Posted on August 1, 2020
How-To Guides
Are you looking for a dedicated server in Atlanta? Then you’re among the 70% of businesses that either have a digital transformation strategy or are looking to deploy one.
To say technology has impacted the business world is a gross understatement. Technology has upended industry so much so that it’s become a layer over every sector. What was once fiction merely a few decades ago is now operating reality.
Against such a backdrop, businesses are moving to adopt higher grade technology solutions, including moving to dedicated servers for enterprise-grade hosting.
However, getting the right service provider is never easy. If you over-invest, you end up wasting precious resources that can better grow the business. On the other hand, if you invest inadequately, you risk disrupting your operations, which disappoints your customers and threatens profitability. The stakes could not be any higher.
Here’s an in-depth guide on seven costly mistakes to not make when looking for a dedicated server in Atlanta for your firm.
A dedicated server is a kind of remote server that’s committed exclusively for use by one user or application. When you opt for a dedicated server, you are typically looking to host a high traffic website, application, or any other service that needs robust hosting capabilities.
A dedicated server is deployed, hosted, and operated by a managed service provider (MSP). As such, you can get the same benefits as using an in-house server without spending the money to buy and maintain the server on-premises.
However, some businesses take a different route and choose to buy a dedicated server but host it at a colocation center. If you go for this option, the responsibility of managing the server will rest on you. Whenever there’s downtime, there’s no one to call for assistance.
You can use a dedicated server to host your services and/or applications. Some businesses also use dedicated servers to host internal functions such as hosting and provisioning of specialized services.
While dedicated servers are a top-of-the-line investment, there’s no getting around the fact they are a notable investment. As such, any mistake you make can make life harder for your business. Here are a few common mistakes to avoid when looking to use dedicated servers.
By the time you’re considering a dedicated server, your website or service has made some headway in terms of traffic. At this point, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to judge server choices based primarily on the cost.
The more efficient your site is in handling heavy traffic, the higher the value you will receive from your more extensive user base. If you are to maintain the trajectory your site is on, you need to consider the long-term when it comes to hosting. Sure, there are free or cheaper hosting options, but these come with their downsides.
For example, a cheaper hosting service will have noticeably slower speeds, which impacts your operations. Research shows that 53% of mobile users (who happen to be the majority internet traffic source nowadays) abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Slow hosting means money out of your picket.
That’s not to say that hiring a dedicated server won’t cost you. If speed is mission-critical to your business, then you should focus on value more than pricing.
One of the most critical factors to consider when looking for a dedicated server service is security. When your website or business gets compromised, the fallout can be huge. You don’t want your firm to be among the one out of every eight businesses that fail due to a data breach.
The security features that dedicated server service providers offer can vary wildly. As such, you need to pay special attention to the security features any package you’re looking at has to offer.
Particularly, you need to ask for all the security features that come standard with your package and those you have to pay extra for. If you fail to do this, your service cost may skyrocket.
One of the most vital security features you can’t ignore when picking out a dedicated server service is distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack protection. It’s common to find many dedicated server services offering basic DDoS protection with a paid enhanced protection opinion.
Where the data center housing the dedicated server you plan to use is situated matters more than you may think.
Signing up to use a dedicated server that’s housed in a data center located too far away can potentially slow down your speeds. The further the data center is, the higher the latency. That means slower loading times for your service or website, which is money going out of your pocket in the form of lost revenue.
On the other hand, if you know the data center the server sits in isn’t far away, you can expect reduced latency. Before signing up for a deal, check to see if the data centers are spread across the country or around the world to get the best location.
In an effort to cut costs, some firms will skimp on or opt out of customization altogether. However, that’s an oversight as such a choice fails to account for the future hosting needs you may have.
For example, let’s say you are a business that requires high bandwidth. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, your bandwidth requirement goes down. If you got locked in a contract with fixed bandwidth, you’d essentially be losing money whenever you don’t need to pay for a lot of it.
If you sign up for a contract that allows you to scale up or down depending on your demand, your dedicated server costs will be more efficient in the long run. And it’s not only the bandwidth that needs flexibility.
You should consider looking for a plan that can give you processor speed flexibility, among others. The more you can customize your dedicated server, the higher the cost and operational efficiency.
As far as technology is concerned, you should have a hard and fast rule: if a service doesn’t offer support, you don’t invest in it. Think about it: what good is the highest level of service if you can’t get prompt help to troubleshoot issues you may have when you are in need?
But even when the dedicated server plan you opt for offers support, you need to drill down on the details. For starters, the provider needs to offer round-the-clock support throughout the week. Regardless of when a problem crops up for you, you need to know help is at hand to stem any potential losses.
On top of that, your dedicated server’s support function needs to offer a live representative you can consult. Automated support can only go so far in troubleshooting more complex issues, and at a dedicated server level, those are the kind of problems you’ll likely face.
A potentially thorny issue you need to settle before signing with a dedicated server service provider is the degree of server administration you’ll have. One of the benefits of using dedicated servers is getting to select the level of management you prefer. Thus, your service provider will assume that you have the adequate technical expertise to run a dedicated server.
However, you should not forget to investigate whether you will have access to remote management modules too. That’s especially critical if you are moving from self-hosting to remote hosting, as these modules will be what you use to maintain the existing infrastructure during the transition.
Every precaution you take to avoid making the mistakes others make when selecting a dedicated server comes to nothing if you aren’t clear on your requirements. Ideally, this should be the first thing you do before looking at quotes from providers.
Choosing the right dedicated server service is not a stroke of luck. It takes a comprehensive assessment of your current and future needs.
What level of traffic are you receiving now? Do you anticipate any future changes in traffic? What will these changes mean for your server needs? What operating system do you plan to use?
The deeper you dig into asking the right questions, the greater the clarity on what you need to get the job done.
Every business has moved from a world where technology was a nice-to-have to one where tech is a do-or-die matter.
To mine more benefits out of technology, more companies are moving to dedicated servers. However, unless you’re careful with such a move, you’ll make costly mistakes. It’s prudent to take the time and investigate the common mistakes other firms have made when choosing a dedicated server in Atlanta to avoid a similar fate.
NETdepot has been enabling businesses to deploy strategic technology infrastructure solutions since 1994. Talk to us today for robust cloud services backed by 20 years of industry expertise.