Choosing the hosting for your business mobile application is an important decision that will shape a lot of things that will follow. It will determine how quick and easy access to the resources you have. It will play a significant role in how your business will perform online.
Back in 2018, Google updated its algorithm making page speed a ranking factor. Bounce rate is the number of people coming to your website but quickly leaving it because it was either slow loading or not relevant.
If you are selling products and services online performance of your website and application is crucial. Website loading time or response time increases the bounce rate that is damaging for both sales and rankings on search engines. A difference of just one-second in the loading speed of a website can translate into a loss of a total of 7% of its potential customers.
One single factor costing you both consumers and ranking is worth some serious consideration. Page loading speed is one of the several factors directly relevant to your choice of hosting with serious implications for any company.
The choice of web host for a company is crucial to its success. The two major types of offered services are cloud hosting and dedicated servers.
Most business owners, when discussing web hosting, are concerned with only two factors, affordability and customizations according to the needs of the business? However, there are further pros and cons for both of them which you should consider before making a choice. In this article, we will share all the information you need to have before choosing the type of server for your digital presence.
The Cloud Ecosystem
It is a server and network infrastructure which pulls together an infinite number of single servers to act as a single entity supporting a huge virtual hosting system. So all the data and information the hosting is required to store is saved in a virtual space connected with multiple interconnected physical hubs in data center facilities at different physical locations.
To allocate storage resources in cloud servers Clustered filesystems are used such as Ceph or a large Storage Area Network (SAN). Decentralization accommodates hosted and virtual machine data which helps in case of a failure by the migration of the entire environment to a different set of machines.
For partitioning a cloud server into different sizes, a hypervisor is installed. It also serves to allocate physical resources to each cloud server such as processor cores, RAM, and storage space.
Dedicated Hosting Environment
Dedicated hosting does not involve any virtual technology as it offers single physical hardware at a data center location dedicated to your business. You can rent or purchase this independent and isolated hardware to store the data and information to later access on command. This hardware is specifically designed to deliver industry-leading performance, speed, durability, and reliability. It has to be managed manually, so you will require a support team to set up and manage the server.
What is a Cloud Server and How Does it Work?
Cloud server hosting is a virtualized hosting platform offering scalable resources for fluctuating workflow and growing businesses. In this hosting system hardware known as bare-metal-servers deliver the base level support for several cloud servers. One physical server can host numerous virtual servers. Multiple bare-metal servers in a secure colocation data center come together to make a public cloud provide resources to the same virtual space.
Clients do not pay for using or accessing the operating system of a bare-metal server(the physical units). Instead, they pay for the virtual space. It only takes a few seconds to create or dismiss a virtual server. It is a simple task to send resources to a virtual server that does not involve any in-depth hardware modifications.
One of the basic benefits of cloud hosting is flexibility which is crucial to the concept of the cloud server. Cloud is ideal for web hosting, app development, and desktop work environments that are remotely accessible. It enables you to have all your applications on one platform and manage the multi-cloud environment at one place called a cloud powerboard.
What is Dedicated Server Hosting?
Dedicated hosting has only one client on a physical server and all of the resources of that server are available to that specific client renting or buying the physical hardware. The client gets the customized resources including storage, RAM, bandwidth load, and type of processor according to the needs of the business. These are the most powerful machines available in the market that mostly have several processors.
A single client may sometimes demand a cluster of servers known as a “private cloud.” This private cloud is built on virtual technology, with several dedicated servers. All these physical hardware contribute the resources to one virtual location dedicated to one client.
Similarities of Cloud Servers and Dedicated Servers
Both dedicated and cloud servers, at their core level shared some basic features as they perform the same essential actions and conduct the following applications:
- information storage
- receiving requests for information retrieval or access
- Processing those requests
- Delivering the information to the requesting user.
Cloud servers and dedicated servers can also be compared to shared hosting or Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting. With a more sophisticated structure, cloud and dedicated solutions have an edge over shared/VPS solutions in the following areas:
- No performance hiccups or lags when processing large amounts of traffic.
- Industry-standard response time when receiving, processing, and returning information to users.
- Excellent security of data stored.
- Outstanding web applications stability.
Finding the solution which is the right match for an application can save businesses money, maximize resource utilization, and improve scalability and flexibility.
Difference Between Cloud Servers and Dedicated Servers
Both solutions can be compared for performance, scalability, migration, administration, operations, and cost.
Performance
Dedicated servers have the limited resources that you commit to and you can not upgrade or downsize the resources when workflow fluctuates. This means that an increased workflow can often result in a “server down” situation. With cloud, you can expand and shrink back your resources on-demand base, and you are only charged for resources you consumed. This means no downtime and uninterrupted performance. Hosting providers often offer an option to cloud-based tenants frequently consuming the maximum available bandwidth on the network to upgrade to a Network Interface Card (NIC). This can be an expensive option but often companies with higher bandwidth consumption find it worth the extra cost.
Scalability
When it comes to scaling your hosting needs both solutions have major differences. Cloud environment will not require any downtime to scale up resources. However, dedicated servers will consume more time and resources for changing processors without maintenance downtime. A website hosted on only one server will need additional processing capabilities which will require networking with another server or a complete migration.
Migration
A seamless migration can be achieved by both dedicated and cloud hosting solutions, however, the dedicated environment will require more planning. The full-scale plan should account for both future and current growth. Mostly, until the new server is completely ready to take over, the old and new solutions should operate simultaneously. Until the new solution can be adequately tested, it is a smart option to keep the older servers as a backup.
Server Management
For dedicated servers, in-house staff needs to be trained to monitor dedicated hardware systems administration more closely. They will also be required to gain a thorough understanding of the load profile to constrain data storage needs within the given range. Clients and service providers must collaborate effectively in regards to scaling, upgrading, and maintaining to minimize downtime.
Cloud servers offer administrators more accessibility and faster scalability with far less compromise on operations.
While dedicated platforms need planning for a precise calculation of server requirements, the cloud platforms need planning to manage the workload without violating potential limitations.
A Cost Comparison
Normally, the entry cost for cloud servers is lower in comparison to dedicated servers but as a company grows and needs more resources cloud servers can lose this edge.
Certain features requested by clients can also increase the cost of both options. For example, using a dedicated network interface to run a cloud server can cost a lot.
One advantage of dedicated servers is for a higher cost they can be upgraded to offer more memory, network cards and Non-Volatile Memory (NVMe) disks improving capabilities.
A monthly OpEx model (operating expenses) is used mostly to bill for Cloud servers while dedicated physical servers typically employ CapEx or capital expenditures. Dedicated server service providers will let you oversubscribe your resources at no extra cost so you have CapEx costs that might be waved off over a time frame of three years.
Making a Choice
The most important aspect of choosing between hosting platforms is meeting the needs of your business. The crucial criteria for selecting between a cloud or dedicated server solution that it needs to complement the operating procedures, be scalable, and cost-effective. A cloud environment allows you to take advantage of the new technological benefits comparatively more rapidly.
The historical evidence suggests that over an extended period most businesses consume only a small portion of the actual physical resources available to them with bare metal technologies. To optimize the CapEx of that hardware platform one can combine the workloads on a single hardware platform. Cloud service providers use this model to create computing resources on their platforms that cost less.
Which one is the better choice for you? Consider the following factors before making your decision:
- The pros and cons of each solution.
- The current requirements of your business.
- Your future scalability needs.
Cloud hosting is getting more and more popular over time for obvious reasons. If you too are interested in cloud hosting and related services feel free to approach us. At Syslab Technologies, we are offering cloud platforms, cloud powerboard, and cloud management services. We have years of experience and a team of experts to facilitate you.