What is server hosting
Server hosting (server rental) is a service offered by a cloud provider. It gives you access to Virtual or Physical servers via remote connection. The server is located off-premises in the provider`s data center or some other location specified by you. This is typically done for a monthly fee or for usage-based price. This way the company saves money for up-front cost for the servers, IT expenses for setting up, managing and maintaining the servers.
Why use server hosting
Today companies and individuals use server hosting for a lot of reasons. Some use it for developing and testing, some use it to have more secure backup and disaster recovery options and others use it for application delivery and CDN (Content delivery network). But most use it, because compared to buying and maintaining the servers themselves server rental offers this advantages:
- Faster deployment: If you purchase the server by yourself you will have to wait for delivery of the parts, lose manpower and time for deploying and setting it up. All of this can be done in minutes with server hosting. This will make the idea you had in your mind be developed, tested and put in the market faster.
- No strain on the budget. Predictable ongoing costs: Instead of paying all the money up-front for computer hardware and keep in mind that computer hardware is a depreciating asset. With server hosting you just pay a predictable monthly plan or usage rate. This will cover all the expense of the hardware, power, networking and 24/7 maintenance.
- Simplicity in scaling: If you buy you own servers, you will need to buy a lot more than you need, to cover spikes in usage, which means most of the time you will need to have some portion of your servers just sitting and not doing a thing, but the up-front investment was done and now you have a capital that could have been used on other things locked in hardware that is depreciating every minute, but does not do anything. With server hosting this is not necessary. When you predict a spike in usage(seasonal sale, test of new app) you just rent more servers to cover it, and when the spike is done you just stop. This way you only pay for the time you need them.
Types of server hosting
Most of the server hosting options can be split in 3 categories:
Shared server hosting
The most basic and budget friendly option is shared server hosting. In this type of hosting one physical server is split (rented) to multiple customers (users, company accounts). This is done with a process called virtualization. This is perfect for personal websites, web apps with little traffic and not much security requirements . The biggest problem of this type of hosting is the limited resources, which need to be split between many users(tenants). Now let’s imagine this scenario: Client A and Client B rent the same server. For most of the time they each use 30 to 40% of the server capacity so they don’t have problem, but client A start advertisement campaign, which brings a lot of new users to his site, now he uses 70-80% of the resources of the server, so now 10 – 20% of Clients A and B customers can`t see the sites, because the server is not responding or is responding slow.
VPS hosting
VPS(virtual private server) hosting is the next step in the hosting ladder. This is almost the same as the shared server hosting, but in this one every user has a minimum allocated resources. What does this mean? Let’s return to the example from above. Let’s say Client A and Client B each have a VPS plan with 40% allocated to them. This is 80% of the server already used , so now if either client has a spike in users they can scale to the other 20 % left. So in the example above all 10 -20% of the dropped customers will be from Client A , and all of Client B customers will have no problems at all.
In addition to the allocated resources VPS gives you more control over the software installed on the machine. This is perfect for small businesses, eCommerce sites, CRM. This is also easy and cheap to scale up, you just pick a plan with more allocated resources.
Dedicated server hosting
In Dedicated server hosting you only have one client on the server, he has exclusive access to ALL of the resources of one server. This is the model that provides the most security, from other clients hosted by the same Cloud provider. You have a choice of three different hosting models.
- A dedicated host provides single client access to one Physical server and all of the software installed on it. By choosing this model you get the most transparent and flexible options when it comes to hardware, workload placement, plus you get the most of your “Bring-your-own license” software.
- A dedicated instance (VDS) is the same as above, but is not locked to a single Physical server. So for example if the server is restarted, you as a client will not see the difference, but the machine will be different and may even be in another location entirely.
- Bare metal server – this often is mistaken for dedicated server, but with dedicated server you usually get some sort of OS or Other way to manage it, with bare metal server you don’t get any. You just get access to the server as fast as possible and with nothing on it. This is done so the client has full access to the server in minutes and full access to what is on it. Usually this type of servers are faster and, or have some additional hardware requirement like Graphic processing unit (GPU). This type of hosting is proved by request of the client and billed differently than the other types of hosting.
How to choose the right hosting plan for you
Choosing a plan for you or your company should be based on the following factors:
- Ongoing and upfront costs : It is safe to say that any hosting plan will lower the budget you need for IT, compared to running you own server on-premiss, but some of the hosting plans will help your budget more. Dedicated and bare metal servers will cost more than shared and VPS hosting plans.
- Performance: If you need a lot of computing power to run applications with complex architecture, you are better off with dedicated server. In this case the bottleneck that occurs in shared and VPS hosting may bring unforeseen consequences .
- Scaling and Flexibility : VPS is good for you, if you are less worried with the Physical server and just want the flexibility of saying “I want X amount resources for today, Y amount for tomorrow, and so on and so forth.”
- Security and data privacy: Because shared and VPS hosting have many users on the same physical server they may not be the perfect option for sensitive workloads and for companies in fields with strict data privacy regulations. For this type of workload we recommend Dedicated or bare metal.
Why MaxCloudON hosting
MaxCloudON is specialized in dedicated servers with lots of different options to choose from. With more than 20 years in IT we have a lot of experience dealing with all of our client needs and we have seen and accounted for most of the problems you may face. For more information, about how can your company benefits by using MaxCloudON check our AMD and Intel Prices or Contact us.