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Best Buy suffered a “Black Friday Outrage” throughout the Thanksgiving weekend in 2012 due to a sudden increase in user traffic. Holiday sales are the perfect opportunities for the online retail industry to make huge revenues as well as sizeable profits. But what if the big rush, instead of bringing business to your turf, is swelling the sales of your rivals? The annual Dixons online sale experienced a similar setback in 2008 when the site went offline due to high volume of visitors. Thanks to this technical glitch competitors M&S, John Lewis, and Next ended up receiving additional traffic as a result.
Although the above examples involve two bigwigs in the retail industry, there are instances when even small and medium-sized enterprises have experienced similar situations. To assume that websites owned by mid-sized retailers are immune to crashes is naïve.
For a majority of start-up enterprises, the beginnings are always humble, but then comes a time when you’ve carved a niche in the market, thanks to the innovative product or service you offer, or by initiating an aggressive marketing campaign that successfully drove user traffic to the website. The last thing you want is your website crashing, and losing the customer base that you have worked so hard to get on board.
So, how does one minimize such risks?
The answer lies in getting the right server environment for your website from the very start. The decision to select a server for the website is guided by a variety of reasons: budget, technical requirements and the specific needs of the business. As the name implies, shared hosting is bite-sized portions of the same hardware that powers dedicated servers, which are shared by multiple website owners or clients. Although shared hosting environments may sound appealing because of the low cost, in the long run, websites hosted on shared servers can face performance issues such as:
- High website load times
- Inability to handle growth in web traffic
- Data Security concerns when accessing payment gateways & third-party services
You are also likely to encounter problems while installing new scripts and programs to run the website due to restrictions on OS/Shell level functions. Updating libraries and tools specific to your requirement will also be challenging. For instance, you may want to install a new WordPress plugin which is only compatible with a particular version of WordPress and requires root access. Due to the restriction of a shared hosting environment, you will not be able to upgrade the WordPress version for the plugin to work.
So, what’s the alternative to a shared server?
A good step up from shared hosting is dedicated servers. As you don’t have to share the bandwidth with others, your website hosted on dedicated servers is not deprived of resources it requires to function properly. Thus, the performance of your website on a dedicated server is far superior. It also offers:
- A Greater level of security – This is particularly important for companies that carry sensitive information like credit card details, medical documents, etc.
- Flexibility to customize – You have complete control to customize the server as per your business need.
- Unique IP – Dedicated servers have a unique IP which is relevant for an ecommerce website that requires secure credit card processing.
- Server Management – Some web-hosting providers offer server-management service that further assures the stability of your website.
Though the instances of websites crashing on a dedicated server cannot be ruled out, the chances are quite minimal, especially for reasons related to traffic loads as long as you pick a device capable of handling your expected traffic. Running a business is all about measurement and control – a dedicated server allows you to do both and prepare for any eventuality. At a minimum, Dedicated Servers guarantee you complete control of even the scenario in which your website performance will start to degrade!
What about the high cost of maintaining a dedicated server?
While it’s true that the cost of procuring a dedicated server hosting plan is relatively higher, the benefits your business will get out of it will outweigh the high cost. You have complete control of the server and don’t have to worry about upscaling your business to the next level.
What about Cloud Hosting and VPS? Why not go for them, instead of a dedicated server?
It’s true that both cloud hosting and VPS offer flexibility and scalability. However, cloud hosting is relatively new. Your tech team may need time and training to familiarize themselves with the cloud platform whereas most experienced developers and system administrators are already familiar with dedicated servers.
On the other hand, with another popular hosting choice like VPS, your control is significantly high, but you might face problems associated with lower resource limits and processing power as compared to a dedicated server. That said, VPS could be used as a stepping stone to dedicated servers if your growth curve is not very steep.
Finally, why dedicated servers hosting plans are a safe bet?
All in all, dedicated servers are a safer and superior server option in comparison to other alternatives. Here’s a quick recap as to why:
- Highly Secured
A dedicated server offers security, especially if your website is integrated with a payment gateway or carries sensitive information about customers/users.
- Protection from Blacklisting
Unlike websites hosted on shared servers, which are under constant threat from being blacklisted because of shared IP, a website hosted on the dedicated server will not be reprimanded because of the malpractices of others.
- Freedom to Upscale
Finally, you have the ultimate freedom to scale your business as you wish. Your main focus remains on core business agendas rather than technical inadequacies that could be pulling you back.