The History (and Future) of Dedicated Servers

Our journey through dedicated server history began within the early 2000s when dedicated hosting technology became a daily a part of the hosting industry. Before dedicated servers, the entire hosted web sites and Web-connected networks on the planet ran on shared servers. This technology eventually gave method to virtualized servers, also often called VPS Hosting.

Since then, so much has modified. But some organizations still prefer the guaranteed resources and single-tenant hardware a dedicated server provides. Having guaranteed resources can dramatically improve website performance and speed. Dedicated servers also provide higher control and security by providing a dedicated environment tailored to your enterprise needs.

Moreover, there are still several other reasons your organization might select dedicated servers over shared ones. Some firms select a dedicated server to comply with regulations, corresponding to HIPAA-compliant hosting for healthcare organizations and PCI compliance for eCommerce sites that take payments directly through the location, reasonably than third-party services like PayPal or Square. 

Dedicated servers are a necessary technology for today’s digital landscape as a result of the recent rise in eCommerce and Web security concerns. How did such a vital technology come to be?

The history of dedicated servers is rooted in shared hosting. To grasp what a dedicated server is, we first need to take a look at shared servers or shared hosting platforms.

In a shared model, hundreds of thousands of users have simultaneous access to a single pool of hosting resources. This model could also be enough for smaller web sites.

So, why upgrade to a dedicated server? Through the years, dedicated servers have change into rather more popular as businesses’ performance and security demands have increased to adapt to the changing digital landscape. 

Government agencies, industries with compliance requirements, and huge firms wanting to guard their data prefer a dedicated server’s privacy and dedicated resources. But this technology wasn’t all the time available.

Web hosts began offering shared servers way back within the Nineteen Nineties because the Web began to achieve traction and businesses established their first web pages. Liquid Web began offering shared hosting packages in 1998, providing our customers with a cheap solution to host sites without bearing the price of a dedicated server. 

Rack servers were introduced within the ‘90s, replacing machines that were mainly desktop computers. Eventually, the net presence of many businesses grew to the purpose where they needed dedicated, single-tenant resources.

Businesses were required to upgrade as conducting business on the Web became more complex. The quantity of knowledge being transmitted each day necessitated features like full customization, complete isolation, and root access. 

Liquid Web’s first dedicated servers launched in 2000, providing customers with a then state-of-the-art Pentium III 650Mhz CPU, 128 MB of SDRAM, and 15GB of storage. Blade servers, a stripped-down server model designed to take up minimal space and eat minimal energy in an information center, appeared shortly after and were adopted throughout the industry to avoid wasting space and organize the rapidly increasing variety of servers in use.

We all know that dedicated servers got their start from shared servers. But where did those come from? Where does the complete history of servers begin?

Most quantum leaps in computer technology – Microsoft, Apple, the iPhone, etc. – all come from humble beginnings. Server technology is not any different.

The primary recorded use of the term server applied to a desktop computer used with the CERN project. CERN involved 17,000 scientists, spanning 100 countries. These sensible minds needed a platform to share essential information, but it surely needed to be accessible to all. 

This problem of data access would require an progressive solution. A British scientist involved within the CERN project, Tim Berners-Lee, could be just the person for the job.

In 1989, Berners-Lee got here up with the thought of the World Wide Web and the primary web server. It took a while and collaboration with a systems engineer, but by November 1990, the primary web server was born.

Berners-Lee’s Web and first web server were hosted on a NeXT computer. Scientists involved within the CERN program could access the knowledge they needed from their very own distant location via the net address info.cern.ch.

Because the computer needed to be running 24/7 to offer information, Berners-Lee taped a note to the pc that read, “This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!” And thus, the primary web server was born.

Of their simplest form, servers are accountable for storing and sending data. Each time you type an online address into your browser and hit Enter, your computer queries a server for the knowledge from that website. For this reason there’s a second or two gap between you hitting the button and seeing that website in your screen. 

Servers facilitate all of our each day online activities. Conducting web searches, transferring files, and streaming music all require the assistance of a server in one other location. Their primary function is to administer and transmit data to an endpoint device often called the client. Servers get their name because they exist to offer services and serve other devices on a network. If a server is just providing one service to its client, it’s considered a dedicated server. 

Larger firms, like Google or Amazon, could have entire warehouses (server farms) dedicated to storing and operating their servers. The servers themselves can take up numerous room, and corporations also need to put in AC units and backup generators to maintain servers running easily. Some server rooms are so large they require their very own dedicated electricity facility.

There are two parts to any server: the hardware and the operating system. The hardware portion accommodates the next server components:

• A rack mount chassis.
• An influence supply.
• A system motherboard.
• A number of central processing units (CPUs).
• A network interface.
• Server storage.
• Server RAM.

The server’s operating system directs these hardware components. Typically, servers run on a Windows or Linux framework. These are the platforms that enable server applications to run. 

The operating system allows applications access to the server’s hardware resources, and the applications enable the servers to perform their primary function. For instance, for a database server to be called a database server, it needs to administer database applications.

Server CPU performance just isn’t exclusively expressed by its megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz). Equally essential today is the variety of processing cores and threads a CPU has.

Liquid Web provides dedicated servers with 4 to thirty-two cores (eight to sixty-four threads) and may also offer solutions with custom resources to fulfill your needs.

Storage technology has also modified significantly. The variety of hard-disk drives (HDDs) utilizing spinning disks read by sensors on moveable arms, which were an integral a part of the early history of server hardware, has grown in size to lots of of GB each.

Beyond the change in scale, premium dedicated servers now feature solid-state drives (SSDs) because the industry standard, which provide significant performance benefits over HDDs and have allowed for other quantum leaps in server technology. 

Within the years ahead, SSD storage capability, increased CPU power, and technologies like AI and machine learning (ML) will begin to disrupt the server industry. AI and ML will allow servers to be more autonomous, and IT admins will have the option to run vast data centers remotely. This will likely also result in a decrease in the quantity of staff required to power a corporation’s IT estate. 

Not only can dedicated servers provide faster performance, but they’ve also change into much faster and easier for organizations to deploy. Deployment of a dedicated server used to take days and even weeks. 

The hardware assembly, manually installing and establishing software, connecting, and troubleshooting all added as much as a really lengthy process. Now, that point has been reduced to 48 hours or less through the automation of many steps in the method. And for those in search of fast provisioning and deployment, bare metal servers can be found as an option.

Automation has also made managing dedicated servers much easier than in the course of the early history of servers. Service providers can now tackle vast numbers of servers while still installing updates and applying patches as soon as they can be found, because of advancements in server technology like AI, lifecycle extension, virtualization, and distributed software architectures.

Liquid Web offers Fully Managed Dedicated Servers, which implies software updates, security patches, and maintenance of your LAMP infrastructure stack (the Linux operating system, Apache HTTP server, MySQL relational database management system, and PHP programming language) are all performed by our hosting professionals.

Dedicated server packages from Liquid Web provide the perfect service and support available on enterprise-class hardware.

Along with performance on a distinct scale, dedicated server plans like those offered by Liquid Web also include the next features:

The history of servers has come a great distance. Dedicated servers have come from their humble beginnings as desktop computers to powering a number of the world’s top web sites. 

Because the Web and business needs proceed to evolve, the long run of dedicated servers is headed on an exciting trajectory. As all the time, Liquid Web can be on the forefront of the progress, helping customers get the perfect value for his or her IT budget.