You may be wondering why we would be talking about “small business web hosting” on a dedicated server website. You may think to yourself, if you’re only a small business, why would you need such a big server, storage space, RAM, or bandwidth?

Well, our answer to you is that small businesses can be just as resource-intensive as fortune 100 corporations! It might surprise you to know that millions of small businesses are purchasing dedicated servers every day, because even if they appear to be a small business to some spheres, in their local or national markets, they play like the big boys.

Think, for example, about your local supermarket. Hundreds if not thousands of people shop there daily. Maybe the supermarket has a couple sister supermarkets placed around the county or nearby cities, or maybe it’s a chain supermarket but only for the Eastern, Western, or Midwestern United States. If they need a website, they are not going to be using shared web hosting – they are going to be sitting on a dedicated server, because those thousands of customers will be visiting their website to print directions, get contact information, request the newsletter, or search for deals and discounts.

Small businesses may be ‘small’ by nature, but they can eat up resources just like the big boys. Consider the following things as a small business owner:

* Do you have more than 100 employees?
* Do you require a custom Content Management System to be developed for your website management needs?
* Do you have more than 100 customers?
* Do you offer more than 50 products? Or if you offer services, do these services include web-based services like email, management, design, SEO, or logo creation?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should consider dedicated server hosting.

WordPress Web Hosting is one of the most popular choices for new webmasters these days, but it is also a viable choice for large enterprise bloggers and popular websites for affiliate websites, ecommerce, and more. As most bloggers will eventually outgrow Shared WebHosting, customers often upgrade to a dedicated server to host their WordPress website.

Even though WordPress is a blogging platform, most users these days use it as a content management system, as it easily integrates pictures, text, videos, ecommerce, and more into your site. It’s also incredibly easy to learn. It’s biggest competitor, Joomla, is best-suited for larger websites, while WordPress is easier to learn and adapt to. Both Joomla web hosting and WordPress webhosting are valuable choices if you are new to the website hosting world, as content management systems are becoming more and more popular.

The good thing about WordPress Web Hosting is that you have literally millions of incredible templates to work with and there are endless WordPress Theme Design contests that showcase the entries and even offer Free WordPress Themes for download.

Joomla web hosting is becoming a very popular choice for novice and experienced users alike due to its incredible power for maintaining and editing websites. With Joomla, users have an easy way to create websites, because Joomla is a content management system (CMS), a tool that assists in managing your website. CMS web hosting puts you in control of your website’s features, content, etc.

Because Joomla is a CMS, you are able to login to one simple interface to manage all aspects of your website. You can add images, polls, chat scripts, content text, advertising banners, links, music, video, blogs, and more, all from the same easy-to-understand control panel.

Because Joomla is open source or free software, web hosting providers can provide it to you for free via the Fantastico Script Library. With one click, you can install Joomla into your website in any location you’d like – from yourdomain.com to joomla.yourdomain.com, etc. If you have a dedicated server, you can download Joomla from their website instantly and download it yourself in several very simple steps. Once installed, you can immediately start using it.

With Joomla web hosting, you can maintain your website with ease.

CPanel is arguably the most powerful control panel on the planet when it comes to dedicated server hosting. This is why it’s also the most popular choice for webmasters these days. If you’re unfamiliar with cPanel’s web hosting technology, you should definitely research this amazing control panel before you add it to your dedicated server. But cPanel works with a variety of really cool programs, not the least of which is the Fantastico Script Library.

What is Fantastico?

Fantastico is a fantastic script library, which is a fancy of way of saying it automates the process of installing really cool software on your server, like blogs, CMS, photo galleries, and more.

Why Fantastico?

Fantastico simplifies the process of installing a blog or other popular software extensions onto your website. Instead of downloading the necessary scripts, then uploading and installing them to your site, then configuring them based on your system, Fantastico allows you to click on a button and the rest is done for you automatically.

What does Fantastico web hosting include?

The better questions is what doesn’t Fantastico web hosting include, because it literally comes with everything you’ll need to get your website up and running in no time. Here’s a brief rundown of what comes with Fantastico by default:

• Blogs – including WordPress!
• Content Management Systems – including Joomla, Mambo, and Post-Nuke!
• Ticketing Systems
• FAQ Systems
• Chatroom Software
• Forum Software – including SMF!
• Ecommerce Software – including osCommerce!
• Image Galleries
• …and more!!

When you purchase your Windows or Linux Dedicated Server, you have the option to add the Plesk Control Panel, one of the most powerful control panels on the planet. And if you do decide to add Plesk as your control panel, you also have the ability to add the Plesk Power Pack, a series of amazing add-on modules similar to cPanel’s Fantastico Script Library.

So what do you get with your dedicated server and the Plesk Power Pack?

• Application Pack – With the Plesk Power Pack’s Application Pack, you can pretty much do everything you need, all from one simple administrative panel. The Application Pack comes complete with the Mambo Content Management System (CMS), a Website Builder Tool to create dynamic websites, support for post-Nuke Web Hosting, osCommerce Ecommerce software for ecommerce web hosting, phpBB software, picture gallery software, phpBook for guestbooks, bbClone for website statistics, and gtChat for chat web hosting.

