In-house server administration is one of the most resource consuming activities in many companies, from small family businesses to the largest corporations. But, while blue-chip corporations with multi-million dollar IT budgets can afford sinking money, time, and human resources in extensive in-house data centers, small to medium businesses (SMB) and freelance professionals cannot afford the luxury of investing in pricey internal administration services.
Managed hosting services have emerged as the solution to the conundrum faced by countless small business owners and IT managers: how to keep server administration expenditures in check, while ensuring a reliable functioning of the hosted websites or web applications. Currently, the market is flooded with managed hosting offers from various providers. Clients can find it difficult to decide which hosting company provides the best total cost of ownership and return on investment. Some providers advertise managed hosting services packages at unrealistically low prices; others do offer managed services but the cost of the service is prohibitive.
Clients can identify the best option for their web hosting needs only through careful research. But doing your research is certainly worth it when it comes to purchasing a managed web hosting solution. In some situations, outsourcing server management to a specialized managed hosting provider can decrease IT costs up to 60% when compared to in-house hosting. In the following article, we show you how moving to a managed hosting solution can help you cut costs and free up personnel for other tasks. We also discuss outsourcing mail server and database server administration, two areas where savings can be substantial. Let’s start with a quick overview of the costs implied by hosting a website or web application in-house.
What makes internal server administration so expensive?
Using an in-house server administrator can be more expensive than you think. The most significant category of costs is salaries and benefits. Let’s assume that you only hire one dedicated server administrator. The average salary for a dedicated server admin varies between $70,000 and $100,000 per year, depending on the experience and skills of the employee. Add taxes, insurance, and benefits and you can easily reach $120,000 per year.
Even if you don’t hire a full-time server admin and distribute the workload to another employee or do it yourself, the costs are still significant. And you need to take into account that server administration will prevent you or your employee from working on more value-adding tasks. It’s hard to quantify the loss of productivity generated in this situation, but you should nevertheless keep it in mind.
As you can see, the costs of having an in-house server administrator can add up to thousands of dollars per month. In contrast, a high-end managed hosting solution from a reputable provider costs only a few hundred dollars per month, depending on the Service Level Agreement and the provider.
Why are managed hosting services more affordable than an in-house administration?
The answer to this question is apparent when you consider the fact that managed hosting providers work on a much larger scale and are therefore more efficient and productive.
The economies of scale work in favor of managed web hosting providers allowing them to offer cheaper managed services when compared with in-house server administration. The professionals working for your managed hosting provider are in charge of several servers at a time, which brings down the cost per server and allows hosting companies to offer comprehensive managed hosting service packages at low costs.
Managed web hosting service providers employ well-trained professionals with years of experience under their belt. This allows the technical team to execute common administration tasks in minutes, rather than hours. Professional hosting solutions providers have monitoring systems in place that let them evaluate the functioning of the server 24/7. The professionals in charge of your managed hosting solution can quickly find problems in the system and identify their root cause much faster than an in-house server administrator.
By quantifying the total expenses associated with hiring a full-time (or even part-time) server administrator and comparing it with the cost of a quality managed hosting solution, you can see that managed solutions have a significantly better total cost of ownership. In some cases, the cost savings can reach 60%, giving customers a much needed edge over the competition.
Managed services are more reliable than in-house administration solutions
Opting for a managed web hosting solution is not only more affordable than hiring an in-house professional, but more productive and efficient.
In many real-world situations, the task of managing the web server is a side job for an employee who usually has many other tasks to complete. For this reason, system administrators are often overwhelmed with responsibilities and have little time to properly monitor the functioning of the servers. Even if the server administrator has the time required to monitor and maintain the servers, in most cases the monitoring only takes place during to the eight hours spent at work. If a crisis appears after normal service hours, the server administrator needs to return to the workplace to identify the source of the problem. And in some cases, this can take hours, extending the downtime period.
By contrast, with managed web hosting services, solving a problem can be as easy as picking up the phone and calling support. Quality managed web hosting providers have teams of technicians on guard 24 hours a day, ready to intervene when problems arise. By choosing a managed web hosting solution, you get better availability and better overall performance of your website.
Moreover, the professionals in charge of your managed server usually have years of experience in all aspects of IT, including development, networking, server configuration, security, and software deployment. As a result, your managed hosting service provider can assist you with most common problems, from script installation, to port opening, and firewall policies.
WebECS improves return on investment by offering a better service for less money
Managed web hosting services enable companies to focus on their main business model, rather than invest resources and funds in server administration activities. By moving to a managed hosting solution from WebECS, customers can decrease server administration costs by up to 60% when compared to in-house server administration.
WebECS employs some of the brightest server administrators in the hosting industry, so you can rest assured that your web site or web application is in good hands. No matter what requirements you have for your dedicated server or VPS, the WebECS technical team is up to the challenge. Moreover, your machine is permanently monitored, so if a problem occurs in the middle of the night, you don’t need to wait until the next morning to have it fixed.
To learn more about the fully managed web hosting solutions or to order a managed hosting plan, please call 1-888-993-2327 or visit www.webecs.com.
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