What is Dedicated Server?

In the digital era, with the development of technology, when everyone is looking for progress in the world of the Internet and combining their businesses with the Internet. Today, having a website with ideal performance has become a necessity for businesses. In the internet world, to launch a successful website, as you know, hosting is one of the essential components, among other factors.

You can use a shared server to host your website, which is usually the first choice of users due to its cost-effectiveness and no need for a large budget. You can also prefer a VPS  to respond to your growing site’s needs and remove the restrictions on access and use of resources in shared hosting. A virtual private server has many advantages compared to shared hosting, but it faces limitations in providing the best performance for websites that are being upgraded.

A dedicated server is an option to get the ideal performance of websites. But sometimes, users neglect the excellent service of a dedicated server when they want to make significant progress in their business. A dedicated server is recommended for users who intend to develop their business websites because a dedicated server removes all the obstacles that may hinder the development and promotion of your site from the path of businesses. It also solves many problems of users by providing unique capabilities and access for improving server management, as well as resources that are provided to users without restrictions.

Therefore, if you intend to win the competition with rival businesses and move towards growth and promotion without facing any restrictions, using a dedicated server is the ideal option for progress. You should look for a dedicated server if you have a large business or a website with high traffic. A dedicated server offers more reliability and security for your website, so consider it if you have the budget. In any case, for any business, benefiting from the features of a dedicated server is their ultimate goal so that they can respond to their needs.

If you don’t know what a dedicated server is? And what are its advantages? What are the reasons for using and choosing a dedicated server? Our article is provided to answer your questions to make you more familiar with the features of a dedicated server.

What is a dedicated server?

A dedicated server is a hosting service that, as the name suggests, allocates all the resources and power of a server to your website. That is, unlike shared hosting, you do not have a partner in using server resources, and other websites will not have access to the server that belongs to your website, so you will have more control in managing the site, and you will no longer worry about the impact of other sites on your website.

A dedicated server guarantees the security of your website, but due to its features and advantages, it has a higher price compared to shared hosting and VPS. Due to the cheapness of shared hosting, users usually start their online activity with shared hosting, but with the passage of time and due to the website’s growth, they realize that shared hosting was not a reasonable choice for their site, and they go for VPS.

VPS is the ideal option for growing sites, but for an excellent performance experience, it may not be able to meet the needs of users who have high traffic and whose site security is susceptible. That’s why users usually face a dilemma about choosing between VPS and a dedicated server and do not know which one is ideal for their needs.

However, it is worth noting that if you are not on a tight budget and investment, choose a dedicated server to ensure your site’s security and optimal performance. A dedicated server is a hosting service that provides the best Function for developing sites with high input traffic. It also responds to the needs of large companies to improve and upgrade security and offers unique capabilities to increase access and control over the server.

In a dedicated server, the server management is the responsibility of the user; they have the freedom to customize the server settings and can perform administrative tasks such as initial server setup, security scanning, monitoring, and other issues; therefore, they need to have the necessary knowledge and skills.

How does a dedicated server work?

A dedicated server is basically similar to VPS and shared hosting in the way it works. We have already discussed VPS and shared hosting in detail to familiarize you with these two hosting services. But again, we will give a brief explanation of the performance of a dedicated server; hosting providers divide server resources into smaller parts through virtualization technology and rent each part to users for different purposes.

Server resources in shared hosting may be divided among thousands of user accounts. While in VPS, a server may be shared between a small number of users (for example, 10-15 accounts or virtual machines). A dedicated server provides a service where all resources are available to one user, and its resources are not shared with other users.

So users can configure the dedicated server for any function, for example, for hosting web, game, database, etc.

Advantages and reasons for using a dedicated server

VPS and dedicated servers have many similarities, but dedicated servers have features that distinguish them from VPS. There are many things that you need to take advantage of that a dedicated server provides. There is no specific standard for using a dedicated server, but in any case, to host your website, you have to choose a service and pay for it. It’s better that for the price you pay, you benefit from the features that provide optimal performance according to your expectations. In the following, we will mention some of the advantages of a dedicated server:

• Management of site traffic increase

Changing the hosting to a dedicated server is usually done due to the anticipation of business growth and increased site traffic. This upgrade can be due to an increase in customer site visits, an increase in the number of displayed products, or an expansion of the range of services offered to customers through the server.

