When we decided to go the dedicated route, we purposely chose *not* to do it onsite—"risky," in a word. Data centers, run by legit companies, boost fire-suppression, video surveillance, emergency generators, etc. I don't want to try to do that. And, if you have root, you can keep the center staff off your machine.

Having said that, this makes you responsible for security. I rely on another Perlmonk who specializes in locking down servers—this is not stuff for newbies—you need a pro!

I am currently running dedicated servers with 3 companies, all in the cheap to inexpensive category. They are all fairly reliable, but the service runs from terrible to lackluster. Basically, unless you spend the big bucks for a managed server (where you don't usually have root), you are on your own and it can be a white-knuckle ride. To sleep a little better at night, we use Nagios to ping everything and notify us when things are heading south.

Data centers will usually load the system (we use Debian on all) and MySQL, and can offer firewalls, etc., but again, you need a pro on your end who will tidy everything up, lock it down, and then be available when then things explode.

And you will have to know enough about Apache to get things up and running or have someone do it for you.

Good luck.