To start with, you probably want to know all of the kinds of hosting that are available to you. How do they compare when it comes to security, expertise, included services, cost and value? This is just the beginning of the questions, but it's a good starting point for us to explain the differences between what we do, and what other types of providers do or don't do.

The descriptions below are meant to give you a general understanding of the hosting landscape. To make sure you are getting the hosting solution that's right for your business, we suggest that you ask us or any provider lots of questions.



Managed Hosting /man·aged hōst·ing/

A more advanced type of dedicated server hosting (see below), with extended support and management delivering system-level administration and support, comprehensive Internet infrastructure and extensive services that relieve IT departments of many critical, but expensive responsibilities.

In a managed hosting environment, the provider owns the data centers, the network, the server and other devices, and is responsible for deploying, maintaining and monitoring them. The customer retains full control of their operating systems and applications. This balance of responsibilities allows for levels of security, scalability and uptime that far exceed basic dedicated hosting and other hosting options.

Service typically includes: Dedicated devices, advanced monitoring, load balancing, managed security, data storage, managed backup, premium bandwidth, service level guarantees and industry-leading technical expertise. Rackspace offers traditional Managed Hosting as well as managed Dedicated Virtual Servers.




Dedicated Hosting /ded·i·cat·ed hōst·ing/

This form of hosting allows customers to lease pre-configured, dedicated equipment and connectivity from the provider. Offering greater flexibility than shared hosting and less responsibility than colocation hosting, the customer generally retains control over their hosting environment and choice of their operating system. The provider, however, remains responsible for hardware and network administration.

Service typically includes: Dedicated devices, server monitoring, unmanaged networking and storage equipment and complete data center support. Rackspace Managed Hosting is designed to alleviate the strain on finances and human resources that's common with dedicated hosting.




Cloud Hosting /cloud hōst·ing/

The Cloud is a type of hosting architecture that allows computing resources to be consumed as a service via the Internet. Typically, cloud environments are able add or even remove resources like CPU cycles and memory and network storage as needed. Even Infrastructure services like load balancing and traffic shaping, security, intelligent caching along with dedicated computing platforms for performance analysis, monitoring and reporting scale with the environment.

The bottom line is that cloud architectures have the ability scale to suit user demand and traffic spikes quickly. Developers don't have to constantly re-engineer their environment and cost structures to handle peak loads. Businesses don't have to wrestle with the underlying infrastructure and core technologies or the day-to-day operational, performance and scalability issues of their platform. Instead, they can truly focus their resources on developing their applications and sites.

Service typically includes: Scalable capacity and interface to the cloud service Rackspace currently provides two cloud hosting services through The Rackspace Cloud, it's Cloud Hosting division: Cloud Sites™ (for site and database hosting) and Cloud Files™ (for file storage hosting).




Shared Hosting /shared hōst·ing/

This is the most basic and the most inexpensive of hosting alternatives. With shared hosting, numerous customers host their websites or applications on the same server, sharing the cost of an Internet connection that's generally faster and more secure than dial-up connections. Because the resource is shared, server performance is impacted and security is easier to compromise.

Service typically includes: A range of services are normally bundled, including disk space, bandwidth, basic monitoring and pop email accounts. Rackspace does not offer shared hosting.




Colocation Hosting /co·lo·cat·ion hōst·ing/

For company's that desire complete control over their server, colocation hosting is a common alternative over doing everything in-house. The colocation provider usually only offers space for devices on a rack along with low performance bandwidth. The customer is responsible for everything else—purchasing, configuring, deploying and maintaining the physical hardware (servers, firewalls, etc.), software and the operating system.

Service typically includes: Physical space within the datacenter (e.g. a rack), power, internet connectivity and basic server availability monitoring. Rackspace Managed Colocation allows the OS and device control without the responsibilities, inconveniences and expenses that come with the network, data center and physical devices, unlike colocation hosting.

• View a Quick Glossary of Hosting Industry Jargon