Even if you have hosted on a dedicated server before, you may not know all the dedicated server terminology out there. One of the downsides to technology is one of its best features as well – it is ever-changing. This means that what you knew yesterday won’t be the same as what you’ll need to learn tomorrow. So here are some helpful dedicated server terms you should know when choosing a reliable, affordable dedicated web host.

Access – Microsoft-based applicable that helps you create, edit, and maintain databases. If you’re a web developer running in the Windows environment, this is what you use to manage online MS SQL databases.

Apache – The most common Linux web server in the world. Okay, I’m being melodramatic but it’s incredibly popular and very powerful, secure, and best of all free!

Co-Location – If you want to own your own dedicated server but aren’t confident that you can host your site using your own internet connection or power supply, co-location assures you own the hardware (the server) and the web hosting provider supplies the rack to store the server and the internet connection to keep your website up and online.

IIS – IIS stands for Internet Information Server and is Microsoft’s branded server software. Just like Apache is the most popular web server for Linux, IIS is the #1 choice for Windows Dedicated Hosting.

Load-Balancing – If you are running a website like Myspace, Digg, or Facebook, odds are you already know what load balancing is. If you plan to create a website like this, you need load balancing 100%! Load balancing merely means distributing the traffic and resources evenly across two or more dedicated servers to increase and optimize performance.

Managed Hosting – The best idea for new dedicated hosters, managed hosting assures that your web host will take care of technical support, setup, maintenance, and monitoring of your dedicated server.

RAID – Also known as Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and if you say it that way, it sounds more like what it is. Basically, RAIDing your dedicated server will help you store data across a number of hard drives. If one disk fails, the other will restore the site or database so you don’t lose data.

Telnet – Just like SSH, a command line interface that allows you to communicate across your web server.

Upstream Provider – A large ISP (internet service provider) that provides dedicated web hosts with reliable internet access. However, the word ‘upstream’ actually can mean how fast or reliable the data connection is between two ISPs.

You’re thinking of ordering a brand new, shiny dedicated server. You’ve got your domain name, you’ve chosen a reliable dedicated hosting provider like Lunarpages, and you’ve found the best dedicated hosting coupon available. So…now what?

Have you decided what kind of dedicated server you are going to be running? Look over these fun options to find the best solution for your dedicated server hosting plan!

Media Server Hosting

This is becoming a very popular choice for dedicated server hosting, as media websites like YouTube.com or social network sites like MySpace.com utilize media in incredible ways. With media server hosting, you are running a website primarily to serve streaming or live media content to your audience. You can store music and video files to stream on the web using Flash Media, Windows Media, or even Microsoft Silverlight, the hottest technology for media server hosting.

Make sure you choose a dedicated web hosting provider who allows media server hosting and can offer competitive amounts of storage space and data transfer bandwidth. This way, you’ll never have to worry.

Game Server Hosting

Do you like multiplayer games? Need to host your game for players around the world to be able to join in? You can create a whole world and community on your dedicated server by running it as a game server. Depending on the popularity of your game or games, you may need to cluster or join many servers together to create a network of interlocked dedicated servers. These servers provide the massive amounts of bandwidth necessary to have game players from all over the world connecting to your website! Game server hosting is extremely popular and you can make a ton of money through advertising and player upgrades.

Social Network Server Hosting

If you like MySpace or Facebook, you can create a website of your own to match them or even make a better site. Imagine creating something as popular as Myspace…right on your own server!! This means you have control over membership payments, you can deploy advertisements and sell ad space, and you can collect the revenue from partnering with other companies, etc.

Hosting a social networking website means an incredibly heavy load on your web server, so make sure you choose a reliable dedicated hosting provider who can handle the CPU resources, bandwidth, storage space, and even features necessary for these massive web hosting accounts. You should choose a dedicated server hosting company who can allow you to grow as your website does and who won’t limit you to ordering 10 servers if and when you need them.

Other Dedicated Hosting Options

Chat server hosting, forum server hosting, blog web hosting, personal web hosting, and even adult web hosting are all options for your dedicated server. Remember, you can also run your dedicated server as a web or database server as well, so if your aim is just a simple, clean, dedicated server hosting solution for your business or ecommerce website, you can’t go wrong.

Although also a bug-killing insecticide, RAID in dedicated server hosting terms stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (also known as Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Drives or Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks/Drives) and is an important aspect of your dedicated server hosting plan.

Especially if you are running a large, data-driven website that requires a larger disk or hard drive storage space than normal, you can use RAID technology to combine multiple hard drives to increase the amount of available storage space for your pictures, videos, music, files, documents, and more. RAID is also said to increase the redundancy and reliability of your server, offering better general performance of your servers and bigger hard drive volume through collection.

There are Standard RAID Levels (from 0 to 6) which can accomplish the RAID in alternative methods, and there are also Nested and Non-Standard Levels. RAID can be software or hardware based and is normally split between three major concepts called mirroring, striping, and error correction.

Whereas a web server’s primary function is to run a website, a database server’s primary function is to run a database. So if you have a large website with a mass of inventory, products, contacts, or other information that must be stored and easily accessed by an application or web server, a database server is your number one priority.

You can purchase a dedicated server hosting package specifically to run a database server or you can purchase multiple servers – one for the web server and one for the database server. This second option is more common, as the kinds of websites that require dedicated server hosting normally need both a website and a place to store the information accessed on that site, like customer payment information, mailing lists, usernames, profiles, etc. Think of these multiple clustered servers as kinds of Myspace-like websites – the general web server produces all the profiles and shows you the pictures, videos, and music so you can access it, but every time you click on Myspace.com, you are accessing the database server that stores all that information to remember your usernames, profile information, images, videos, etc.