In a dedicated server, due to the allocation of all server resources to the user’s website, with a sudden increase in site traffic and an unexpected influx of visitors, there is no place to worry about the speed drop and disruption of the server’s performance. The dedicated server is well-equipped to manage and control the problems caused by the increase in traffic. The user in the dedicated server will not experience the worry of increasing the bounce rate and losing his income.

A dedicated server with high flexibility increases the site’s ability to adapt to incoming traffic and also creates a positive experience for the user in terms of speed and reducing page loading time. Although it costs more compared to other services and hosting, but the customer satisfaction and excellent performance of the dedicated server are worth the cost you pay.

•  Improve site content loading speed

Fast loading of your site pages is an essential factor in creating a good user experience and significantly impacts SERP ranking. Of course, when all the server resources belong to your site, and the server does not host several sites at the same time, the loading time of the site elements will decrease. There are many benefits to having a fast website.

One of the features of a fast website is the impact on SEO optimization. Page loading time is one of the site ranking criteria for Google. That is, a website whose pages load faster will rank higher in Google search results, while a slow website will have the opposite result.

By owning the entire server resource exclusively, you can add custom features (such as adding video and HD images for training) to the site without facing challenges related to the slowness of speed and Create a good experience for the user.

In addition to improving site SEO, conversion rates, revenue, and user experience are all affected by site loading speed. The longer users wait for site content to load, the greater the chance of losing visitors.

Due to increased page loading speed, your site’s usability and ranking in the Google search engines are improved with dedicated servers.

•  Improve security

Security is one of a dedicated server’s main and most important advantages. Safety is essential for all users. No one wants to experience security risks in connection with their business, especially for those who work in an industry where the security and privacy of data and information is the most critical factor for their activity. In this situation, they cannot share their server with other users and sites and accept the risk of access to server data and site information.

Using a dedicated server eliminates many security concerns, such as jeopardizing the site’s security by another site that is infected with malware or the possibility of your site being involved with the problems of other sites and the possibility of the site being closed.

Therefore, if the security of your site’s data is important to you, and credit card transactions and other sensitive data must be encrypted and protected on your site, then a dedicated server should be your priority when choosing to host your site.

As you know, each server has its unique IP address, so the IP address of the dedicated server will belong to your site, while the IP address of the shared server is shared with other websites. In a shared server, if a site regularly distributes spam content, since the IP server is used in a shared manner, such activities can hurt your website’s SEO due to the connection with suspicious content. It is also possible that search engines will stop indexing your site altogether. As a result, the SEO of a site hosted by a dedicated server is not affected by the activity of other sites.

In addition to these features, a dedicated server allows users to have complete control over the server and customize the settings. You can set any security tools or patches for your server without the involvement of hosting service providers and regardless of the needs of other users who are hosted on the shared server to improve the security of your site and data.

•  Dedicated resources

On a dedicated server, your resources are not shared with other websites. This means that server resources such as CPU and RAM are all allocated to your site. Therefore, you get rid of the problems that users experience in shared hosting due to its shared nature.

In shared hosting, if other sites on the server use malicious software, which will occupy a larger share of storage memory, it will harm your site’s performance. Also, the increase in the traffic of other sites in the shared hosting will disrupt the bandwidth of the server and the speed of your website.

Fortunately, a dedicated server is a solution to get rid of all these problems, and you can access all the resources and capacity of the server.

• The possibility of customization and complete control over the server

Unlike other hosting, a dedicated server has no restrictions on server control and gives you the freedom to take complete control of the server. The dedicated server has made it possible to apply settings according to the website’s needs, and the user can configure the required features on the server to optimize the site’s performance. For example, you will be free to set up the content management system platform and even the operating system, you can configure and adjust the hardware equipment according to your needs, or if you want to change the resource control from Apache to NGINX, you can answer your need without restrictions.

It is also possible to control server security and customize security settings on a dedicated server. Such features are invaluable for experienced web designers, developers, and expert users to configure freely as per their needs.

