In-House hosting or outsource services? If you have to ask yourself this question, going with a web hosting service is likely the best option. However, before making the final decision, you should determine what resources you have available and where you need to focus your energy to meet your goals. Whatever road you take, each will require careful planning in order to come out with successful results. Let’s go over these two forms of hosting to help you better determine which option is right for your needs.
Benefits of Outsourced Hosting
Outsourcing your internet hosting processes to a third-party company is a wise move whether you run an online business or simple personal site. The minor drawback is that you will be forced to give up some flexibility. For example, you are essentially locked into the hosting provider’s system, technologies and policies. However, web hosting services are far less restrictive than they were years ago. In fact, there are several companies that allow you to have a great deal of control and flexibility with your own server. Many of today’s web hosts provide you with administrative control over your entire domain. This typically includes the ability to add and modify database entries, set up email accounts and manage user permissions all without the aid of the network administrator. If a particular host cannot provide you with these standard luxuries, they aren’t even worth dealing with.
The advantage of outsourcing to a professional web hosting service is that you can usually count on more reliability, a greater level of availability and cost savings right from the jump. The burden of servers and other network hardware do not fall on your shoulders. If the operating system and web server require updates or security patches, you can sleep well by knowing IT experts are on top of the matter. When choosing to run these operations internally, you are opening up an entirely new world of responsibility and complexity.
Disadvantages of In-House Hosting
Successfully hosting your IT operations in-house is possible, but it does come with its fair share of disadvantages. There are a number of costly and complex factors you need to consider, including the following:
– Server platform for web server and database applications
– Efficient disk space allocation
– Bandwidth limits
– Network connectivity
– Data Backups
– Security
– Environmental Issues
– Day-to-day Maintenance
The above are elements most smaller businesses simply cannot afford or maintain internally. If this sounds like your situation, then an in-house hosting solution is most likely out the question.
Conclusion
With the wide variety of solutions on the market, professional web hosting services are ideal for whatever you plan to accomplish online irrespective to the size of your website or business. While the price varies greatly among the type of service and company you choose, this option is far more cost effective than trying to host these complex technologies on your own. On the other hand, if you have the space, manpower, financial resources and the need for the utmost control, an in-house set up could turn to be the best solution.
