Managed Hosting

Managed hosting is the term that is normally applied to managed web hosting packages, the ‘managed’ part meaning that the web hosting solution concerned comes with full support. Other levels of managed for web hosting plans also include semi-managed and unmanaged; semi-managed web hosting packages come with a lower level of support, whilst unmanaged web hosting solutions come with only basic support for the hosting server and network. Managed web hosting packages are suitable for businesses that want to ensure that their web hosting experience is as reliable as possible since they want to ensure that any problems they have with their web hosting solution can be sorted at any time of the day. Basic web hosting packages offered by managed web hosting providers on the other hand are aimed at the novice who is running a fairly busy website and needs the reliability of a managed web hosting account.

Although any web hosting provider selling managed web hosting accounts will have an experienced support team to help back customers up at times when they need help, most web hosting companies will also supply a control panel with their web hosting packages to allow customers to manage their own web hosting plans without the need for any intervention from a support team. Linux based managed web hosting plans normally come with a cPanel control, which is the most popular control panel for Linux based web hosting in the industry. Although your web hosting provider’s support team will probably be very clued up on cPanel web hosting, it will probably be worth your while to do some research into how the control panel can be used. For Windows based managed web hosting, most managed web hosting companies well provide clients with access to the Plesk control panel, since this is the most stable Windows control panel available and is easy to use.

Managed web hosting can bring many benefits, not only the fact that you are entitled to receive full support for your web hosting account. If a web hosting provider’s support team is busy handling many different web hosting queries, then your issues will be dealt with first since you have priority over other clients of your web hosting provider. This means that if you have any issues with your web hosting solution, whether it be a shared web hosting package, VPS hosting package or dedicated server hosting package you will be able to have any issues dealt with by a professional web hosting support team in a respectable amount of time. Managed web hosting solutions from professional web hosting providers also come with added bonuses in most cases, such as free domains or free SSL certificates which are designed to attract new customers to such web hosting packages.

Managed web hosting normally comes in the form of clustered web hosting as well as standard shared web hosting, since a clustered server environment ensures reliability whilst a managed web hosting packages ensures reliable web hosting support. Clustered web hosting is a hosting environment in which multiple servers are used to backup one another, meaning that if one server hosting one service that is important for web hosting was to fail, another server with the purpose of hosting the same service would pick up from where the server that is down dropped off. Managed web hosting in the form of shared website hosting is still reliable, since if anything goes wrong with the web hosting server, your web hosting provider’s support team can easily fix any errors that there are with the server ASAP. Managed web hosting in the context of dedicated server hosting is also reliable, since you are the sole user of your dedicated server meaning that only you have access to your servers resources.

Managed web hosting providers are normally able to provide support for any query that you may have in relation to your web hosting account. For example you may want your web hosting provider’s support team to setup a MySQL database for your web hosting account since you may not have the necessary knowledge to do such a thing; in this case they should be able to do such in a fast manner. If you have advanced options that need setting on your PHP scripts such as permissions, then your web hosting provider’s support team should also be able to do this for you if you feel you don’t have the knowledge. Managed web hosting support teams can also setup MSSQL databases for you, as well as setting customized settings on any classic ASP or ASP.NET files that you have hosted within your managed web hosting account.

In conclusion, managed web hosting ensures that you have a professional web hosting support team that you can turn to if you feel that you need assistance with any part of your managed web hosting solution. A professional managed web hosting provider should be able to provide you with 24×7 assistance, just as long as you have purchased one of their managed web hosting accounts. If you are a business or individual that needs that extra support then managed web hosting really is the way for you to go in terms of the type of web hosting that suits you. Businesses should also be considering clustered managed web hosting, since it provides you with reliability in terms of both the web hosting environment in which you are hosted as well as the support team that you are provided with access to.