Adam Smith’s concept of division of labor is surely applicable to website hosting. Without doing a lot of investigating, it probably sounds pretty easy to be your own web host, but there is a lot involved with it. Think through everything before you decide to become your own web host and start buying up website hosting equipment.
Server: A server is a very powerful computer that is specially configured to deal with network tasks. For a short time, you may be able to get away with buying your own server for a small-scale business. Both IBM and Hewlett Packard offer quality servers. In addition, Dell is a good server provider.
Security: Securing your server is probably the biggest reason not to attempt to do your own website hosting. Hackers and spammers remain one step ahead of security experts — not the other way around. Security is an ongoing, highly technical task. It is absolutely not a matter of buying some sort of server security suite. Unless you have a Redhat or A++ certified administrator or the like on staff, you will probably want to forget the idea of doing your own web hosting.
Software Licensing: The majority of server operating systems are licensed for a given amount of simultaneous users. Getting licenses to cover your software can be really costly.
Network: It will be necessary to obtain a data trunk in the location where you want to base the server. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to just connect your server to your ISP. Some users try that for personal websites and playing around, but you should avoid doing that when hosting your own website as the ISP will restrict your bandwidth. If you are still convinced you want to do your own hosting, and your resource needs are minimal, look into the TOS (Terms of Service) with your ISP.
You will need additional equipment like a dependable off-site backup system to safeguard the data, and a reliable battery backup to handle power failures.
Employees: If you do not have an employee who is knowledgeable with regard to networks, it will be necessary for you to hire someone to be on call or on duty pretty much around the clock. Even the best servers and networks experience problems – very often. It isn’t possible to just “set it and forget it” for very long at all. There is absolutely no chance of that.
In Summary: Your website will benefit from the powerful and reliable servers provided by leased web hosting services, and you will save lots of money on hardware, administration, and labor. Without the support of dedicated IT technicians, you will be spending too much money as well as valuable time running your operation. It is possible to get shared web hosting if you have a smaller site, with prices from approximately $10 monthly. I bet you can’t find anything to beat that!