Is your web business outgrowing your hosting plan? By Jake Winemiller When people started taking their businesses online, I doubt many knew how well they would do (or how hard they could fall).  I can gladly say (through working with a lot DNI’s clientele) that as a whole, we are growing. I spend more and more of my time helping current clients plan for the growth of their web business, and finding the right Dynamic Net hosting plan to fit their wants and needs. I have found that whether our customers are upgrading to our Corporate plan, VPS, Dedicated Server, or Managed Dedicated Server, there is often a little confusion about why the move needs to be made and what the advantages and caveats are to upgrading your hosting plan with Dynamic Net.  So, this month I will be going over some of the more common tells that you are in need of an upgrade and what new features these upgrades will allow you to take advantage of. Your site is approaching your disk space limit (Professional Plan) If your site has almost reached the disk space limitations of your shared hosting plan, your options are many. If you’re on a professional plan, why not upgrade to our Corporate plan?  You will be given a substantial increase in disk space (from 150 MB to 300 MB), additional email accounts, additional forwards or aliases, access to a PostgreSQL database engine (in addition to mySQL), and twice the bandwidth for only $25 more per month. Your site is approaching your disk space limit (Corporate Plan) If you are on a Corporate plan and is disk space is running low, you always have the option of adding disk space from your new Parallels H-Sphere control panel, but your best option will probably be our 2nd generation VPS. Want increased performance and *unlimited bandwidth?  How about a whopping 1.25 GB of disk space, triple backup, Urchin statistics, and more?  Why not try out a VPS plan? It’s a bit of a jump in the monthly investment ($150 per month), but how much would you pay for piece of mind? The 2nd Generation VPS is perfect for the company that needs some growing room and takes their web presence seriously. Your site is approaching your disk space limit (VPS) There are only a couple roads to travel down from here. If you are on a Standard VPS, maybe an upgrade to a more beefed up VPS Pro or VPS Pro Plus will give you the room you need to grow. If not, it may be time to step up to an un-managed or managed DNI dedicated server.  With our servers, you get superior performance, stability, scalability and more disk space than on any other plan we offer.   Your site is approaching your monthly bandwidth limit Bandwidth is an important statistic to keep an eye on.  Unexpected bandwidth overages can be a killer expense. If your Professional plan is getting close to its bandwidth roof, an upgrade to our Corporate plan is usually a great fit. If your Corporate plan is getting close to it’s bandwidth quota or your Professional plan is growing rapidly, a VPS might be a perfect option.  A VPS (virtual private server) features *unlimited bandwidth and will give you the performance and flexibility combination a shared hosting plan just can’t compete with.  For the high bandwidth site the peace of mind that you will never pay your first or another bandwidth overage fee again is reason enough to make the switch. You need to run special applications not supported in a shared hosting environment As your business and online presence grow, there may come a time when the software supported in a shared hosting environment no longer fills every need your site and consumers require. In this case, a VPS is a perfect fit for those who need the functionality of a dedicated server, but not the disk space or price tag. In a VPS environment almost all needs can be filled and is a great bridge between the shared and dedicated platforms. We manage VPS from a hardware, server administration, and security administration perspective and you get to start familiarizing yourself with a dedicated server environment while your site benefits from increased performance, *unlimited bandwidth, an ability to support a wide variety of complicated applications. These are just some of the more common reasons your hosting plan might need an upgrade, but for more information on how to access, understand, and evaluate your web stats or options for future growth, give me a call or email me at . * VPS Unlimited Bandwidth:  There are no bandwidth charges for VPS customers; however, each type of VPS does have a ceiling upon which too much bandwidth may slow it down.  The ceilings are dependent on a client's particular use and can be as high as 80 to 120 GB per month.  If you need additional traffic without a slow down, a dedicated or co-located server is the way to go.