Dedicated server is the most advanced hosting option that can be used for various purposes. Abundance of resources, total freedom of customization and root access make it a perfect option for any business. Doubt whether your project can reap benefits from such solution? Just read about the ways to use a dedicated server for web hosting, and you’ll realize that it can be exactly what you need!
Website Hosting
This is the most obvious and the most widespread way to use a dedicated server is website hosting. Your well-developed website has grown big enough to attract thousands of readers daily? Or it contains a lot of heavy content like videos and images? Or maybe you’ve created a brand new website from the scratch and believe it’s doomed to success? No matter what the case is, a dedicated server is your chance to get a “golden mine” of resources and future-proof your project.
Having your website hosted on a dedicated server has the following key advantages:
- If you order an advanced and reliable dedicated server in a decent datacenter, uptime will be about 99% and higher, which means constant availability of your website.
- Higher speed of loading ensures brilliant user experience and better SEO. Search engines rank fast websites much higher.
- You have root access to your server, which means you can use any software and applications you need. It allows totally personalizing your environment and having the opportunity to build a great website.
- You have plenty of resources (RAM, storage space, and processing power) at your disposal and don’t have to share them with anyone else.
- There are no other users on the server, which means others’ actions and projects won’t make your website vulnerable, unlike in the case with shared servers.
With a dedicated server, you’ll be able to manage tons of traffic coming to your website without technical issues.
Сommercial purposes
Those who develop an e-commerce website know how much traffic it starts getting as it evolves. If your project is connected with online transactions, and the level of user experience is crucial, a dedicated server is a must. First, it will guarantee a high uptime and constant availability of your website. Secondly, visitors will enjoy rapid page downloading and excellent website performance. Thirdly, customers may be sure in total security of their transactions, because a dedicated server allows for using advanced security tools.
Game server
A lot of gamers, both beginners and advanced, use a dedicated server as a game server for their groups of friends (“clan”). For example, such games as Counterstrike, TF2, Battlefield and strategies are often hosted on such servers. With a dedicated server, you can play with your friends in a private environment instead of the whole Internet. However, this is a good option, only if you’re an advanced system administrator, and have enough technical knowledge to manage a dedicated server. Besides, it’s important to calculate your budget and match the required performance with available finances.
Application development
Since dedicated server is a totally customizable environment, you can run and develop your own applications and software. It will be secured from the rest of your project and other users, which gives you total freedom. Besides, you’ll always have enough storage space and processing power to perform all tests and developments.
Video/music server
You can build and customize your server to handle heavy and large files, which makes it perfect for video streaming. This is a cool option for video bloggers and publishers who need personalized platform instead of a ready service. A dedicated server is large enough to store all of your videos and at the same time serve them to multiple users. Just make sure that you buy an advanced machine located in a data center close to your target audience.
Alternatively, you can turn your dedicated server into a web-based jukebox that allows organizing music files and playing them from any device you use. Such server will come in handy, if you want to stream high-quality multimedia at different bandwidths and have a stable access to your music library from anywhere.
Besides, a dedicated server can also serve as a video chat platform, for instance, WebRTC is used for that, especially when combined with a VoiP option. That’s a great product for companies that rely on real-time communication, including consulting agencies, education institutes, etc. Every chat room is enabled with proxy and chat bots, and allows for file transfer.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Server
Who said that you should use your dedicated server for hosting? You can power an IaaS cloud and resell it to other organizations. This solution can make more sense, when applied to collocation environment, and you will also need a SAN solution, dedicated firewall, and so on. Of course, this is a good option for technologically advanced users who definitely know how to manage a server, make virtualized environments and solve various technological issues. Pretty often, users divide one dedicated server into several virtual private servers providing secure connections over public networks and channels, so all your traffic goes through these connections.
E-mail servers
With an E-mail server you can easily manage e-mails and have overall control over their reception, delivery and distribution. If you have your e-mail at your own domain, you can easily manage upload limit and storage. With your own server, you don’t have to be afraid of huge and heavy files. Besides, many security issues are prevented, as well. You can both send your existing emails to a dedicated server, or customize it for it from the scratch. Some dedicated server providers have limits (for example, 1,000 messages a day, and attachments not exceeding 30Mb), but they are pretty spare.
Company infrastructure development
Well-established enterprises and corporations go online and create their own infrastructures in proprietary servers. Pretty often, such environments serve for collaboration and co-working, as well as database running. If you need a reliable virtual environment with quick access for multiple users, a dedicated server is a great option, no matter how big your company is.
Bonus: Dedicated server for backup
Don’t forget that dedicated server is a safe and reliable platform for storing reserve copies of your websites and applications. Whenever a problem occurs, you will be able to quickly restore your projects having an instant access via a dedicated server.
Dedicated server is a versatile solution for web hosting that can be very useful for your project, too! It’s a very cost-efficient and reliable hosting option that outperforms all other types of servers.
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