Traffic Naturally every one of our clients has ambitious targets for attracting high levels of traffic to their site. 500 - 1000 daily hits is fairly average, but some of our clients' sites achieve upwards of 150,000 hits per day. In such a situation, the way to ensure continuous operation of the site with no degradation in performance is to move to a dedicated web server. This will provide for expansion of traffic to upwards of a million hits per day, after which point we can offer a solution of multiple web servers (although none of our clients has yet exceeded the capacity of one dedicated server!)

Processing power Some website components use a lot of the server's processing time, such as very large searchable databases or chat pages. Under these circumstances a separate server ensures that every scrap of free processor cycles is employed for the main web site.

Security Some websites may wish to hold highly confidential data, such as employee salaries, pension information, medical information, or other personal data. This may indicate the need for a web server to which no other company has access. Certain types of downloadable product may indicate the same requirements, such as PIN numbers for special rate phone call usage, or large font or photograph libraries which are commercially very valuable.

Customisation You may have special requirements in the area of programming, perhaps you need to run software which checks the validity of entered serial numbers, or runs a particular graphics package for watermarking photos which people upload to the site. The software may not be suitable for installation on a shared web server, or the software may be proprietory, and thus needs to be additionally protected in this way.

Room101 reserves additional space in our datacentre in Docklands for dedicated servers, of which there are currently 5. In some cases, clients come to us with a ready configured server, and simply want to pay rental for the physical space, and for the data bandwidth transferred to and from their website. However, we usually prefer to offer a complete service where we source, order, setup and install a dedicated server on the client's behalf, and then administer it on an ongoing basis. Under these circumstances, we take a much greater degree of responsibility for the server, but Co-location clients are some of our most valued customers and we generally spend several weeks working out individual contracts and service level agreements for each one, making sure that all their concerns are met and expectations exceeded. Amongst the issues covered are monitoring, insurance, emergency procedures, billing, future expansion, security and access.

Co-location is obviously a much greater commitment for a client than regular hosting - the purchase of the server is a substantial outlay, and we generally have a minimum of 6 months contract, depending on the client's expected needs in future.

Room 101 uses and recommends the servers of Digital Networks UK Ltd. More details can be found at www.dnuk.com.