An Important Consideration when buying Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated server shopping can be overwhelming, since there are lots of things to consider- platform, plan features, and pricing, just to name a few. There are also less obvious considerations that can have a major impact on how successful your choice will be, and one of the biggest is also one of the easiest to answer i.e. is the company privately held or publically traded?
Looking beyond buying shares in a hosting company, (although a successful dedicated server host might look good in your portfolio), it should be a factor in your decision making process. Knowing that a company is public means that a lot of your due diligence has already been done, and done well. Public companies are audited from top to bottom. Not only must the company be financially sound, but everything from personnel to equipment to the overall business plan must undergo a complete evaluation. Public companies have business practices that are fully documented, which might not seem like a big thing, but anyone who has worked in an environment where people make things up as they go along can attest to the benefit of quality documentation.
Public scrutiny is a good thing – that many secretive hosting providers do not understand. Where a privately held company may be accountable to the customers and the business owner, a publically held dedicated server hosting company has another level of accountability to deal with- shareholders and a board of directors. As a customer, your visibility is into what goes on at your managed dedicated hosting provider ends at the website and customer support number. Shareholders and the board of directors on the other hand have much greater visibility into the operations of the company, questionable decisions, performance issues, and anything else that impacts the bottom line is subject to scrutiny by the stockholders.
Other benefits include the fact that a public managed dedicated hosting company is likely to be much larger than privately held competitors, which means as a customer, you enjoy the benefits of an enterprise class infrastructure, in terms of hardware and software, as well as better network peering. A public company is required to make regular financial disclosures, and must comply with a host of government regulations designed to protect shareholders (and which also work in favor of customers). The company history is a matter of verifiable public record- fly by night doesn’t cut it in this arena.
Like most things it comes down to trust. No matter how much research you are able to do on your own, it generally can’t match the ongoing evaluation that a publically held managed dedicated host must pass. Why not put those watchdogs to work for you?
A public hosting provider like NaviSite, Inc., has a long history of providing excellent service, reliable infrastructure, all backed by strong processes. NaviSite is an Approved Host and details on their review are available at: www.FindMyHost.com/NaviSite.
Tags: Approved Host, Dedicated Hosting, Managed Hosting, NaviSite, web hosting
