Guide To SQL Server Hosting

Guide To SQL Server Hosting Plans

SQL Server Hosting is a critical requirement for many Web applications. When selecting your SQL Server hosting provider, you need to consider the features they offer, the functional requirements of your application, the security requirements of the data you will store, the amount of data you must store, and the availability requirements of the application.

SQL Server is a relational database management system that is used to support the data storage and data retrieval requirements of a variety of applications. One of the first tasks when beginning the selection process for a SQL Server hosting provider is to estimate the current storage requirements for the data and the amount by which it is expected to grow.

You will need to select a SQL Server hosting plan that meets current storage and immediate growth requirements. You should also consider how easy it will be to upgrade to a plan that provides more capacity if the growth of your data exceeds your estimation. Another key consideration is how many databases your application requires.

For example, you might need one database that is optimized for transactional operations and a different database that is optimized to support reporting requirements. Some SQL Server hosting solutions allow you to create only a single database. Others allow you to create multiple databases. Many providers offer both shared and dedicated SQL Server hosting. Although shared hosting is less expensive than dedicated hosting, you are often limited by the storage capacity and permitted functionality.

For example, some shared SQL Server hosting options do not allow you to run SQL Server jobs. They might also prevent you from performing distributed queries to other data sources or managing multiple user logins and database users. Another key functionality constraint is support for full-text search. A full-text query is one that can search for a match within the text of a column, using rules that take into account synonyms and different tenses of the word.

Availability and database recovery requirements are another key consideration. Your SQL Server hosting provider should, at minimum, provide you with a way to back up and restore your database. If your application has high availability requirements, you might consider investing in a dedicated SQL Server hosting solution that supports clustering, database mirroring, log shipping, and replication.

Using database mirroring or clustering provides the best availability by allowing for automatic failover if a server goes down. Replication can allow co-location of data. For example, you might replicate data from the hosted transactional database to a reporting database on your company’s internal network.

Security requirements are also an important consideration. You should identify whether you need to be able to create logins and database users and to manage their permissions on the database. Some shared hosting solutions support only a single login that is used for all SQL Server operations.

Privacy requirements are another consideration. Before choosing a SQL Server hosting provider, ask questions about how well the data will be protected from unauthorized disclosure and whether the database will support encrypted fields.