It is a type of hosting where you rent the entire server, which is only for you and the services needed for its operation. So you don't have to worry about anything or understand it, you just rent it and you don't share the server with anyone.
Thanks to the dedicated server, you are in complete control of the operating system used (Windows, Linux…) and the hardware. The administration of a dedicated server is often handled by the hosting company that rents you the server for an additional fee.
The price of the server often already includes Linux or Unix operating systems, which are open source. Other operating systems that are free may be CentOS, Fedora Core, Debian and many other Linux distributions. There are also BSD systems that are free. These include FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, for example. There is also a commercial version of Linux called Red Hat, which is paid for in the form of monthly fees. Commercial systems such as Microsoft Windows Server, which is provided under the Microsoft SPLA program, are at an additional cost.
Management, or server administration, varies from provider to provider and may include the following:
- updates for the operating system
- updates for applications
- server monitoring
- hardware monitoring
- application monitoring
- application management
- technical support
- Firewall related services
- antivirus updates
- security audits
- protection against DDoS attacks
- Backup and recovery
- DNS
- database administration
- performance tuning
- Software installation and configuration
- user administration
