What Is a Cloud Dedicated Server?

What Is a Cloud Dedicated Server?

Gartner forecasts that public cloud spending will grow from $410.9 billion in 2021 to $494.7 billion in 2022. That’s because cloud deployments offer several advantages over bare metal servers, including lower costs and faster scalability, that are essential for growing digital businesses. 

But what happens when your small business outgrows its virtual private server (VPS)? How will you avoid sharing cloud server resources with other users that decelerate your application?

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t.

Read on to learn all the things you have to find out about cloud dedicated servers, including what they’re, their advantages, and find out how to select a reliable dedicated cloud server hosting in your online business.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to Cloud Dedicated Servers

In a virtual cloud hosting setup, a network of cloud servers store, manage, and process data over the Web. Hosting providers create virtualized containers using a hypervisor that users access to host and run software applications on the cloud.

Hardware resources, resembling processing and computing resources, are shared between all users. So once you host an application alongside a resource-intensive app, your app competes for virtual resources, and its performance suffers.

Cloud dedicated servers offer the same profit by ensuring all hardware resources can be found to a single user. A bare metal hypervisor is installed on top of the server hardware to provide a single client access to all available hardware resources.

Furthermore, the hypervisor permits you to create multiple virtual machines that receive dedicated hardware resources resembling cupboard space, central processing units (CPUs), and processors. You benefit from the advantages of a bare metal server while leveraging the scalability of the cloud.

The software used for virtualization often varies between cloud vendors. As an example, Liquid Web employs a proprietary, kernel-based virtual machine to offer a scalable virtual environment that supports dynamic provisioning.

Cloud Dedicated vs. Traditional Dedicated Servers: A High-Level Comparison

Here’s a high-level comparison of a cloud dedicated and traditional dedicated server hosting to assist you to understand the similarities and differences between the 2:

Advantages of Cloud Dedicated Servers

Whether you’re migrating from a shared VPS or a dedicated on-premises data center, a dedicated cloud will offer your small business several advantages.

Cost Savings

A dedicated cloud server costs lower than on-premises hosting. You possibly can access dedicated hardware resources without upfront capital expenditure or ongoing maintenance costs. As an alternative, you simply pay a predictable monthly fee.

Effortless Scalability

A dedicated cloud permits you to add resources on demand. You possibly can ensure peak application performance in any respect times. While traditional dedicated servers are scalable, they can’t scale your resources at a moment’s notice like you’ll be able to achieve with a dedicated cloud. 

High Redundancy

Hosting your small business applications on the cloud offers more redundancy than a standard hosting setup positioned on-premises. You possibly can configure backup instances for simple disaster recovery and minimize downtimes. Furthermore, greater redundancy also leads to raised uptimes.

Enhanced Security

Average cybersecurity incidents and material breaches.

A report by ThoughtLab revealed that material breaches increased by 24.5% in 2021. Cloud dedicated servers simplify server security with cloud firewalls and DDoS protections. You don’t have to worry about investing in expensive IT administration that slows growth.

When Include Software needed a reliable, cloud-based solution to eliminate their IT maintenance woes, they turned to Liquid Web to simplify their administrative tasks. Here’s what Nanette Seven, VP of Include Software, needed to say about her experience:

“Partnering with Liquid Web has been hugely useful to our clients. Liquid Web provides a seamless solution, and our clients now not worry about taking good care of servers.”

Cloud Dedicated Servers: Top Use Cases

A dedicated cloud is flexible and might serve several unique business needs. Here’s a fast rundown of the highest use cases:

File and Database Hosting

Dedicated cloud servers are best suited to resource-intensive databases and file hosting. The high availability of the cloud and its dedicated server resources are perfect for high input/output (I/O) databases and large data-based apps.

Bare metal cloud solutions support the demanding workloads of emerging technologies resembling artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Hosting Multiple Web sites

Dedicated clouds are also excellent for businesses and digital agencies that host multiple web sites or applications. You possibly can create virtualized containers for every application and assign dedicated cloud computing power and processing resources.

Furthermore, once you resize a server, you don’t have to worry about tedious migrations or post-migration testing. You possibly can upscale your dedicated cloud with minimal downtime.

Private Cloud Networking

Cloud dedicated servers are excellent for creating private cloud networks. Whether for intra-organizational communications or to fulfill regulatory compliances, dedicated cloud servers make it easy to establish private networks and eliminate complex VPS management.

Furthermore, the private network bandwidth usage doesn’t count against your monthly bandwidth capability. You possibly can get unlimited bandwidth for personal networking at no extra cost.

Load Balancing

Demand spikes and viral moments can occur at any time. But once you’re hosting your application on a dedicated cloud, you’ll be able to handle the additional load by establishing Virtual IP addresses (VIPs) and distributing traffic across several cloud-based servers.

With multiple server nodes in your network, any sudden spikes in traffic that bring down a node will probably be transferred to a different node to avoid disrupting service.

How To Select a Cloud Dedicated Server: Aspects To Consider

There’s rather a lot you have to consider once you’re searching for cloud website hosting. 

Hosting Budget

The very first thing you have to consider when selecting a dedicated cloud is your hosting budget. That’s because your hosting budget will influence nearly every decision you make beyond this point.

When you estimate how much you’d wish to spend, you’ll be able to explore service providers and compare their offerings.

Business Needs

One other crucial factor it’s best to consider is your small business needs. Listed here are some questions you’ll be able to answer to discover the very best dedicated cloud server for your small business:

  • What number of applications do you have to host?
  • What variety of applications do you have to host?
  • Do you require server management services?
  • Does your server need to fulfill any compliance requirements?

Server Location

Server location is just as necessary because the variety of server you select. That’s because a server removed from its target market will suffer from performance and network latency issues. A content delivery network (CDN) might alleviate a few of these problems, however it won’t eliminate them.

Management Level

The extent of services you require may vary based on your small business goals. Thus, select a hosting provider that may fill any knowledge gaps inside your organization.

Liquid Web offers three convenient management levels you’ll be able to select from:

  1. Self managed.
  2. Core managed.
  3. Fully managed.

You possibly can select a management level that aligns with your small business model and luxuriate in a worry-free hosting experience on our Cloud Dedicated Servers.

Uptime Guarantees

Besides management services, it’s essential to review the service and uptime guarantees offered by the hosting provider. Reputable cloud service providers generally offer service level agreements (SLA) that outline uptime and average response times.

Liquid Web’s SLA guarantees a 59-second initial response time for chat and phone requests and 100% power and network uptime. Day or night, when things go mistaken, you’re guaranteed a response from The Most Helpful Humans In Hosting®.

Security and Backup

Threat actors in security breaches.

Verizon’s evaluation of over 914,547 cybersecurity incidents revealed that just about 80% of breaches were brought on by external sources. Thus, reliable security and backup measures are vital to maintaining a powerful security posture.

Search for dedicated hosting providers that provide protection from multiple sources of compromise, resembling DDoS attacks, malware, and viruses. For instance, Liquid Web provides security and compliance add-ons resembling firewalls, VPNs, and an online application firewall.

Final Thoughts: What Is a Cloud Dedicated Server?

Dedicated cloud servers offer the performance advantages of a bare metal server and the reliability of the cloud. Migrating your applications to a dedicated cloud can provide your small business with advantages resembling cost reduction, increased security, and greater redundancy.

But to profit from all the benefits of cloud servers, you would like a reliable hosting partner like Liquid Web. Our Cloud Dedicated Servers provide you with on-demand scalability with three convenient levels of server management.
Browse our plans to learn more, or contact The Most Helpful Humans In Hosting® to start today.