A Review of Host Gator Dedicated Hosting Services

Host Gator is a company, which is relatively new in the web-hosting sector. In it’s as of yet short lifespan, the company has gained quite an impressive rank of followers. The company has made various efforts to get this reputation so fast. The company has more than a 100,000 shared hosting clients. It is also a leader in hosting reseller market. Similarly the dedicated hosting services of Host Gator are the best n the business. While the service is not the cheapest in the market, it is easily among the best services available. The main dedicated hosting plan takes an all you can eat approach and when considered as a whole, the price would not hurt.

Unique Benefits

• Server management is a breeze. Host Gator dedicated hosting comes with a free cPanel control panel This is unlike most other web host who would charge you for the server licenses of Cpanel.
• Linux platform hosting comes with Fantastico. This solution provides you more than 52 great scripts. You can use these scripts for personal hosting or you can offer them to your clients.
• As this is a dedicated hosting service, there are no limitations. You can create any number of domains, sub domains, mail accounts, FTP accounts and MySQL databases. You can even start your own small web hosting company.
• HostGator provides you self-service options with WHM/Cpanel.
• There is no contract in this service; you get a monthly billing cycle.

Key Features

• You have the option to custom design your server. For non-technical savvy Host Gator can provide design assistance.
• You can choose from Intel Pentium 4 and Dual Xeon processors.
• Host Gator provides a cPanel license with every server, which is well worth the extra premium.
• Host Gator has also included eCommerce features. You get SSL encryption. 3 kinds of shopping cart scripts are included in Fantastico.
• To make site creation easier, SiteStudio website builder add-on is provided for $2 per site per month.

Editor's Comments:
The reputation of Host Gator as one of the best hosting resellers in the market has helped establish itself as a great option in the market of dedicated hosting as well. The prices of this company are among the most competitive. But this is not all. Host Gator makes sure that you get the best solutions in the market. This is the reason that you get both cPanel and Fantastico. There are a number of other companies who would charge you for this. The services provided by Host Gator are ideal for companies who want a web presence or businesses that want to run cloud based mission critical applications. Host Gator also provides excellent customer support.

Uptime Guarantee:
Host Gator claims that the company can offer you 99.99% network uptime. In case the service goes down, you get refunded on the basis of downtime. Further reliability ensures that there is continuous monitoring of the system services. While the company claims 99.99% uptime, in most cases, it is 100% uptime because of HSRP/BGP.

Basics - What you need to know
Host Gator has its data centers based in Texas. The data center in Dallas is called The Planet and the one in Fort Worth is called Savvis. The data centers are equipped with superb security systems. There are a number of HVAC units. Smoke detection systems are also very effective. Sprinkler systems are also among some of the most effective. Connectivity to the data center is maintained through a network that is certified by Cisco Systems. The infrastructure includes 10 backbone providers, routers and switches from Juniper and Cisco Systems. Redundancy is available through OC 48 SONET connections. Apart from this there is power backup supplied using TXU electrical power grids. Powerware UPS systems increase the reliability of the systems. Access to the facility is managed using Northern Proximity systems. There is no physical access to the server. The client does get root access to the server.

Service Offerings:
The company provides you round the clock observation and management of your servers. Security updates are delivered to your server really fast, a max 20 hours after the company releases them.

Sample Server Plans
• Basic: 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1024 MB memory, 80 GB hard drive, 1500 GB bandwidth priced at $174/month
• Pro: 2.4 GHz Dual Xeon processor, 4096 MB memory, 2x73 GB SCSI drive, 1500 GB bandwidth priced at $374/month

Customer Profiles
• Web Hosting Servers & Resellers who want to run a small hosting company
• Data Storage for offsite backup
• Application Service Providers who want to run mission critical applications
• Online gaming server