It should be noted that in a dedicated server, you get rid of the worry of changing your hosting service, and you can easily upgrade hosting services at the right time, and software upgrades and server setup do not need to be paid for.

Disadvantages of a dedicated server

In this section, we will point out some of the minor weaknesses of the dedicated server, which are not considered a defect against its wonderful features. For large businesses with high traffic, these cases can usually be ignored.

•  Expensive

One of the problems of a dedicated server is its high cost compared to a VPS and a shared host, which may be expensive for users who have just started online activities and do not have enough funds to buy a dedicated server. Usually, we do not recommend a dedicated server for start-up businesses or companies that do not have high incoming traffic to the site.

The possibility of compromising security due to an unreliable provider

When buying a dedicated server, look for a reputable hosting service provider, and don’t be fooled by free and cheap services. For users who go for a dedicated server, their data security is critical, so ensure that sensitive information and privacy are protected from hackers and third-party intrusions through hosting providers. Don’t neglect to increase the security of your dedicated server by setting up a secure firewall, two-factor authentication, and security updates.

Also, to ensure the server’s security, you must be aware of the terms of the data retention period and the data storage and support services in connection with the hosting providers. Therefore, before buying a dedicated server, check the providers well and ensure their services.

•  Need for expertise

Since the initial configuration and settings of the server are entirely the users’ responsibility, the users are responsible for the management and settings of the server according to their needs. If users do not have enough expertise and experience, they will face problems in setting up and managing the server and will have to pay exorbitant costs to hire a team of experts to set up and control the server. Therefore, it is better for experienced and skilled developers and specialized people to choose a dedicated server for use.

• Performance degradation by hosting providers

When getting a dedicated server from hosting providers, you should also pay attention to throttling in addition to the security issue. Throttling is the negative impact on server performance when system demand increases. That is, in case of exceeding the specified limit in the use of the service on the network by the user, you will encounter a decrease in the speed of loading the site pages or problems related to the connection, which is related to the hosting provider. As a result, when buying a dedicated server, ensure that the service provider’s terms and conditions in relation to the web host are not experiencing any slowdown due to unexpected pressures.

• Problems with transferring data from another hosting service to a dedicated server

One of the weaknesses of a dedicated server is that transferring data from another hosting service to a dedicated server is time-consuming and expensive. Depending on the type and amount of data you want to transfer from the previous hosting service to the dedicated server, the data transfer process is associated with a delay of several days. As a result, transferring data to a dedicated server can cause problems related to cost and time delay.

Security tips about dedicated server

To optimize the security of a dedicated server according to the goals and needs of your online activity, you can use the tips we provide and consider them:

• Using at least two separate networks to communicate with the server and using one network as a backup for the other network
• Providing administrative access to the server through VPN to improve security
• Using a powerful firewall to maintain security against DDOS and DOS attacks and setting the firewall to restrict access
• Using the Honeypot network to prevent network attacks
• Using IPS and IDS to prevent network attacks
• Benefit from private or public CDNs

Tip: Remember that the security procedures we discussed are costly if you have a private network. These security features are built into the databases by default and can be added to your contract for an additional fee. Some data centers offer free security services to their customers.

8 Dedicated server usage cases

In this section, we will discuss the applications of dedicated servers that increase the popularity of dedicated servers for large businesses day by day. We will explain the applications of dedicated servers in the following:

1. Hosting websites and setting up high-traffic websites

As you have noticed by now, a dedicated server such as VPS and shared hosting is usually used to host sites, but if you have a growing site or need more resources and control for better server management, or if VPS and shared hosting perform poorly for your needs; a dedicated server will be the best option for hosting your site.

To meet the needs of sites with many visitors, such as store sites, where thousands of clicks are made on the site pages and its products in a second, you will need a strongly dedicated server hosting. A dedicated server can easily solve the problems caused by the increase in incoming traffic to the site and host such sites well with its powerful infrastructure.

2. Using a dedicated server for backup

In today’s technology world, users have set up websites for income and business, and the security and data protection of websites plays the most important role in the continuation of business activities, so you must Pay attention to the security of your website. Using a dedicated server is a helpful way to increase your site’s security.

