What Is the Difference Between a Dedicated Server and a Dedicated Cloud Host?

You may think that there is not much difference between a Dedicated Server and a Dedicated Cloud Host, but with a closer look, you will see that there is actually quite a big difference between the two. IT professionals use some confusing terminology with some distinctions in the meaning of phrases that include some of the same terms; Dedicated Server, Dedicated Cloud Node, Cloud Server, Dedicated Cloud host, and bare-metal server.

I have been in the IT industry for 15 years, and these terms still trip me up from time to time as the terminology has changed so much over the years. Atlantic.Net is here to set the record straight and help you understand the distinction between each server type so that you can make an informed decision on which type is best for you.

The best dedicated host for you purely depends on your circumstances and what you want out of the server. While these two types of servers have many similarities, they also have many differences. In this article, we will discuss the main contrasts between a dedicated server and a dedicated cloud host.

A Basic Synergy

What do all dedicated servers have in common? As the name suggests, you are leasing a server that is 100% dedicated to you. No one else has access to the server, and you are free to do whatever you want with it. Dedicated servers are recommended for businesses that need powerful and committed resources when it comes to CPU, Disk, and Memory.

A dedicated server may be used to host a popular eCommerce platform, or it might be an all-purpose workhorse for a smaller business. Either way, you choose a dedicated server because you need uninterrupted, powerful performance.

Dedicated servers are great at providing physical isolation, ideal for regulated and security-conscious businesses that need complete control over their software stack. Dedicated servers offer reliable network and disk I/O for data-intensive applications, and they eliminate the challenge of “noisy neighbors”.

What is a Dedicated Server?

A dedicated server is a physical server that is sold or leased in its entirety to the customer; techies might refer to it as a dedicated piece of tin. In a typical data center, a dedicated server will be used by businesses for complex, data-intensive tasks, Frequent uses for such servers include database servers, machine learning data science servers, and so on.

A dedicated server is isolated and exclusively used by the customer. Dedicated servers are usually part of a much larger contract with the provider; servers are built after completing purchase orders, and the provisioning time is usually measured in days.

Network connectivity is made available over an isolated private network and a private fiber storage layer that is directly interconnected to the customer’s systems. The server will sit in the data center and do the same tasks reliably, day after day.

What is a Dedicated Cloud Host?

This is where dedicated servers are most in their element, and the differences are less about the servers themselves and more about how they are delivered by the provider. Techies will often refer to a dedicated cloud host as bare-metal; this is because when installing the dedicated hardware into the data center, all it is is a bare-metal piece of hardware – that is until the engineering team gets their hands on it and integrates it into the existing cloud platform.

Depending on the provider, the server will have a hypervisor installed and connected to a cloud platform. The cloud software then manages the server and opens up the substantial benefits of having cloud connectivity. This makes provisioning availability near-instant, and a customer can lease the server in minutes rather than days.

Despite cloud connectivity, there is no sharing of server resources, resources are exclusive to the customer. Some of the major benefits include the ability to add secure block storage on-demand and scale up the server on-demand – great if your business grows rapidly. Also, snapshots, onsite and offsite backup integration, replication, DNS integration, and so on are all benefits of a Dedicated Cloud Host.

The customer has complete control to create, manage and remove Cloud Servers on your Dedicated Cloud Host and the freedom and flexibility to provision any dedicated plan offered.

Making the Right Choice?

Now that we have discussed the major differences between the two, let’s take a deep dive into which one makes the best choice for you and your requirements. If your goal is to simply have a dedicated server, you do not need the ability to scale up, and you do not need to provision additional virtual machines or cloud servers on top of your existing server, then a traditional dedicated server might be a fit for your needs.

Traditional dedicated servers are also a solid option if you just require a static server setup. Do you need a basic Windows Server and a Microsoft SQL server? Then a dedicated server is an ideal solution if there won’t be an expansion in the future. You have control over the server configuration, you can fine-tune the operating system to match the underlying hardware since you will not have a hypervisor between the server hardware and the operating system.

However, if you are a growing business, require advanced features for disaster recovery and business continuity, unpredictable growth patterns, SAAS offering, have a high traffic website, or want the ability to become a cloud reseller (where you can lease/resell cloud resources to another client); a dedicated cloud host is a perfect match – you get not only a powerful server, but also the capability to provision multiple servers in seconds with a fully orchestrated and pre-built cloud mechanism.  With Dedicated Cloud Hosts, the tools to accomplish a full DR plan while planning ahead for business growth are already waiting and ready to make your life easier.

	Dedicated Server	Dedicated Cloud Host
Uptime SLA	100% Guarantee	100% Guarantee
Congestion	No Congestion	No Congestion
High Availability	No	Available
Scalability	No	Yes
Deployment Time	1 day +	Near-Instant
Flexible Pricing	No, Fixed Term	Yes
Server Management	Available	Available
Customer Support	24x7x365	24x7x365
Secure Block Storage (SBS)	No	Available
Dedicated Firewall	Available	Available
VPN	Available	Available
API	No	Yes
1-Click Applications	No	Yes
Root Access	Yes	Yes

How can Atlantic.Net Help?

You will be pleased to know that Atlantic.Net can help you no matter which option you choose. We have plenty of dedicated hosting customers who just need our data center, hardware, and networking to run their servers.

Customers choose Atlantic.Net because all eight of our data center locations in the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe are built to the highest standards. We have redundant power systems feeding the data center, redundant HVAC systems, and each dedicated server can have N+1 or 2N redundancy built into the physical hardware such as dual power supplies, dual networking, dual storage, and so on.

The Atlantic.Net dedicated cloud hosts are fully dedicated for your use, backed by world-class hosting infrastructure in one of our eight global data center locations. Dedicated Cloud Hosts are perfect for organizations that are looking for substantial cost savings from larger infrastructure deployments and gain economies of scale to help sustain business growth.

Each Dedicated Cloud Host (Node) is configurable to your needs. We offer over forty plans and three base plans to get you started, and you can either utilize the default plan configuration or just call us with your RAM and storage needs; we will do the rest.

The plans can be upgraded on-demand. Choose from:

• 64GB – 2TB of system RAM
• 12 – 104 CPU cores
• Up to 20TB SATA SSD or 19TB NVMe SSD Storage

Each plan is competitively priced, with generous discounts for sustained usage agreements starting with monthly, one-year, and three-year terms.

If you would like to learn more about our Dedicated solutions, please email [email protected], or call +1 (321) 206- 3734.