What do business use Dedicated server & Co-location for???
Other then webhosting, do people use dedicated server for storing database??

Yes, of course. Some larger sites are using one server for the website and the second one for the database. Or if you are providing free-mail-accounts there can be so much demand that you need a server just for email. Or....

More and more, it makes sense for a company to move all their servers out to a remote facility.

The cost of a company running their own datacenter (power, cooling, raised floor, etc) isn't trivial... and it is easier for accounting to deal with it as a bill than try and break out the internal costs.

Plus, in many ways, having your servers outside the company encourages you to focus on security, disaster recovery.

best of all, you focus on NOT running your own remote access solutions and use Internet-centric solutions.

Won't your data be seen by the data-centre's administrator say if you were to report problems?
Secondly, If people use WINNT for dedicated server, wouldn't it be difficult to do administration work? If I have a server in my office, isn't it easier to go to the station & do it rather the telneting to the system. (ANyway Winnt can't telnet)... HOW???

I am just finding the good & bad points on dedicated server & server co-lo before I go into it.

Bizzy -- Windows 2000 includes a remote admin version of Windows Terminal Server that works very good. The client is free, and runs on almost any Windows machine (even Windows 3.1!)

It uses very little RAM and is very fast...

For NT you can access the server via a program like VNC (free) or PCAnywhere.

It's the same as actually being at the machine itself (full graphics, etc.)

Josh

But to be clear -- there is almost no reason to go with NT4 -- it is now almost 18 months out of date. Windows 2000 was completed in December 1999!

A lot of the improvements from NT4 to Win2K related to web serving!

And you don't want to use WinNT Terminal server, has bad memory leak problems, as part of my network we have almost 20 servers for our site and our hosting. In that net we only have 2 MS boxes, I don't personally maintain them, but we use Terminal server to maintain them.....

So that means dedicated server & server co-lo service provide us everything we need & no problems as compared to having a server locally.
Am I right???

Bizzy -- no having a server remote is a lot harder in some aspects.

-- Hardware changes/updates are obviously impossible to do yourself.
-- Installing or major update to operating system or anything outside of the current operating system is nearly impossible (practically impossible).
-- If you reboot the server yourself and it doesn't come up... can be hard to troubleshoot... and you need a local person to help (CMOS problem is one to watch for)
-- network (IP Address, etc.) changes can be risky because you can disconnect yourself.
-- Getting data/files in/out is strictly over the network.
-- Your remote admin itself reduces security and puts additional load (RAM, CPU, etc) on the server itself.

But people do it all the time! I've been running remote Windows servers for over 5 years.

Hi Bizzy,

A dedicated server has as many uses as you can think of for it. Thus, if you want it to be a webserver, database server, mail server, VoIP (gateway) server, A/V server, etc... you can make it happen.

The reason why companies (or individuals running popular websites) choose a dedicated server solutions, is that on a dedicated server you are not limited by what percentage of the server's resources you can use, since it is all dedicated to you, nor are you limited to what software you can run on it (this may vary from webhost to webhost, but in theory, this is how it should be as the server is "dedicated" to you) as long as it is not in violation of any applicable laws or set policies by the webhosting provider.

Of course, whenever the dedicated server is hosted with a webhosting provider, the webhost has full access to your content - technically. If you order your dedicated server from a reliable and well-established webhosting provider, that you can trust, you should have no problems with them, as such companies have strict internal policies that regulate such issues. It can be compared to a person renting an appartment in an appartment building. The landlord will have access to that appartment, technically, but without cause, he or she will not 'root' through your appartment (being "nosy" is, of course, not a valid cause). The same applies to a dedicated server - or even a website on a shared solution. In other words, it is a more a matter of a trust relationship.

Some companies that deal with highly sensitive data, such as major brokerage companies will in many cases maintain their own entire NOC with their own staff. They are ready to have the much larger overhead, rather than "entrusting" the sensitive data to a third party.

Having a server locally may ease many aspects of running the server, but the overhead will definitely be there. Thus, unless your budget allows for it, having at least one full-time employee (with System Administrative skills of course), dedicated high-speed connection to the Internet, a constantly monitored environment (i.e. security, air-conditioning, fire supression system, generators, etc...) is not the most efficient solution, so as a result, having the dedicated server hosted with a webhosting provider is the way to go.

Please, keep in mind, when you have a dedicated server, you will want to try to limit any "experiments" that could impair your server. You should always experiment on a local server in your office, prior applying the changes to the server in production - as you would not want to have to deal with a remote server that will not boot-up properly.

THAT ANSWERS MY QUESTIONS....
THANKS!!!!!

i use my server to pick up chicks :D

agreed lith, dedicated servers are a "mean lean chick machine"

its like "Hey Babe, check out my hardware"

i could go on but there could be young impressionable people reading :)

Originally posted by lith
i use my server to pick up chicks :D
:D :D

Originally posted by Bizzy
THAT ANSWERS MY QUESTIONS....
THANKS!!!!!

doing your homework, eh? ;-)