Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - April 22, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has released a new technical brief, containing comparisons of the business benefits and advantages of dedicated hosting and colocation services, provided to small and medium-sized businesses.

As the organizations grow increasingly dependent on their IT infrastructure and require an always-up-and-running Web presence, the decision to host or collocate becomes even more critical.

''Dedicated Servers or Colocation: Which Is Best for Your Hosted IT?''-- weighs the capital expense of colocation versus subscribing to on-demand dedicated hosting. It also evaluates the costs associated with a typical colocation scenario, which include setting up, configuring, maintaining and updating servers, as well the staffing and travel costs incurred by IT experts who are required to travel to the colocation site for repairs in the event of a hardware or software failure. In contrast, dedicated hosting from The Planet provides a scalable IT infrastructure with 24/7/365 support, rapid server deployment, customized server applications and an uptime guarantee.

Urvish Vashi, Director of Product Management at The Planet noted, ''By offering an affordable dedicated hosting solution with a wide scope of products and services, The Planet puts SMBs on a level playing field with their larger, better-funded competitors. By hosting with The Planet, businesses can gain access to high-powered information technology, backed by our world-class data centers and high-performance, fully redundant network. This new white paper demonstrates the value we provide customers with around-the-clock support and an infrastructure that is both reliable and scalable.''

According to the report, colocation represents a less-than-optimal solution for SMB customers, considering the prohibitive cost of hardware ownership and in-house staffing, coupled with the limited response time to correct problems. Choosing a dedicated hosting solution from a provider like The Planet offers cost savings and increased performance. The paper also asserts:

• A fully scalable IT infrastructure allows businesses to grow as quickly as necessary, without investing in more hardware than needed.
• Dedicated hosting allows businesses to outsource the management burden associated with day-to-day hardware and facilities maintenance costs.
• Businesses gain a competitive advantage by leveraging the latest server technology and software solutions offered by dedicated hosting providers.

To download the complete white paper, please visit: www.theplanet.com/forms/register_wp.asp?type=TB_WP.

Recently, The Planet received the Landmark 08 award for ''Best Corporate Headquarters Relocation,'' for opening its Bayou Place headquarters in December 2007. Consolidating its offices in downtown Houston from two locations in north Houston, the Planet was nominated for the award by its real estate brokers, Jackson and Cooksey Ltd.

Sponsored by the Houston Business Journal, The Planet earned first prize in the category against competition from far larger projects and companies. Nominee finalists included Bechtel Equipment's regional headquarters and the Reed Hycalog world headquarters and technology center.

A broad range of companies partnered with The Planet to create its new headquarters location. Following is a partial list:

Developer: The Cordish Company, represented by Taylor Gray
Real Estate Brokers: Jackson and Cooksey Ltd. brokers included Senior Vice Presidents Andy Iversen and John Beach, and Senior Associate Anthony Squillante
Architect: Kendall/Heaton Associates' Jory Alexander led the design and architectural team
Contractor: D.E. Harvey Builders, represented by Rusty Gorman, Eric Lowe, Charles Gates and Javier Escalona

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting over 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by enhanced facilities and network connectivity.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.