Dedicated Server Hosting: Key Selection Factors for Businesses

Are you contemplating building a large web portal for your business venture? If yes, you will need to consider many aspects, one of the most important being web hosting. When choosing a web hosting solution, business owners often rush into buying a dedicated server plan without weighing its pros and cons.

Because web hosting involves a significant expenditure of time, money and other resources, it is definitely worth your while to think twice before arriving at a decision.

Let us take a look at some crucial factors which must be considered before you buy Dedicated Server Rental solution for your business.

1) Impact of Downtime

How will potential downtime affect your business operations? A prime factor to consider when buying a dedicated server solution is how severely a server failure can affect your business. Even the most advanced dedicated servers don’t guarantee a 100% uptime (unless, of course, you get the option to scale to multiple dedicated servers).

Since a dedicated server has a single point of failure, you have to decide if you are ready to accept potential downtime. If not, it’s time to reconsider your decision.

2) Performance Requirements     

What are your requirements in terms of the performance of your server? Make an estimate of the web traffic you expect and select the configuration accordingly. When buying a dedicated server plan, pay close attention to the following hardware choices:

Processor

Most of the time you get to choose the number of cores and processors in a server. A higher number of cores corresponds to better performance. All multi-threaded applications benefit from more cores. It is also important to consider the performance of the core in clock speed (GHz).

A higher clock speed offers better performance. But a processor with more cores and higher clock speed costs you dearly. So, there needs to be a trade-off between the number of cores and clock speed. More core and slower clock speeds can support multi-threaded applications.

Fewer cores and higher clock speed, on the contrary, will support single-threaded processes better. Of course, you will need to consult the person managing the application for more informed decision-making.

RAM

Memory is a crucial factor as it decides the efficiency of your server and the loading speed of your website. More RAM amounts to better speed. A faster processor with a higher number of cores offers more options for RAM.

If you are unsure of the RAM you should choose, go for a plan that allows the flexibility of adding RAM whenever needed.

Hard Drives

Choosing to have a RAID set up for your hard drives is vital. RAID sets up store data on multiple disks and thus offers fault tolerance. So, if you have RAID and one of the hard drives crashes, your system will still keep working ( albeit with some loss of performance).

Larger servers offer more hard drive options. SATA drives have a high volume but low performance. SAS performs better than SATA but has a higher price and lower capacity. SSD is 50-100 times faster than SATA but far more expensive.

3) Operating System

A dedicated server also requires an operating system like a regular computer. Windows and Linux are the two most popular operating systems used in dedicated servers. Keep in mind that the choice of OS matters only if your technical person is dealing with the server directly. If your service provider is offering administrative support, then you should not even bother about it.

The choice of OS should be dictated by your comfort level. Choose the OS you are familiar with, even if it means paying a little extra.

4) Bandwidth

Your bandwidth depends on the amount of web traffic you expect. If you expect high traffic and/or plan to run scripts and stream multimedia files, choose a high bandwidth server. If you are uncertain about the traffic you will receive, select a plan with a lot of data traffic included.

5) Server Location and Quality of Network         

The physical location of your dedicated server hosting dictates the performance of your website. It is vital to consider the location of your end-users. If your end-users are based in India, placing your dedicated server in North America or Europe won’t serve the purpose.  

Equally important is the quality of your network. To gauge the quality, go through the NOC pages of the service provider and test the network if possible. Most service providers allow you to do this.

6) Scalability

Scalability is crucial when buying a dedicated server hosting solution. You need to assess if it is easy to add more servers to cater to a higher number of users. Many plans offer load balancing wherein multiple dedicated servers are used in order to allow seamless scaling of applications.

With load balancing, every incoming request gets directed to a different server and the end-users are split across all the available servers. A load balancer usually checks if the server is up and running. If not, the traffic gets redirected to another server.

7) Server Management    

A dedicated server plan requires you to have some technical knowledge about running and managing the servers. If, however, you are not conversant with technology, a managed dedicated hosting solution should work well for you.

In a managed solution, your host assumes the responsibility of managing the day-to-day administration tasks of your server. A managed plan is also cheaper in the long run.

8) Technical Support

Regardless of the server you choose, impeccable technical support is critical to the smooth running of your applications. A team of agile professionals should always be at your disposal to answer your queries satisfactorily. Your support team should offer solutions that meet the exact demands of your business.

Looking for top-notch dedicated server hosting or Windows cloud server hosting for your business? Go4hosting offers premium Windows cloud server hosting solutions at the most competitive rates. If you need specific advice or assistance, connect with our technical consultants at our toll-free number.