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What Is a Dedicated Server?
A dedicated server is a data center server assigned or ‘dedicated’ to a single customer, often one with a high-traffic website or web application. Unlike shared or virtual servers, dedicated servers give the end customer full control over the server machine. Resource allocations can be configured according to need.
Servers can also run a variety of software applications, have an operating system (OS) that’s different from the data center’s standard option, and have additional security features. Dedicated servers are designed for mission-critical websites and applications that demand stability and can handle computationally heavy workloads at peak usage periods when significant server resources are needed.
Key Takeaways
- A dedicated server is a computer in a data center that’s 100% devoted to the hosting needs of one organization.
- It’s the opposite of a shared server, where a machine’s computing resources and bandwidth are divided among multiple organizations that share the cost.
- The advantages of dedicated servers are their high performance and configurability.
- The downsides are added cost and technical complexity.
- For websites processing a high volume of transactions, hosted applications with hundreds of users, or streaming media and gaming apps, dedicated servers are a logical choice.
How Do Dedicated Servers Work?
A dedicated server sits in a data center and is connected to the Internet through the data center’s network infrastructure. Power is provided by the data center via duty power lines supported by batteries and backup generators.
Dedicated hosting enables an organization to have an entire physical machine and all of its computing resources, including the machine’s central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), storage, and bandwidth. Dedicated servers can be owned and operated in an organization’s own data center or leased from a hosting provider.
By leasing a dedicated server, organizations gain all the benefits of the machine and, with it, access to the data center’s resources of Internet bandwidth, power, cooling, and physical security. Dedicated server agreements typically come with guarantees from the data center (or hosting provider) about minimum server uptime, with technical support provided in the event of a server software or hardware failure.
Why Would You Need a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated server benefits include a guarantee that an organization has an exclusive server infrastructure with no sharing of or competition for a machine’s resources. By providing dedicated server hosting to one organization, it can deliver better web hosting speed and responsiveness than a cloud or shared server. If the needs of the organization increase and more hosting resources are needed, the server can be upgraded with added components or replaced with a more powerful dedicated machine.
A cloud server is a type of shared virtualized server that pulls together resources from multiple machines. It centralizes control over those resources and delivers them over the Internet, where they can be accessed by multiple customers.
Cloud servers offer the same processing power, storage, and range of applications as a dedicated server but have advantages in terms of scalability and flexible deployment – plus they require less real estate to store and operate.
While dedicated servers are the premium option for high-traffic, high-availability websites, they can be expensive for smaller organizations.
A shared server allows multiple websites to be hosted on a single machine. This allows the data center operator to keep hosting costs in check and offer pricing more suited to small and mid-sized companies. End customers purchase a hosting package with a set limit on how much server resources they can use.
A virtual private server offers a compromise between a fully dedicated server and a shared server. It takes the form of software rather than hardware and runs within an isolated environment on a physical machine, usually in a cloud or web-hosting data center.
VPS servers use virtualization technology to divide a physical server into multiple private server environments. While multiple virtual servers share the machine’s resources, each virtual server is private (e.g. dedicated) to a single organization. VPS offers a compromise between a fully dedicated server and a shared server: dedicated server space supported by a reserved amount of computing resources.
Dedicated Server Use Cases
Dedicated servers are usually the best option for high-demand use cases where websites or applications need to process a high volume of transactions or transmit large amounts of data quickly and seamlessly.
These include:
Dedicated Server Pros and Cons
- Enhanced performance
- User-specific options for security and customization
- Powerful solution for businesses with high traffic
- Suited for regulated industries and specialized hosting needs
- Costly to hire and maintain
- Require more technical expertise to configure and manage
The Bottom Line
In today’s digital economy, the choice of a server solution can be critical for application uptime and a glitch-free customer experience.
Dedicated servers set aside a physical machine’s computing resources exclusively for one organization. By definition it’s the most robust and stable option for websites with a lot of traffic and e-commerce transactions to process. It’s also the best option for hosted applications with heavy usage.
