Today's growing businesses may find themselves at a crossroads when it comes to their IT support. While the shared environments many currently employ come with several advantages, many companies have turned to dedicated hardware to ensure better availability, predictability and stability for their critical processes.
If your organization is beginning to feel the constraints of a shared environment, it might be time to upgrade. Let's take a look at just a few ways your business could benefit from a dedicated server:
Availability
Within a shared environment, the total pool of available computing resources is divvied up among the many users. If there are three other websites within the shared environment, your business can only utilize one-fourth of the computing power – or less, in some cases.
"Dedicated hardware can help ensure availability, predictability and stability."
Take this scenario, for example: Your company leverages a shared environment with several other organizations, one of which is currently experiencing a peak demand period. In order to maintain support for that site, the shared environment must reallocate resources, which could translate to a decline in performance for your site.
With dedicated hardware, the entirety of the hardware's resources are dedicated to a single business's website or assets. There's no tug of war with computing power – the environment is always available, meaning the website or other assets being supported are continually accessible.
Predictability
Dedicated hardware can also bring benefits to the table when it comes to predictability, both in performance and in billing. As the last scenario shows, availability issues could mean inconsistent performance of a company's supported platform, especially if another organization in the shared environment is consuming more resources than usual.
A dedicated environment, on the other hand, is incredibly predictable, not only in terms of consistent, top-notch performance, but also in its price. As TechTarget has pointed out, dedicated hosting plans typically include a specific amount of memory, hard disk space and bandwidth. In this way, the company always knows where it stands with its resources, and can take advantage of a fixed monthly expenditure for the environment. A regular bill that doesn't fluctuate can make a big difference for many companies in terms of budget planning.
Stability
As noted previously, shared environments can be particularly volatile at times. An increase in demand for one supported platform can mean a dip in performance for another. With dedicated hardware in place, the company can enjoy a level of stability that simply isn't possible in a shared hosting plan.
With dedicated resources in place, your business will never have to worry about a decline in performance due to rising user demands. Dedicated hardware ensures that your organization has all the computing power it needs to provide the best experience for its users, whether these are customers visiting the firm's website or its own employees accessing mission-critical assets.
Dedicated hardware means having a pool of computing resources available for the sole use of your company.
There's more where that came from
The benefits of dedicated hardware don't end with availability, predictability and stability:
- Boosted administrative control: We pointed out in a previous blog that while some believe dedicated hardware translates to reduced control over the environment, this is actually a misconception. Dedicated server hosting ensures that the client has total control and oversight of what is maintained within the environment, and how resources are consumed.
- Transparency: Building off the above benefit, dedicated hardware also means increased transparency typically. Because the company is in total control of the environment, administrators are never in the dark when it comes to their infrastructure.
- Expert tech support: Perhaps one of the best advantages is the fact that a dedicated server comes backed by the provider's skilled staff. In this way, hardware is efficiently maintained by experts, freeing up time for the company's internal IT team.
Dedicated hardware can offer a number of benefits for your company, particularly when you select an expert provider like Hostway. We offer customizable solutions to ensure that your environment fits your specific needs. And with our 100 percent network uptime guarantee and superior support, you'll be glad you made the change.
To find out more about our available solutions, contact us today.