A dedicated server is usually used as a backup of essential data of sites. By setting up an FTP server, you can easily transfer sensitive and important data to your dedicated server on a daily or weekly basis and use the dedicated server as a data-safe deposit box.

3. Hosting multiple websites

Due to its power and quality, a dedicated server is a suitable option for hosting and managing multiple sites on one server. Due to its capabilities, you can be sure of supporting a dedicated server in hosting various sites. A dedicated server is usually the preference of web hosting service providers to provide their products or plans on the server.

4. The possibility of launching heavy and practical software

By using a dedicated server, users can run any large and functional software on the server without worrying about encountering problems. High uptime, resources, and reliability on a dedicated server allow very high workloads to run without disruption.

5. Private cloud hosting

Private virtual machines or private clouds can be hosted using a dedicated server. This dedicated server feature provides valuable functionality for many organizations.

6. Implementing a dedicated firewall

Firewalls are essential tools for data protection and server security against cyber attacks. Choosing a dedicated server allows the user to freely and exclusively run the desired firewall for their server and customize the dedicated server according to their security needs.

7. Use of a dedicated server in organizations

Every large organization and company undoubtedly needs a dedicated server for data processing, data storage, and other things. Especially in organizations, the information security category will be more sensitive, so most of them choose a dedicated server for their activities.

8. Create a private GIT repository

Some users are interested in using GitHub and think that GitHub is free to use and that they can easily create private repos. But they ignore the fact that GitHub has defined limits for repositories up to 1 GB and hard up to 100 GB. This hard limit is intended to prevent server overload caused by excessively large files. This may be a concern for many users whose projects require a lot of media files.

The dedicated server solves the storage space problem with the resources it provides, and you can buy a suitable plan for the dedicated server according to your needs. It is also possible to upgrade the resources for the user. Therefore, a dedicated server provides the best conditions for creating a private GitHub repository.

How to choose the right dedicated server service

To choose the best and most appropriate service and plan for using a dedicated server, you must first check your site’s needs and choose the best option based on your goals and needs. If you don’t know how to check the conditions of your site correctly, consider the following and make sure that you need a dedicated server:

• You have a site with high traffic.
• Security is the most critical factor for your site.
• You estimate that the site will grow rapidly in the near future.
• Using custom features such as providing quality video or images on your site is essential.

If the things we have mentioned represent your conditions, then the best choice for you is a dedicated server, and be sure of this. But now, to choose the best-dedicated server service, it is better to check the factors that we explain below:

• CPU: When choosing a dedicated server plan, consider if you need to use applications such as custom applications or video encoding on the site, which depend on more resources and a more powerful CPU to run. So it would help if you used a powerful CPU.
• Bandwidth: When it comes to bandwidth, you may be confused at first about how much bandwidth you need. If you expect a lot of traffic or plan to publish content with HD images or multimedia files, consider choosing a plan with high bandwidth.
• Memory: Choose the RAM carefully because it affects the loading speed of your site’s content and pages. Therefore, to enjoy your site’s high speed, you should choose more RAM for your server.

We hope that with the things we have mentioned, we have been able to guide you in choosing the right hosting service for your website. If you are looking for a suitable and ideal dedicated server, it Should be mentioned that Opera’s dedicated server can create a good experience in hosting your website. By purchasing OperaVPS dedicated Server, you will enjoy the most up-to-date and powerful equipment, high server stability and uptime, 24-hour support services, server security, and customization features.

You can also use the Bitcoin payment method to buy Opera’s dedicated server and easily use your ideal dedicated server by exchanging cryptocurrencies.

FAQ

Conclusion

A dedicated server is a solution for the increasing development of business sites without restrictions and facing problems. As we explained, the dedicated server provides all its resources to only one user; as a result, by improving the loading speed of the site pages and the security of your site’s data, you will get excellent performance from the site. A dedicated server is an ideal option for those who care about the safety and speed of the site or are interested in more control over the server and also have sites with high traffic.

In this article, we talked about the dedicated server in detail, explained the uses and advantages of the dedicated server, and guided you in choosing the right hosting. We hope that the content presented here is valuable and practical for you.

Thank you very much for your good choice.