With the effects of the economic downturn still being felt, many companies are looking for ways to cut hosting costs. Because of this, there has been a large increase in demand for colocation services.

While renting data center space is still expensive, it’s cheaper in the short-run then building a data center. Colocation also has the benefits of providing server space on demand. As IT analyst Lydia Leong aptly put it, “Colocation is where you go when you need space right now.”

Leong also stressed the importance of searching nationally for the best colo provider. “The greater your willingness to conduct a national search, the lower your costs will be,” she said. “We have providers who are terrible in one facility and great in another city. The difference is often the data center manager.”

Source | Data Center Knowledge

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Load balancing is used by large websites to spread out a computing load between multiple servers. A site might be load balanced between only two servers, or perhaps even several hundred! While these servers are expensive, the cost of many low-power servers is much less than a large mega-server.

The picture above (click for full resolution) shows how the Wikimedia Project’s servers are configured. As you can see, it uses more than 100 servers! Each one is specialized for a certain use. The dark green boxes represent Apache web servers and the light green cache servers. The blue are load balancers– servers that tell the other systems what tasks to perform.

Most load balancing setups aren’t this complex, but if you have a large website that is quickly outgrowing a very powerful server, the technology might be worth looking into.

Photo | Wikimedia

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As a general rule, European data center space is more expensive compared to the United States. Those hoping for cheaper server rates in Europe will be disappointed, however, as a recent report published a consulting company predicts an overall increase in server prices in the region.

The price increase will mainly be caused by an increase in demand, according to the document. Between 2010 and 2015, demand for server room space is expected to go up by 70%. While of course capacity will be expanded to meet the needs of consumers, providers will surely raise their dedicated server prices to match the market.

Data center revenue is expected to double over the five-year period, though, so now might be a good time to invest in one.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Don't expect European servers to get cheaper any time soon

Colocation is a dedicated hosting solution growing in popularity where the customer owns the server and rents space from a data center.

Colocating a server is a great way to save money, but you may not have a data center nearby. So what if you have to ship your server to a facility?

If you live in the region, it might very well be worth your time to drive to the data center and set the server up yourself– even if you have to travel a long distance. You can make sure everything is the way you want it, and ensure your little baby is in good hands.

If the facility is too far away to visit in person, shipping is naturally your only option. This is fine, so long as you do it properly. Just as you would with anything else important, use a reliable carrier and require a signature upon delivery. Be sure you can track the package as well. Last but not least, a good amount of protective packaging and insurance are a must!

Continue reading: What is the best way to ship a colocated server?

A caveat of the sub-£30 dedicated servers some providers are now offering is hidden fees. One of the nastier ones is a charge for server reboots. If your server needs a simple restart, something most hosts do for free could become very expensive.

I ran into a provider once that offered a dedicated server for only $20 a month, but charged $30 for reboots! After discovering this, it became clear how the host turned a profit. It isn’t unreasonable at all to expect a server to need a restart for whatever reason at least once a month. If experiencing technical difficulties, three times in one week wouldn’t be unheard of.

So for a $20 server, a customer could end up shelling out $110 a month. Always read the fine print before renting a server.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Does your dedicated host charge for reboots?

When I signed up for my first dedicated server three years ago, my provider handed out IPs as if they grew on trees. Just for signing up, I received 5 and was allowed unlimited add-on addresses. At one point, I had around 12 IPs on one box. Many hosts have followed this practice in order to stay competitive, but don’t expect it to continue much longer.

The fact of the matter is, few have made the switch to IPv6 and we are slated to run out of IPv4 addresses in less than two years. Until the situation is resolved, hosts will have to be much more conservative with their IPs or risk running out.

Expect free add-on addresses to become a thing of the past. Additional IPs will probably always be available, but at a cost. The days of indulgent IP allocation are near their end.

Photo | steved_np3

Continue reading: Don't expect hosts to continue being generous with IPs

When friends ask me about signing up with a dedicated or shared web host, one question I am invariably asked is: “What’s the cheapest provider?”

Frugality is an important virtue to master, but when it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for. You may be tempted to sign up with the cheapest option available, but down the road you will find yourself very unhappy.

Ultra-low cost providers are able to offer the prices they do by skimping on services and support. Technical issues and general questions may take days to be resolved, and handled through a support ticket system or email only. You may find that regardless of how much bandwidth and storage you are using, only one domain per hosting account is allowed. Even worse, hidden charges could drive up your monthly payments.

The best way to go is to choose a host that charges a higher price, but doesn’t skimp on quality. Good service can be had for under £10 a month. It’s a small price to pay for keeping your sites running 24/7.

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Cloud computing is quickly gaining traction in the corporate world, and, according to cloud computing manager Emil Sayegh, it could drive shared web hosts out of business:

Over the next for five years, shared hosting as we know it will be made obsolete by the cloud. I firmly believe it. What we need to think about is an environment in which cloud computing and dedicated servers coexist.

Cloud computing is great in that it only charges users for the server power they use. That’s why rapidly expanding companies with unpredictable IT needs love it. But the truth is, the average hosting customer’s needs are very predictable.

A typical shared hosting user probably only utilizes 500 MB of space at most and under 3 GB of bandwidth a month. Hosting companies know what to expect from their users and most website traffic rarely fluctuates enough to take advantage of cloud computing features.

Sayegh is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. I think introducing the cloud to a shared hosting environment would simply add too much complexity and I don’t see it being adopted en masse by hosts any time soon.

Continue reading: Will cloud computing replace shared hosting?

IP exhaustion, or the increasing scarcity of the IPv4 addresses needed for the web to function, has been a problem for quite some time. ISPs are being pushed to move to IPv6, but thus far few have budged. As things currently stand, the current supply of IP addresses is slated to dry up by 2011.

What does that mean for you? Online news site bMighty.com posted an insightful article on that topic yesterday.

The consensus is that since large blocks of addresses are owned by registries around the world, some places will run out before others. A good many server users need dedicated IPs to run, and as addresses become harder and harder to come by, those providers with IPs still left to distribute could jack up prices. The operating costs for hosts will go up, too, and no doubt they will pass this expense onto their customers. Meanwhile, those of us requiring dedicated IPs for our web server software to function will end up in price wars trying to snag the few addresses left.

Continue reading: Could IP exhaustion drive up the cost of hosting?