If you’ve ever searched for a web hosting plan, you’d have come across most hosting options being offered in two types — managed and unmanaged.
Managed web hosting of any sort (Managed VPS, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Cloud Server Hosting, etc.) essentially refers to an additional service that a web hosting company offers where the company will take care of maintaining the server for a small fee.
Unmanaged hosting, of course, is if the hosting company doesn’t manage your hosting plan. They simply offer the hosting space and resources that you need. The responsibility of day-to-day management of the server rests with you.
Managed hosting is especially useful if you aren’t an expert in hosting or servers. The hosting company will take care of all server related tasks for you. Even if you know your way around hosting, managed hosting is useful if you don’t want to fiddle around with server settings all the time and instead want to concentrate on growing your business.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud Hosting is a method of hosting where the data of your website is stored across multiple servers, rather than just one. Cloud Hosting offers greater data security and superior reliability when compared to the more traditional forms of website hosting.
Managed Cloud Hosting services are where the Cloud Hosting server is managed by the hosting company. Everything from server upkeep, server maintenance, timely upgrades, installing patches, ensuring security, etc. is managed by the web hosting provider.
Unmanaged Cloud Hosting, on the other hand, is where the basic Cloud Hosting Server and hosting resources are provided by the hosting company and the site owner has to take care of the day-to-day maintenance, general server upkeep, upgrades, security, and so on.
While Managed Cloud Hosting is slightly costlier than an unmanaged plan, it offers a range of benefits to people who do not have the time or the expertise to manage a server, thereby making Managed Hosting a cost-effective solution. Following are some of the prominent advantages that Managed Cloud Server Hosting has to offer over Unmanaged Cloud Hosting.
Advantages of Managed Cloud Hosting
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Management of the Server
Server monitoring refers to periodic, repetitive checking of all files in a server to see if there are any potential backdoors for hackers to exploit. It is a critical, continuous task that system admins are tasked with.
Sabotage isn’t the only reason that might lead to server failure, of course. System admins also check if there are any other faults. These may include out-of-date software, hardware wear and tear problems, or even network failure issues.
When you subscribe to a managed hosting plan, trained professionals will take care of all this for you. System admins use a variety of professional tools to constantly monitor your server so that you don’t have to worry about it.
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Advanced Security Setup by the Experts
Cyber attacks are on the rise. In fact, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the number of attacks has actually shot up quite sharply. Unfortunately, with cyber attacks, small businesses are just as vulnerable as huge corporations but have significantly smaller budgets to deal with the problem.
One way to better protect your website would be to go for a managed hosting plan. Hosting companies have a number of cybersecurity specialists working for them. These experts will run security audits on your website, update your OS, filter spam content, deploy and maintain firewalls, and do much more to ensure that your website is thoroughly protected at all times.
While you can manage your website’s security too, the advantage that a managed hosting plan offers is that a web hosting company’s security checks are often more comprehensive and are performed by trained professionals with tons of experience who will know exactly what to look for.
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Enterprise-level Backup and Recovery Solutions
Backups are crucial for a website. Anyone who has been in this industry long enough will tell you that everyone loses data at some point. Data loss does not always happen because of a hack. You may lose data to far more innocent causes like a hard disk failure.
Every website needs multiple backups. Unfortunately, creating and maintaining backups isn’t exactly easy. Managed hosting services often offer backup and disaster recovery too.
Web hosting companies use enterprise-level automatic backup software that creates, stores and protects backups automatically. These applications will also recover these backups instantly when you need them. Web hosting companies also have a lot of people at hand who can monitor these tasks closely and fix any problems that may arise.
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Cost-efficient Hosting Platform
Now, this might seem a bit counterintuitive given that all Managed Cloud Hosting plans are priced higher than Unmanaged Cloud Hosting ones. However, if you were to hire a third-party expert to do all the above-mentioned tasks, it’d cost you significantly more.
Managed hosting plans are slightly more expensive than unmanaged hosting plans, but they offer a whole host of services, all performed by trained professionals with years of experience. So, when you weigh the services you’re getting against the price, managed hosting works out to be quite inexpensive.
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Ability to Focus on Your Business
The main aim and goal of any small business is to grow. As a website owner, chances are, that’s your priority too. Naturally, that’s where you should be concentrating the most. However, there are a whole lot of associated, tertiary tasks that come with running a website.
With managed hosting, you don’t have to worry about those tertiary tasks. Instead, you can just concentrate on growing your website. That’s the biggest advantage that managed hosting services offer.
The fact is that you can do most things on your own. However, you’ll need to spend a lot of time and energy learning these tasks and even then, you’ll still be a novice for a long time. However, entrusting these tasks to the experts will give you the time you need to grow your website.
Conclusion
Managed hosting services, while more expensive than unmanaged hosting plans, actually are quite inexpensive or cost-efficient in the long run. You get greater security for your website, better server monitoring, reliable backup and disaster recovery strategy, all managed by experts. Additionally, with experts managing the technical aspects of your hosting platform, you are free to actually focus on your business and work towards making it successful.
HostGator India offers Fully Managed Cloud Server Hosting plans with one-click resource scalability, unmetered Solid State Drive SSD) storage, free SSL Certificate, local caching, pre-installed cPanel control panel and so much more! You’ll find that our hosting services are fast, secure, and completely reliable.
In the long run, these are the hosting fundamentals that’ll hold your website in good stead and allow your website to grow.
