4 signs that you need to shift to a Dedicated Server

It’s almost a given that in this day and age, any successful business needs to have an online presence, whether it’s offering a digital service or creating a platform to connect with customers. Setting up an online front for your business involves several steps, a crucial one of which includes choosing a web hosting service. When starting out, most businesses opt for a shared hosting platform, owing to its affordability. However, success is a two-pronged sword and should your business grow at a rate that is unexpected, don’t be surprised if a shared solution starts posing a roadblock to your revenue cap.

Your clients need the assurance of better IT security

IT security is an essential attribute for any online business, especially if you are dealing with sensitive customer data that would stir up trouble if got in the wrong hands. Shared hosting forces you to rely on the hosting company’s security protocols. For example, if the hosting company does not update its security protocols in a timely fashion, your website and data may be susceptible to cyberattacks. Dedicated hosting services allow you to set-up custom security protocols as you don’t have to worry about other users sharing the server space. This allows you to create an optimal security barrier that suits your business needs. You can also schedule timely maintenance, and install security software at a moment’s notice.

Your current shared hosting solution is buckling under the increased traffic

If your brand or business is growing in popularity but your website is not equipped to handle a growing surge of visitors, then you can lose out on valuable business. Furthermore, if your current provider starts hosting numerous websites with a litany list of CPU-heavy processes, you can bet server performance will be compromised for all users. If you see reports showing a constant growth in traffic or frequent server overloads, then it may be time you considered shifting to a Dedicated Server solution. Virtual private servers (or VPS) are another option for businesses that are not ready to make the leap to a full dedicated server, but that’s a topic for another day.

Your customers are complaining of poor load time

Nobody wants to visit a website that takes over a minute to load each page. In fact, a Nielsen Norman report showed that 47% of visitors expect a website to load in less than 2 seconds, and 40% of visitors will leave the website if the loading process takes more than 3 seconds. Google considers page load time as a serious SEO attribute and webpages with poor load times are dropped in ranking. In a shared server solution, server resources such as processing power and RAM are shared among large number of accounts. If multiple accounts run into heavy traffic, it can lead to server downtime and slower load for all the accounts. Switching to a dedicated server solution mitigates this problem as you won’t have to worry about other accounts mooching off on your precious server resources.

Your developers can’t run custom scripts

Programming can be downright complicated at times. Between running cron jobs and shell scripts and ensuring complex server-side code has sufficient resources to run, there’s a lot that can happen to bring your website to its knees. Most shared hosting providers do not provide extensive custom programming options, owing to security and hardware limitations. However, dedicated servers allow you to choose your preferred software (limited to their terms and conditions), set customised hardware specifications, and install tools on an operation system of your choice, among various other custom programming options. Think of it like telling your developers to ‘code however you want to as long as it’s legal’.