Hosting dedicated servers in a data center is a good strategy for managing and controlling your IT costs. While you can either provide your own server or lease one from the data center, leasing keeps start-up costs low as you are not making a full initial investment in hardware and an operating system.
Hosting a dedicated server at a co-location facility will also help control costs as the facility will provide various levels of management for your server. Using managed services spreads out the cost of IT professionals over the many organizations that use the data center so you spend much less on IT than managing a server in-house.
Who uses dedicated servers?
By definition, a hosted dedicated server is not shared with anyone else. Hosting a dedicated server at a co-location facility is a very popular option for all but the smallest companies that will be fine with a shared platform. Dedicated servers are used by companies with high security requirements such as banks or insurance providers that have sophisticated applications, store personal data, and are highly regulated by the government. Dedicated servers are also used by companies with multiple websites or large storage and bandwidth requirements such as streaming video.
What are the problems with shared servers?
Using a shared server is very inexpensive but the cheap price can bring numerous disadvantages including slower performance if you are sharing with someone with a large database or CPU intensive applications. Other problems can arise if there are spam or pornography complaints against other sites on the server and downtime can be caused by other users spreading attacks.
What do you get with a hosted dedicated server?
- Full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system,hardware, etc.
- Your own dedicated bandwidth – no worries about oversold bandwidth. This makes for faster and more reliable data and web page delivery.
- No usage limits
- Your choice of OS and software
- As much memory as you need
- Large amount of storage space for data, video etc.
- Security and firewall
- Peace of mind – no one else accessing the box can screw it up while the co-location facility is maintaining the basics of electricity, Internet access, and HVAC.
Benefits of hosting your dedicated server at a co-location facility
It’s better, faster, and cheaper than hosting your own servers.
Better – Dedicated servers will be managed by IT professionals who know server maintenance and operating systems
Faster – Dedicated bandwith ensures faster data transfer for your users and better website performance.
Cheaper – shared IT and infrastructure costs.
One of the main reasons to outsource dedicated servers is that data centers have high powered networks from multiple providers readily available. As co-location facilities that provide dedicated server use huge amounts of bandwidth, they can get much lower volume based pricing from multiple providers than you could negotiate yourself. This multi-provider blend of bandwidth ensures 100% uptime and Internet Access for your dedicated server. Creating a similar network in-house would require a major investment in redundant bandwidth, routers, long term contracts, and expensive utility bills. This expense does not make sense for most companies making a hosted dedicated server the logical choice.
Other benefits
- You retain total control to install and maintain all software and applications. Some providers also allow remote access to certain hardware functions such as rebooting the server if necessary.
- If leasing – low startup cost.
- Predictable monthly fees – hosting and managed services are combined at a variety of price points so you can pick a package that suits you.
- Server options are bundled at different price points – bandwidth, CPU, RAM, Linux or Microsoft OS.
- Lots of choices – RAID 5, Hard drive size and speed, easy upgrade to a bigger faster server as you grow.
- The data center monitors network connectivity, routing equipment and server hardware.
- Additional server administration can be provided by the hosting company including management of hardware, security, software and applications. In addition, most data centers have spare hardware available in the extreme event of hardware failure to minimize hardware migration down time.
- All the amenities of a data center.
- Security – both physical locks and security from hackers and attacks.
- Electricity – redundant sources and backup systems ensure no downtime.
- Redundant Internet services on multiple backbones ensure no downtime.
- Climate controlled to provide long life for the hardware.
Operating systems for dedicated servers
Microsoft Windows and Linux are the most popular operating systems for dedicated servers. Both have their supporters and detractors. Many hosting companies will have IT professional that are capable of supporting both. The pro-Microsoft camp claims that Linux has a higher total cost-of-ownership, less available support and setup that is too complex for most system administrators. The pro-Linux group claim that Linux is much more secure and less expensive to use. As many applications require Windows to function correctly both Windows and Linux are in widespread use in dedicated servers.
Dedicated servers control IT costs
Hosting dedicated servers in a data center is a good strategy for managing and controlling your IT costs. While you can either provide your own server or lease one from the data center, leasing keeps start-up costs low as you are not making a full initial investment in hardware and an operating system. Hosting a dedicated server at a co-location facility will also help control costs as the facility will provide various levels of management for your server. Using managed services spreads out the cost of IT professionals over the many organizations that use the data center so you spend much less on IT than managing a server in-house.
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