Cloud Hosting Vs Dedicated Server Hosting – What Makes them Different

The time for traditional IT functions has gone away. New technologies are emerging everyday enabling enterprises to perform their work efficiently within no time. Dedicated servers and cloud servers for web hosting are in great demand for all types of businesses whether big or small. Cloud Servers perform functions similar to dedicated servers however, it is very important to know what each service offers to the businesses.

Cloud Server

New advancement in technology brings with it a whole new list of names and concepts. Likewise, the web hosting is also going through many new developments and here comes the Cloud Server. Though, this concept is not very new but the businesses both small and large are showing great interest in adopting this new technology and getting their websites, emails and databases hosted at a Cloud Server. This concept offers two distinctive features along with many others:

1. This system offers portability. The system no longer needs all hardware, software and applications to run at user’s end. Data can be accessed from anywhere using any PC, Smartphone or other device. No downtime is faced.
2. The user only pays for the resources used.

These advantages encourage companies to go for cloud servers and enhance work efficiency.

Dedicated Server

Regardless of the increasing popularity of Cloud servers, many businesses still prefer dedicated servers when reliability and high performance is required. Although, this system is extremely expensive but it offers great performance, enhanced security and freedom of administering servers as required.

In addition, this system permits the users to configure hardware, applications and software conveniently. Dedicated hosting is extremely different from the shared server hosting where resources are shared by multiple clients.

Difference between Cloud & Dedicated Server

Both the cloud and dedicated server hosting offer range of benefits that a business can evaluate before making any decision for web hosting. These benefits are motivating organizations to move to any of them based on their requirements.

One of the major differences between the two is that a dedicated server exists physically, kept inside a room whereas cloud server is a virtual server and is not limited to a room. Cloud server allows features like load balancing; customization and huge data storage and processing whereas the features rest with dedicated server are limited and are space bound.

Additionally, in cloud hosting, users only pay for the resources used, while in dedicated server hosting the clients have to pay for the entire server regardless of the amount of server they use.

Moreover, it is very easy to scale up or down the cloud server, whereas dedicated servers require huge effort and time to scale them up or down. Cloud servers offer management features and are cost effective as they do not require additional hardware, software and revised versions at every machine. In dedicated server, everything has to be managed by the client.

Businesses need to evaluate the benefits and risks of both cloud and dedicated servers based on their requirement before making any investment. This assessment will enable users to take advantage of these services fully.