Why and How to Choose A Dedicated Server

Perhaps, the most important decision you could make as a web master for your online business is what kind of hosting service to choose. In general, there are three main options:

• Dedicated Server Hosting
• Shared Web Hosting
• Colocation Hosting

In this article we will discuss how dedicated server hosting is different from the other options, and why it may be worth the extra premium for you. We will also present a series of checklists that are necessary in choosing the best dedicated server, so you can make a more effective decision.

First, let’s quickly review what these three hosting services are.

Shared hosting is basically one dedicated server that is shared among a number of different clients. That is, the server’s storage, bandwidth, hardware and internet connectivity is all shared among all clients. So is the cost of this server. In other words, it’s very cheap, and is most desirable for end-users for personal websites, and sites with little traffic.

Now, if you have your own server equipment, you have the option of using the Colocation Hosting services. With this service, you get to rent a secure space in a datacenter and take advantage of its power availability, bandwidth, cooling system, and other operational services to store your server equipment. As a colocation customer, you are in charge of maintaining your own equipment. And so, you, or someone in your company, must have a certain level of hardware and software knowledge in order to be able to manage the server.

Now, if you do not want to share your server with others, or cannot afford to purchase and maintain your own server equipment, you can choose to have your own dedicated server. In simple terms, a dedicated server is a machine with all its hardware and software resources that is solely at your service. In addition to the basic operational services that are available in a datacenter such as reliable network connectivity, most dedicated hosting provides offer exclusive features to their dedicated customers including server management, backup servers, and more.

Dedicated hosting is an ideal choice for businesses from small to large enterprises. There is a wide range in price, depending on the hardware and software features that you choose for your server.  One other great advantage of dedicated servers is that as the only one who has access to the server, you get to enjoy having additional security, since no one else is sharing the server with you.

Making the Decision

Choosing the right dedicated server depends on your technical requirements, financial constraints, and business needs. In addition, dedicated hosting services are not so cheap. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that doing business with a competitive, trusted, and proven web hosting company is essential for your long-term success. Because, they can offer you reliability, flexibility, and great customer support, which are all very crucial and necessary.

Dedicated Server Specifications

There is a list of criteria you need to consider when choosing a dedicated server. But before we get in to that, you need to first ask yourself a very important question: Are you, or is someone in your company, capable of handling the required tasks of doing server system administration?
If your answer is no, then you should look in to advanced managed services. Most major web hosting companies, including us at Ravand Cybertech, offer expert advice on how to do load balancing or web clusters, as well as good support. But, if you are comfortable with performing maintenance tasks yourself, then you would probably be best off with an unmanaged dedicated server.

Now, let’s go back to the decisive factors in choosing your dedicated server. As for the hardware specifications, the followings are what you need to take into account.

• Processor: how powerful a server do you need?
  For websites with CPU-intensive scripts, SQL servers, video-transcoding severs, servers used for virtualization, or specialized servers such as game or chat servers, you need fast and strong servers with multiple processors, such as dual Xeon servers.


• Memory:  how important is fast-loading to you?
  RAM (Random Access Memory) is basically the available data storage capacity that allows a user to access any “memory” on the server.  The more RAM you have installed on your server, the faster your server is going to run and the quicker your website will load. You can never have too much RAM!


• Storage: does your website use massive data or small sensitive data?
  You can have multiple hard drives on your dedicated server. If  your website contains highly sensitive data relating to your customers or any other unique information, then you can have one hard drive as your primary one while the other hard drive serves as back-up (mirroring). If you care more about having larger storage capacity, you may opt for a Raid 2 configuration in which there is a primary hard drive with the secondary drive being used once the primary storage becomes full.


• Bandwidth: how much traffic do you need?
  Your server bandwidth determines how much data can be transferred from and to your website within a specific period of time (per billing cycle). For a popular website with a large number of visitors, the required bandwidth is clearly much higher. In addition, if you plan to host high quality images, streaming multimedia files on your website, or run scripts with intense database communications, you also need to have a large bandwidth capacity.

As for the software specifications for your server, the first thing you need to consider is the operating system. Windows and Linux are the two main providers of server operating systems. Now, assuming that you have no restrictions on which operating systems you can use, here’s how you can figure out which one best works for you.

