What Is The Difference Between a Cloud Server and a Dedicated Server?

Cloud Server and a Dedicated Server

Confused about your options when it comes to cloud and dedicated hosting for your application or website? Below, you’ll find a definition of each followed by an overview of their differences.

Cloud Servers

Cloud servers can be configured to provide levels of performance, security and control similar to those of a dedicated server. But instead of being hosted on physical hardware that’s solely used by you, they reside in a shared “VIRTULIZED” environment that’s managed by your cloud hosting provider. You benefit from the economies of scale of sharing hardware with other customers. And, you only pay for the exact amount of server space used. Cloud servers also allow you to scale resources up or down, depending on demand, so that you're not paying for idle infrastructure costs when demand is low.

With cloud servers, you can optimize IT performance without the huge costs associated with purchasing and managing fully dedicated infrastructure. Businesses with variable demands and workloads often find that cloud servers are an ideal fit.

Dedicated Servers

A dedicated server is a physical server that is purchased or rented entirely for your own business needs. Dedicated servers are typically used by large businesses and organizations that require exceptionally high levels of data security, or organizations that have steady, high demands for server capacity.

With dedicated servers, businesses still need the IT capacity and expertise to manage ongoing maintenance, patches and upgrades. Businesses using I/O-heavy applications, such as databases and big data platforms, find significant value in bare metal dedicated hardware.

Features of Cloud Server

Deployment Speed

With cloud servers, you can have resources online within minutes. But with dedicated servers, the lead time is considerably longer.

High Availability

Building a high availability (HA) cloud environment can cost less, and configuration can be completed in minutes. Building an HA cloud on dedicated infrastructure with load balancers can take days.

Compartmentalization

The cloud allows for easy compartmentalization of resources by function for easy scalability, management and resource segmentation. This type of compartmentalization can be expensive with dedicated hardware.

Features of Dedicated Servers

Security and Compliance

To satisfy security and compliance concerns, dedicated hardware is best. Hybrid cloud lets you combine public cloud with private cloud or dedicated hosting to leverage the benefits of each platform.

Access to Tools

In a cloud environment, community-driven APIs are often available for automatic scaling, provisioning and management. In a dedicated environment, you may have to wait for vendor-driven development.

Monitoring and Support

Cloud servers include monitoring, alerts and support. Setting this up and getting deep technical support for dedicated environments is more complex, and vendor-specific technical support can be costly.

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What Is The Difference Between a Cloud Server and a Dedicated Server?