• Anti-Spam Solutions – Plesk’s Power Pack utilizes SpamAssassin’s Anti-Spam solutions software to eliminate spam forever.

• Tomcat Web Hosting – Tomcat java servlet support allows you to manage and deploy Tomcat web applications and run Tomcat’s JSP web hosting.

• ColdFusion Web Hosting – Administrators can configure and enable/disable ColdFusion right within the hosting panel. Perfect for ColdFusion web hotsing.

• MS SQL Hosting – Need the world’s most popular and powerful relational database manage system? You got it with Plesk Power Pack’s support for MS SQL web hosting. You can deploy and manage MS SQL databases on local and remote instances. Your Windows Web Hosting solution is complete. Also perfect for Windows Server 2008 Hosting!

• Multi-Level Helpdesk – Now you can run your own HelpDesk solution for answering tickets and support inquiries via a powerful integration system within Plesk’s Power Pack.

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.

Dedicated server hosting can take many formats, from simple web servers designed just to showcase your products and services to complex ecommerce or social media streaming servers that are clustered between several powerful dedicated servers. Really, it’s ultimately up to you what you want to do with your dedicated web hosting server – just make sure the technology you are paying for is supporting your dedicated hosting ideas.

So what is a media server? And what is media server hosting?

A media server is really exactly what is sounds like – a server that houses media and can stream live content for video, audio, or any media format. Media servers are useful for adult web hosting, social network web hosting, game server hosting, popular band web hosting, or trendy podcast web hosting. If you use your server as a media server, you can stream your videos in live feeds or offer your podcasts on demand! Media servers are useful for ecommerce websites as well, to put you ahead of your game.

What can you do with media server hosting?

* Run Windows Media live and Microsoft Silverlight instantly
* Stream Flash Content
* Stream Quicktime Content
* Real Networks Streaming
* Live Event Video/Audio Streaming – perfect for adult websites, television stations, radio shows, bands or orchestras, religious organizations, or any other live event website

If you are running an online business, you need the most reliable dedicated hosting for your business web hosting plan, and that can be hard to find.

But what is business web hosting?

Business web hosting and ecommerce web hosting are fairly interchangeable website hosting terms, though there is a slight difference. In the realm of dedicated server hosting, business web hosting just means that you are using your dedicated server to host your business website. And as far as ecommerce web hosting goes, this just means you are actually selling a product on your website, whereas with business web hosting, you can simply run your business online or produce a business portfolio, contact information, products and services offered, etc.

As you set up your online business or ecommerce web hosting website, you are likely going to look into a dedicated IP address and/or an SSL certificate and merchant account if you plan to sell goods or services via your website. Make sure you know what you need for ecommerce web hosting so that there are no surprises down the road.

Make sure you choose reliable dedicated hosting from a dedicated server hosting provider that is well-known, respected, and affordable.

When you are involved with Dedicated Server Hosting, there are many considerations that need to be made. There’s the cost, certainly, which needs to be looked at, as well as the operating system you’re going to use, applications you’ll need to install, whether or not to use a control panel (and if so, which one?), and one of the most important for incredibly large websites is the addition of load balancing.

So what is load balancing? Load balancing your dedicated server hosting allows you to evenly distribute your traffic and reduce the load on one single server by serving it up between two (or more) separate servers. You link your multiple servers together using a load balancer, which takes the request from your customers or the user who is accessing your website and forwards it to the appropriate server.

So why is load balancing useful? Think about this – you have an ecommerce web hosting website where it is imperative you are online 24/7 and you must schedule downtime for a software upgrade, you can divert your traffic to your other server(s) so that your traffic never experiences any downtime at all as you do your upgrades. Or, if for some reason your web server crashes, you will have a means of backup so that your website can continue to provide 24/7 support.

Having an ecommerce website is a big responsibility for any webmaster, and oftentimes you need to do a lot of research in order to get started. Here’s a quick list and brief description of the things you’ll need to have in order to start your ecommerce website.

* Dedicated IP Address

This is necessary in order to get an SSL Certificate, as only one site (yours) will be using this IP. In a shared server environment, many websites might share the same IP address, while if you are running on a dedicated server, you’ll likely need your own dedicated IP anyway. Purchasing one ahead of time will save you time and money in the long run.

* SSL Certificate

This certificate secures your website and all purchases made within its pages, so that each transaction is safe, secure, and fully encrypted. Without an SSL certificate, your customers’ critical payment information could be shared across the internet, as their information will not be encrypted without one. Having an SSL certificate also normally gives you a “trust logo”, which assures your visitors and all potential and future customers that you are a safe and reliable seller.

* Reliable Web Hosting

Whether you are searching for shared, dedicated, windows, or VPS hosting plans, our recommended web hosting provider, Lunarpages Web Hosting, has all the solutions under one roof. Having a reliable web host to rely on will assure your business saves money and your web presence is only 24/7.

* Payment Gateway

Finally, in order to actually process monetary transactions on your website, you need a payment gateway. Payment gateways take the internet transaction and process it into actual funds that are deposited wherever you want them.