Cloud vs Dedicated Server: Which Is Best For Your Business?

Most of the companies of the world desire an online presence in this era. To do that, a website, a mobile app, or software is necessary and that needs to be hosted on a server. Choosing the perfect web hosting model is a crucial business decision. Cloud and dedicated servers are two popular choices in this case. However, most organizations find it a little tricky to pick between those two common choices. To determine which choice is best for your venture, it is crucial to consider the basic differences. This article will help you to make the right decision for your business.

What Is A Cloud Server?

In simple terms, a cloud server is an IT infrastructure available over the internet. This server serves multiple users on-demand in real-time. Cloud servers are designed to offer the same functions to their users with the same operating systems. Generally, they provide similar performance to all its users. Cloud servers can be located anywhere in the world and they deliver through a cloud computing environment.

Cloud Server Highlights

Cost-efficient: Cloud servers managed by third-party providers are less expensive to purchase and maintain.
Easy to configure: Cloud servers can be configured with just a few clicks with an efficient control panel.
Utility-based billing: You only have to pay for the resources or data or service you use for your website or application on the cloud server.
Scalability: You get scalability and flexibility, you can use the resources as per your requirements.
Data Backups: When you store data in the cloud, there are regular baclups of your data and you will never lose the important data.
Collaboration: The cloud platform removes the time and data constraints so that the data and services are available at all times.
Enhances Software Capabilities: Cloud hosting enables the businesses to access all the features of the applications without having to divert the resources to your own IT infrastructure.

What Is A Dedicated Server?

A dedicated server is completely dedicated to your hosting account, website, application, or software. The dedicated server provides extreme power and freedom. Most enterprises generally start with cloud servers; but, with time they feel the importance of upgradation from a cloud server to a dedicated one.

Dedicated Server Highlights

Increased traffic: If your website is growing and you need to handle the increased traffic, you should opt for a dedicated server solution.
More security: The security of your website is a prime concern if your system stores sensitive information like confidential emails, customer information like debit and credit card numbers. With a dedicated server, you have complete control over those resources.
Less downtime: Opting for a dedicated server reduces the downtime of your website and makes a significant positive impact on your page loading.
More control: Dedicated server solutions give you optimum control to configure your server as you like.
Unique IP Address: Every dedicated server has its own unique IP address, this is very important for large business websites and ecommerce websites.
Enhanced performance: You get maximum uptime for your website when you opt for dedicated server. Get more stability and reliability.

Similarities Between Cloud & Dedicated Server

Cloud and dedicated servers both perform the same actions. They store the information and when you demand that information, they cater you that information after processing. In this era of advanced IT technology, cloud and dedicated servers can serve any type of service like a website, or mobile application. However, the difference lies in the performance.

Differences Between Cloud & Dedicated Servers

The cloud and dedicated servers have a basic difference. The cloud server is a server in the virtual environment and the dedicated server is a physical server. Although they offer the same services, they differ a lot in terms of the scalability, migration options, pricing, and operations.

Performance:

If you are looking for performance, you should go for dedicated servers. No doubt, they will offer you fast processing and fast access to data. This happens as the processors inside dedicated servers are designed to solely serve your host application or website. In the case of cloud servers, the requests go through SAN or storage area network which can slow down the process.

Scalability:

Scalability happens in dedicated and cloud servers in different ways. In the case of dedicated servers, the upgradation of processors or drives needs more planning and resources. It is a little complicated as it can lead to downtime. Cloud servers are super easy to scale as they have a virtual and partitioned environment.

Migration:

In the case of migration, dedicated and cloud servers can offer flawless migration. For migration from a dedicated server, you need better full-proof planning.

Management:

In the case of a dedicated server, you are solely responsible for the management of your server. You should keep in mind that you employ more resources to do this. Some of the managed dedicated server providers can present the server in a fully managed and monitored environment. On the other hand, cloud servers are simplified when it comes to monitoring & maintainence.

Cost:

The cost matters a lot while choosing between cloud and dedicated servers. Generally, during entry, the cloud servers will cost you far less than dedicated servers. This happens due to the utility-based billing of cloud servers. However, keep one point in mind that the cost of a cloud server increases as time passes and your usage increases.

Which One Is The Better Choice?

Before you finalize your hosting choice, consider the following factors:

Your budget for hosting
Uptime and performance needs of your system
The skillset of your resources
Your scalability requirement
Your business objective and goal

Once you perform the above tasks, consider what type of server you need.

Cloud servers are best if you are going to host:

E-commerce site or application with less traffic
Small business applications
Email servers
Systems with no downtime requirement

You should choose a dedicated server if you have:

Large applications or websites with high traffic
Applications that need more CPU processing, RAM, and disk space usage
Systems with sensitive customer data

Conclusion

Companies with ever-growing computing demands like more storage and more security use dedicated servers. Here, you find relatively high performance with total freedom to configure your server. Despite that, that will cost you some extra bucks. If you want more flexibility on a limited budget, choose cloud servers. However, the cost benefits of cloud servers are felt in short term. In case, you are planning to host your website or application for the long term with higher storage and disk space, a dedicated server is a suitable option for you.