If your company generally operates exclusively online then you essentially have two choices when it comes to alternatives to in-house servers. For an established company that has stable growth, their best option is definitely dedicated hosting. If you are a start up though, then you should go with cloud hosting. Depending on what you are looking for these two options can differ greatly and one must be smart when choosing which hosting option to go with.
The Cloud Option
If you are relying heavily on the web for most of your business but are still in the start up phase of your company when downtime has the ability to kill you then you should consider cloud. One major advantage of cloud is that it can easily deal with growth and keep your company active at all times.
The best description of cloud hosting is that it is a rental service. You are renting space on a virtual server much in the same way you rent an apartment or a condo. You are able to adjust your required level of space as the size of your business goes. You are not tied down to a specific level of service. Cloud hosting can be adjusted as required in order to accommodate the traffic levels you are receiving. Also you have the ability to choose which operating system you prefer. If you prefer using a windows or a linux system you have that option. This gives cloud users the same flexibility as those using a dedicated host but with flexible billing along with API server configuration.
All this does not mean that you can just flick on a switch and let your site coast. Your IT team will still have to manage the cloud package to make sure that it is optimized for your site. As traffic fluctuates the configurations will as well. This will be familiar to most IT professionals since it is most likely what they are doing now.
Dedicated hosting
Dedicated hosting is when a company leases one or more servers in order to control the work completely. There are 3 advantages to a dedicated package.
For one, your data center is a stable and secure location. This will lower your hardware costs. You won’t have to spend money on housing space or power for the servers since they are off site.
Two, you have complete control over the contents of the server. The server holds only the information you want it to. You therefore have complete control of the bandwidth on that server. Your load times should not be affected by traffic level unless you allow it.
Third, you can adjust and customize your servers’ performance to fit your level of technology.
Why you might chose dedicated hosting:
- A key component of your business is hosting based
- You are an established, large scale business
- You would prefer not dedicate valuable resources to on-site servers
- E commerce or the internet are essential to your business strategy
If you are a company that is ecommerce focused or are running an advertising network then dedicated hosting is probably the preferred option. Online advertisers place banners across thousands of websites. If their ads go down the sites will not get paid and that leads to loss of clients.
If you are using a customized content management system then dedicate hosting is most likely your best option. This will be beneficial for companies that have online inventories. If you are processing thousands of queries or even orders every minute, down time could be the difference between prospering and closing shop.
Article by Charles Homes who is a consultant at Hosting.com, for more info check out their Dedicated Servers
I don’t agree entirely with your metaphor for the cloud. I akin it to more of utility companies. Condo’s and apartments are fixed spaces and you can’t adjust for growth. With a utility company you use what you need only when you need it. For instance, if you need enough power for 30 devices then you get that power on demand, when you need enough power for only 5 devices you only use that power.Cloud computing is the same way. You require a bigger instance of cloud computing server to handle the influx of traffic, you get it. If you aren’t using it, then you scale down. Using the lease a condo metaphor you can’t suddenly want a bigger room to throw a 150 person party and it automatically be there. Just a thought.
Well Greg, I know what you are talking about. I guess I should have been a bit more specific. There is this condo complex in montreal called habitat. It is essentially a giant lego set that you can live in. You can expand your housing needs by purchasing or renting these blocks which are added to your place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67, its pretty cool. Sorry that needed clarification.