• Operating System: what programming language you use to develop your website?
  If you use ASP.NET or MS SQL Server, you will need to stick with a Microsoft platform, such as Windows Server. That’s because ASP is meant to be run on Windows Internet servers. However, if your website is designed using an open source stack such as Apache, PHP, MySQL, or Ruby On Rails, you will probably want a Unix/Linux server, such as CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora etc. In addition, when it comes to maintaining your server, you should discuss with the person that will be administering it to find out which one of the operating systems they are more knowledgeable about and experienced with before making a final decision on which platform to choose for your dedicated website host.

Dedicated Hosting Budget

It is clear that the more advanced a dedicated server you choose, the more you have to spend on it! So, you need to balance your dedicated server requirements to match with what your budget can realistically provide you.

So, here are the 7 most common service fees associated with dedicated hosting servers.

• Monthly Dedicated Internet Server Fees
  This is what you have to pay on a monthly basis for renting a dedicated server hardware. The price mainly ranges based on the associated hardware specifications. If the need be, you can choose to install more advanced hardware parts on your dedicated server, but subsequently the price would be higher.


• Server Setup Fees
  There usually is a one-time setup fee that you need to pay for. This fee mainly covers the cost of labour involved with initial preparation and setup of your dedicated server.


• Server Management Service Fees
  If you prefer to have the dedicated hosting company manage your dedicated server on your behalf, you would have to take the cost of this service into account. The cost for this service is also on a monthly basis.


• Bandwidth Costs and overuse
  Most dedicated server hosting providers include the cost of bandwidth in the monthly server fee. Clearly at the time of ordering, you can increase your bandwidth to a higher capacity, which would increase the monthly fee of your server. However, if your bandwidth usage in a month goes beyond your included amount, you would have to pay for the overuse. So, it is important to have a relatively accurate estimate of your monthly traffic so you can stay away from any additional charges.


• Software Licenses
  This includes the cost of licensing for the operating system and other software that you’d like to install on your dedicated server (such as database or visualization software). You can either purchase the license for a one-time fee, or you can get the monthly subscription for the license and pay much smaller amount on a monthly basis.


• Upgrades
  Certain hardware and software upgrades might come with additional charges, including setup fees, and the purchase price. These will only apply if you wish to have your dedicated server upgraded.


• Miscellaneous
  There are few other costs that are often overlooked. These include scalability costs (how are you going to plan once you reach the maximum capacity of your dedicated server), failure costs, technology training for your staff, backup and recovery, as well as migration and service cancelation fees.  

Additional Features & Services
Depending on which industry you are operating, you might require additional necessary services that are associated with your online business. The following list outlines the most common such services.

• Secure access:
  It is particularly of importance if you are running an e-commerce business to limit access to your dedicated servers in order to protect the integrity of your sensitive data


• Additional security features:
  This includes firewalls  both in software and hardware format  for protection against Distributed DOS attacks, or the possibility of setting up a VPN.


• Scalability:
  Considering the fact that your business is growing, you might need to take into account scalability which basically factors in growth of your web services and the associated upgrades that you may require.
• Disaster recovery:

If you store client information and user databases on your website, then safeguarding your system is essential. Disaster recovery planning deals with keeping your vital data safe and accessible even in the worst of situations.

• High availability:
  This feature is designed to provide a load balanced solution to ensuring you that your mission-critical Internet applications and websites are online at all times. If your entire website resides on a single server then your site is vulnerable to potential hardware failures and surges in traffic that could slow your site to a crawl. Load balancing your servers will allow you to spread the requests across multiple servers and increase the responsiveness of your site. This leads to a better overall customer experience which can directly translate into sales for your company.


• Other Services:
• Providing services such as emails, calendaring, or directories for a business
• Management of large-sized files

Once you have gone through the lists provided here and have identified your server specifications, the associated costs for your server, and any additional features that you may need, then you can go ahead and start shopping around for your ideal server. You should also remember that you are investing in a long-term service and therefore it is paramount that you choose a trusted dedicated web hosting provider that offers reliable and flexible service as well as top-notch customer service.

Good luck!

Support Team
Ravand Cybertech Inc.