world, a reliable, efficient, and secure hosting provider is vital to business continuity. The right choice for your business depends on many factors, from bandwidth needs to budget. Shared hosting is the most common hosting service today. For businesses with low traffic and basic IT needs, it offers affordable IT management and monitoring. However, as a business grows into a larger enterprise, its CPU, bandwidth, support, and security needs often outpace what a shared plan can offer. At that point, moving from shared hosting to enterprise hosting makes sense because Enterprise Hosting delivers the high-performance, cloud-based infrastructure a growing company needs.
Understanding the limitations of shared hosting
In a shared hosting environment, a single server and its resources serve many businesses and websites. All accounts on that server share CPU time, memory, disk space, and security processes. Price and hands-off IT management are the two main reasons people buy shared hosting. For example, a small or mid-sized business that wants an affordable provider to manage and monitor its website often does well on a shared plan. As the business grows, though, its IT needs outgrow the shared server and the limits of the service become clear.
The two main limitations of shared hosting are:
- CPU Usage. Companies in a shared hosting environment share CPU time. For most small and mid-sized businesses, this model offers enough coverage. However, when website traffic grows and storage and transfer needs increase, the server can no longer supply the bandwidth and power you need.
- Lack of Customization. The provider builds the server to meet the most common needs of many users. As a result, you often cannot install unique applications and modules. If your website and its scripts depend on those applications every day, shared hosting becomes a liability rather than an asset.
Understanding Enterprise Hosting and its advantages
The main difference between shared hosting and Enterprise Hosting comes down to support and ownership. Enterprise Hosting clients get 24/7 customer service, full hardware and software management, and strong backup and security tools. In addition, clients get an entire server with all of its capabilities. Those resources belong to them alone, so no other customer shares them.
For businesses that have outgrown shared hosting, Enterprise Hosting offers these advantages:
- Lowered Costs. With an Enterprise Hosting solution, clients do not have to buy or monitor their own servers. Therefore, companies save money on expensive hardware and software and also spend less on onsite IT staff. Enterprise Hosting also uses a “pay as you use” model, so companies only pay for the services and applications they need. Customers can then scale their service package up or down as their business changes.
- Customization and Scalability. Since companies no longer share the server with anyone else, they can customize, scale, and build the setup that best fits their business. They also choose exactly which services they need. In addition, they can install their own applications and modules whenever necessary.
Determining the best hosting provider for your business
We usually advise small businesses, independent contractors, and companies with moderate website traffic to start with a shared hosting provider. The affordable, basic service will serve these companies well. On the other hand, a company that expects to grow fast is better off with a full-service Enterprise Hosting provider. That kind of provider focuses on building the high-performance infrastructure that growth and day-to-day management require.
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