There are a lot of features, bells and whistles for you to choose from when ordering web hosting from web hosting providers. It's a big market and they have to adapt to the whole spectrum of needs of hosting customers. Some want that and some want this. You may be paying for quite some stuff that will never be used by you personally yet some features are ultra important to you than to others. Unique IP is one of them.

First off, it doesn't hurt to have one - it can only prove to be beneficial to your websites and online businesses rather than the other way around. However, everything that is rare comes at a price. It's no exception with IP addresses which are being used out very soon. That's why a whole new IP protocol version is being developed and now partially implemented on the Internet - IP v6. Anyway, the only thing that hurts to have an unique IP address for your websites is that you have to pay a monthly price to get one. That's all.

You say, big deal, a few extra bucks a month, I'll get one just for the fancy title it presents. Yep, if you do have a lot of extra money to do stuff that typically can't be done without money, by all means go ahead. However, this may not be the case of the vast majority internet entrepreneurs and developers. So how do you know if you are really in need of a unique IP to host your websites?

1. First off, a unique IP can be beneficial in making Google quickly indexing your site. I've personally done experiments and websites on fresh unique IPs are indexed more quickly than ones that are on shared IP with thousands other websites. The reasoning behind this, I guess, is that a uniquely allocated IP that can only be obtained via financial ways is a much safer bet in spam terms because it has much less chance of being used by spammers before. And Google knows it.

2. Secondly, it not only makes your sites appear faster in Google index, it can be a good start for SEO as well because of its fresh status. I'd specially recommend buying unique IP addresses from big corporate hosting companies with universal reputations such as Rackspace, Softlayer and Linode. Google knows where the good websites are generally hosted and where the spammy ones are. If your IP appears in a good neighborhood, chances are Google will give you a green status from the very beginning.

3. Thirdly, if you treasure your online reputation and business growth. It is essential that you are recognized by the commitment you give to your business. And owning your IP or even a dedicated server is the best way to say that message. People will know that you take your business seriously, thus they will too, trusting you more.

Instead of just an unique IP, you can take it further by going with a globally renowned host to get across the message that you take your online business seriously. Rackspace Cloud would be the choice second to none. Use the Cloud Sites promo code to get a Cloud Sites discount otherwise impossible.

Is there a way to automatically synchronize address books between exchange server?

We will be using Rackspace to host our e-mails. They provide hosted exchange server e-mails for our domain. We would like to be able to synchronize the exchange server address book with other companies that are using exchange server automatically if possible. Is there a way? How about a third party software?
Thanks for the help.

The tough issue here is not the synchronization process, it's the rights and security.

The exchange address book is an Active Directory object. Reading and writing it to synchronize it would require significant cross domain rights.

Hosted environments are not amenable to that kind of thing at all. Extending rights to entities beyond thier direct control is unheard of. You can talk to them about it but don't expect a lot of cooperation.

The Reasons I Chose Rackspace for Hosting