Now that you have identified the web application or enterprise application of your choice to be hosted on the cloud/within Datacenter, you should decide your choice of either virtual or dedicated server in Singapore. In many areas, they are similar but there are also differences that you should be aware of. Let’s explore this in detail! 

The Common Grounds

With either option of virtual or dedicated server, you get full root access to the Linux server or full administrator access to the Windows server. Likewise, you will get either VNC (for virtual server) or iDRAC/IPMI equivalents (for dedicated server) to reinstall your operating system. The ownership and authority over the machines are similar.

Network speed wise (both public & private) they are equivalent too as it all depends on how much bandwidth is allocated by the hosting provider to the respective server that you subscribe.

Hardware Performance – Where the difference really is

There is always a misconception that dedicated servers are more superior than virtual servers. This holds true only until you find out more information about the hypervisor (also known as host node) of the virtual server. If the virtual server is built on ordinary server setup (with dual processors, plenty of RAM and on 4- to 8-bay direct attached disks), yes a dedicated server of identical specifications will be more superior. However if a high end hypervisor is used, such as those with more than 8-bay disks on full flash SSD RAID10 arrays (either direct-attached or SAN), with high availability configurations, these virtual servers will outpace the performance & reliability of even high end dedicated servers by several ten folds.

The tips are really to find out more about where the virtual server is hosted on, before you do your fair comparison and decision.

Uptime & reliability – Where the difference is even more pronounced

In a dedicated server, there simply is no real high availability setup. However in a virtual server, depending on the virtualization technology used, high availability can be achieved easily whereby a failed hypervisor will not cause your virtual server to go down.

Additionally, in the event of disaster mitigation and recovery, virtual servers that are protected by Veeam Backup & Replication can achieve recovery time of as short as 15 minutes. A dedicated server on the other hand will take a couple of hours at least, depending on how much data is being restored.

No noisy neighbours with Dedicated Servers

The only true benefit of a dedicated server, in comparison to a virtual server is probably the complete insulation of noisy neighbours when it comes to system resource utilisation. In virtual server, regardless of the virtualization technology, you are always hosted with someone else on the same infrastructure. Good virtualization platforms help control noisy neighbours but there is no perfect insulation. The safe nest in this case is only with dedicated servers.

Still torn with the choices of virtual or dedicated servers? Why don’t you contact us to let us help you find the best setup for your application? We can give you the best advice for free and we certainly have both setups available to help you. Contact us now!