For any corporation that requires dedicated web hosting but doesn't have the expertise to oversee and maintain it, a managed dedicated server plan is the perfect option. To date there are no industry standards to clearly define the management role of dedicated service providers, with hosts offering varying levels of support for a wide variety of prices. Services on offer include operation administration, firewall and antivirus updates, security audits, data back-ups, disaster recovery, and general system monitoring.

The choice of managed dedicated servers on the market is vast and it is important for a corporation to feel they trust in the knowledge and integrity of the web hosting provider. After all, a reliable and dynamic website is vital for customer loyalty. There are a number of key essential features to look out for that help ensure value for money and reduce the risk of choosing an under par website host.

Acquisition and installation

A managed host should provide a dedicated server package that caters to the client's specific requirements. It is vital to ensure the server provider can offer the kind of scalability and bandwidth the organization requires.

What services are included?

Some services are included in the monthly fee and some are additional. It is also important that a host can react quickly to implement and install new requirements for one-off special projects.

Performance guarantees

The major managed website hosts now commonly offer 99.99% network and data-centre power uptime. This is only possible if the host has an adequate power back-up system in place and a dedicated team of support and monitoring staff.

Help and support

Many of the top managed servers offer 24 hour help and support, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. One way to test the support desk is to search the various review forums online, which have endless customer reviews with honest accounts of their experiences with a provider. An essential consideration is whether the host provides a dedicated support team. If not, it is likely you'll spend ages on hold getting through to a different customer support worker every time. The ideal situation is direct access to a dedicated service representative who only works with a handful of accounts.

Hardware replacement time

The fastest offers on the market are for hardware replacement within 15 minutes of a failure, with more companies offering replacement within one hour.

Premium brand hardware

Hardware failure is still one of the largest causes of IT service failure and use of premium brand hardware is a must with the inclusion of RAID, which provides two or more redundant disks in the event of failure.

Application monitoring

One key feature of a managed dedicated server is the regular monitoring of the website, network, and server to ensure optimum performance.

Regular data back-up

Regular data back-ups are vital to protect website and customer information in the event of crashes.

Security monitoring

The host should be responsible for keeping updated on all of the latest security updates to ensure all reasonable steps are put in place to prevent a security breach. In the case of lost data, the host should be able to react quickly to recover lost information and prevent compromising customer security.

Power efficiency

One final consideration is to analyse the power efficiency of the managed server provider. Nowadays customers judge companies on their ability to minimize the impact they have on the environment. By selecting a server provider which aims to cut its energy consumption as much as possible and use renewable energy sources is a positive public relations exercise for any corporation.