Running a business application – whether it is an ERP system or an e-commerce website, requires taking care of multiple infrastructure aspects including buying and hosting the servers, managing the underlying databases, ensuring seamless network connectivity and keeping a constant eye on how the application is performing.

For an organization, shifting the focus to IT infrastructure can be expensive and can take them away from their core business issues, and this is where managed hosting is an ideal option that delivers value on IT investment.

While many feel managed hosting comes with a huge price tag, its benefits such as reliability, scalability, lower opex and capex, and high performance, make it a cost-effective proposition for businesses than an in-house solution.

What is Managed Hosting and how is it different from those multiple terms floating around in the hosting market like dedicated hosting, shared hosting, and managed hosting? The common aspect among all these terms is they are all about providing the IT infrastructure support, yet they are different in terms of the scope and services covered by them.

Dedicated hosting involves renting a server from a hosting provider. The server is owned by the provider but is fully dedicated to a single customer. Customers can choose from standardized server configurations based on their needs.

Typically, dedicated hosting provider does not offer any administrative services, but as a newly emerging trend, dedicated hosting can include some of the managed services like managed security, managed messaging, etc.

Similarly, Shared Hosting is an offering similar to dedicated hosting, with the difference that servers are shared by multiple customers. This type of hosting is ideal for web hosting or for running some open source applications. Both dedicated and shared hosting come with their own set of limitations. For example, both stop at leasing the server, which means that if one needs to reconfigure the servers frequently based spikes in computing demand, or needs to scale the infrastructure to add multiple applications, then one needs to procure manpower and resources in-house.

Moreover, issues like server downtime, hardware failure, and security issues only add to the concerns and costs. To tackle these issues, there’s a newer, comprehensive category of hosting - Managed Hosting. This is a more complex yet flexible offering that includes infrastructure provisioning, system monitoring, database administration, network and security management, disaster recovery, data backup services, and even application management – all offered at a nominal monthly fee. In managed hosting, the infrastructure may either be owned by the managed hosting provider or by the customer; unlike in dedicated hosting and shared hosting where IT infrastructure is owned by the hosting provider.

The high point of managed hosting is that the managed hosting provider manages all infrastructure issues as well as takes care of all provisioning and configuration tasks without requiring any upfront infrastructure investments by the customer. Most managed hosting providers like NaviSite provide 24x7 infrastructure monitoring and a team of experienced hosting experts to ensure timely detection and resolution of issues.

Managed hosting provider like NaviSite can quickly scale the infrastructure capacity based on changing business needs. And with reliable managed hosting providers like NaviSite, customers get a web-based control panel to get complete control and visibility into the performance of their infrastructure on remote basis.