Dedicated Servers

What’s the deal with dedicated servers?

First of all you need to know or to have an idea of all the necessary hardware specifications to build your dedicated server, such as: disk space, RAM memory, CPU speed/architecture, bandwidth, operating system(OS), backup system, server monitoring, a control panel software, KVM over IP and security.

Unlike shared servers, dedicated servers can be upgraded. Whenever you need some extra RAM or any other hardware and/or software item, you can get it in a short period of time.

Nowadays Data Centers are the most reliable and cheapest option to get a dedicated server or a hosting service online. So you might want to start thinking on one.

So, let’s take a closer look at all of this things we have to keep in mind:

Disk Space

You need to keep in mind how much disk space you will need for your server; how many applications you will have and disk usage for each of them; the operating system your server will run under as well as it’s virtual memory usage; also think of all of the information you will storage in your server and ask to yourself: will I need a backup system for all of my data? is my data worth a backup system?

Some applications use virtual memory to avoid running out of physical memory, so that is also someting else you want to keep in mind.

Remember you don’t want to run out of memory all the sudden. This will bring a lot of incinviniences like OS crashings or loss of data.

Most of the current top hosting providers offer dedicated servers with enougn disk space, but, take a second look at this important part of your server.

RAM Memory

As you probably know, the amount of RAM will let your server open as many applications. Running out of RAM means running out of performance. Remember you don’t want to waste precious CPU performance just because you run out of RAM.

You must know that there are different types of Ram memory. You are probably looking for DDR2(fast) or DDR3(faster).

The difference between these two is the transfer rate. Even if you are remotly connected to your server you want high performance in your server at all times, trust me.

Another thing you have to know about the different types of RAM is that some motherboards are built for DDR3 and some are not. The same thing for DDR2.

When you are paying a hosting provider for a dedicated server service, you know you can get a memory upgrade any time.

CPU speed/architecture

When it comes to choose the processor(s) for your server you want to know the OS architecture you will have: 32bit or 64bit as well as the type of applications you will run in it(you can get the best of some applications running under a 32bit OS and runnung it under a 62bit OS will make no difference).

We all look for the biggest and meanest CPU available. You probably want to stop right there and think about what you really need and what your hosting provider has to offer.

Bandwidth

Keep in mind the traffic you will have in your server. There are different bandwidth(incoming and outgoing altogether) deals you can get for your server that most of the times come per month. Hosting providers allow you to measure the incoming and outgoing bandwidth per day, week or hour. This in order to keep your server traffic in order at all times.

There is a downside of each of these different measures. For example, if you choose to have an hour bandwith restriction and there is a lot of traffic at 2 pm, your service will be unavailable until the next hour begin(3pm). The same thing applies for the other different bandwidth measures.

How can you know how much bandwidth you will get if you set your bandwith restriction… let’s say… per week?

Well you just divide the monthly bandwidth by four and that is it. Same thing for the other bandwidth restrictions.

A Server cluster is a gathering of several servers working together  to share the load and improving performance by combining processing power among other resources.

A Server Cluster becomes necessary when companies begin to expand. Even the bigger and better servers reach the point where they just can´t get the job done by themselves. This is the moment when Server Clusters come into play by offering:

Cloud Resource scalability so whenever a company needs to upgrade they can get the required needs right away.

Bring down a Server for maintenance becomes not an issue because those tasks about to go down along with the Server will be executed by the rest of the cluster(cloud computing).

Whenever a Server is experiences critical failure, and  some application goes down, it will go up in matter of seconds by the rest of the clusters.

Teaming the processors and other resources make Server Clusters so efficient when it comes to sharing running tasks.

Private Cloud is simply a cloud solution which provides hosting services,  offering the ability to increase or decrease computing resources according to it´s customer´s evolving needs and ensuring infinite resources scalability. Customers will have to pay according to those customized resources in use.

Private cloud computing is designed for customers who need to have full controll over their data using third party hosting or storage services.

Cloud computing is the future since it ischeaper and faster to use apps, it can be accessed from anywhare at anytime.

It all started with huge ISP such as google and that´s where a new architecture was born. This became the new way to use distributed resources through the internet. Although similar to grid computing, cloud computing does not fail if one of its many pieces happen to fail.

Cloud computing is the result of the improved deficiencies of grid computing. When companies who wish to outsource their data center infrastructure can scale up(scalability) to their current needs and without investing in it. Customer actually don´t even care about how things work inside the cloud since he can access his data from anywhere.

Cloud computing is also environmentally friendly because there´s less hardware and less energy consumption.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

It´s a distribution model in which an IT company provides software support and maintenance to it´s customer.

A customer can access his company´s information from anywhere in the world at any time as well as remote application access.

SaaS does not require patching from final users since it works with centralized upgrades.

An SaaS customer does not require a specialized area fot it´s system support.

IT providers guarantee the customer´s applications correct functionality and availability at any time.

SaaS does not require a customer to buy a software license, a customer will just need to pay for software usage. Customers can also choose their own OS.

Platform as a Service(PaaS)

PaaS takes over the complete applications development and implementation cycle from the web. PaaS is abele to get applications to work  in one single process.

PaaS also ensures system scalability so the developer can manage as many users when they need their applications and keeping system security at the same time. Sharing source code between several developers spreaded worldwide improves the developers team work.

A PaaS provider will take care of all the basic software requirements so developers start innovating in no time.

As a result of all this, customers do not require new hardware or software since putting an application online takes no effort at all once the development process completed.

Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS)

This model allows customers resource scalability.Anytime components are about to be scaled up or down the service keeps the same.

IaaS is the new and powerful way to work with servers. Servers can be used simultaneously by more than one OS. Remote datacenters are administrated by programs. This allows the control of numerous processes.

Customers pay only for the resources they need.

By using several datacenters online service is always available.

1. Offers more speed for the value
During the economic recession, time for value becomes critical. Companies reject projects that don’t have an investment return in a matter of weeks. With Cloud Computing, time is accelerated because it is optimized in all stages of the lifecycle in the development of applications. This allow developers to cut time and immediately start working on a project.

2. Doesn’t require up-front capital expenses
The development platforms of Cloud Computing are based in prices of subscription. Thus, capital expenses are not needed to start projects. Companies can practically start without initial costs to develop projects. Payments are taken care are a service or exploitation expense, instead of a capital expense.

3. Minimize operation costs
With Cloud Computing there’s no need to buy starter hardware or software. The most important thing is that it reduces all maintenance requirement for equipment and the IT technicians can dedicate their time to develop projects without delays.

4. Simplifies integration
Cloud Computing makes integration faster, easier and less riskier than before. This translates into an easier way to integrate and expand hereditary surroundings and having sets of tools for cloud services like facebook, google, amazon, etc.

Site under construction…

Sept 11, 2010.

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