While comparing different service providers you’ll have probably heard of two of the more common types of services from data centres: cloud hosting and dedicated servers. While any of these would be able to get you started it’s important to choose the service that best suits your business needs. Both have their advantages and disadvantages that may become more relevant to a business that is working within a budget, is time critical or is looking to expand.
So what is the difference between cloud and dedicated servers?
Cloud servers can be configured to provide levels of performance, security and control similar to those of a dedicated server. But instead of being in a hosted physical environment that’s only used by you, they sit in a shared “virtual” environment managed by us. Dedicated servers are physically housed in a data centre (such as ours) where you have exclusive use of resources as the sole user of the hardware.
What are the benefits of cloud hosting?
- A cloud server gives the business user stability and security because any software problems are isolated from your environment. Each cloud server won’t impact on each other. If another user overloads their cloud server, this will have no impact on your cloud server, unlike with physical servers that have shared user resources.
- Cloud servers are stable, fast and secure. They avoid the hardware issues seen with physical servers, and they are likely to be the most stable option for businesses wanting to keep their IT budget down. The ability to spin cloud servers up and down when suited is a major benefit to a lot of businesses, whether that is for production purposes or staging and development.
- Cloud servers can provide a faster service for your money. You’ll get more resources and a faster service than you would for a similar price of a physical server. A cloud-hosted website is also likely to run faster, depending on the applications you use.
- You get scalability with cloud servers. It is very easy and quick to upgrade by adding memory and disk space, as well as being more affordable – our CloudPLUS system can be expanded with more RAM or vCPU at your request.
What are the benefits of dedicated server hosting?
- Depending on the configuration, you have complete control over the server, you are also in control of its security and deployment of use, including its resources, storage, memory, CPU and bandwidth. This is quite an important requirement if you are a business which has a specific level of standard you need the servers to work towards.
- Being the sole user of the hardware means that dedicated servers are highly configurable and can be built to specification. For example, they can be configured with either Windows or Linux operating systems with a variety of different control panels and applications
- Dedicated hosting essentially means that your website or other application has its own server all to itself. As the sole user of the hardware you have control of your security and reliability. A good dedicated server provider will have designated technical staff at a data centre (such as our support team) to monitor the equipment and ensure that everything is running smoothly on your behalf.
We hope this short guide has given you a quick overview of the advantages of opting for both a cloud hosting solution and a dedicated server. If you would like any further information or would like to discuss your current hosting options please don’t hesitate to get in touch – 0161 464 6101 we’d be happy to help!
