An IP address is a unique number which separates an Internet site or a hosting server on the world-wide web, so if you have a dedicated IP, it'll be employed just by your sites and shall not be shared with other individuals as it happens with shared Internet hosting accounts. In case you have your own server, you shall have a dedicated IP, but you may need extra ones for many different purposes. Provided you have an Internet store, for example, you'll need an SSL certificate for it, in order to make certain that the payment information which your customers submit will be encrypted and protected. The same is valid in case you have a login form of some sort and you would like the usernames and the passwords that visitors input to be protected. The SSL certificate requires a dedicated IP, which needs to be different from the one which you already have on the server. You might also need an independent IP for an application such as a VoIP server, or if you want a slightly better performance for a certain Internet site, which will affect its position in search engine results.