Table of Contents
As more companies look for ways to cut their budgets, many are considering moving to bare metal servers as an alternative.
These servers provide many benefits that traditional virtualized solutions do not. But they’re not without faults and here we will explore some of the pros and cons of bare metal servers and how they can affect your bottom line.
What are bare metal servers?
Bare metal servers are similar to on-site, dedicated servers in that they only run what you expect it to. When you use a cloud virtualization provider, all of the hardware is being shared with other customers on the platform. With bare metal servers, all of the hardware resources are exclusively allocated to you.
So while bare metal server hardware itself may be hosted in regions across the world, you are the only one that will be able to access it. This brings several benefits to your business that we’ll discuss further down.
Why are they worth the switch?
Bare metal servers are best for companies that highly value data privacy, and need high performance for resource-intensive applications like big data analysis, 3D graphic modeling, and VoIP.
These kinds of workloads demand high performance, but they also require a lot of processing power, so having complete control over your servers helps to maximize the performance of these workloads.
If your virtual apps have been suffering performance and latency issues for your team, especially if you have many users, bare metal servers may be the answer you have been looking for.
Considerations before switching to bare metal servers
Because bare metal servers are highly customizable and can be set up for your exact requirements, you’ll want to talk it over with your IT team, so they can provide recommendations on the type of hardware and environment you may want to run your company’s apps in.
You’ll also need to consider whether your in-house IT team will manage and update the servers, hire a managed IT service, or pay for server maintenance from the bare metal server provider.
Because bare metal servers are exclusively dedicated to your business, you’ll need to determine how “hands-on” your company can realistically be with the maintenance of them.
Benefits of Bare Metal Servers
The number of benefits bare metal servers bring to your business depends on the type of app you’re using and the capabilities of your IT team.
First and foremost are the performance benefits. As mentioned above, the server hardware is being exclusively allocated to you, so you should never suffer any performance issues related to resource allocation. If you do, you can simply upgrade the hardware, or figure out if you have any problems with the software.
A highly configurable platform is another reason you should consider using bare metal servers. A bare metal server is just that – a complete bare metal computer that runs only what your business needs it to. No virtualization layer is used, so you can modify and customize your server at will.
A bare metal server is also well suited for demanding big data and analytics workloads. If your company relies heavily on storing and analyzing large amounts of data, having complete control over the hardware and the environment you’re working in is crucial.
Drawbacks of Bare Metal Servers
Upfront costs for bare metal servers can be a little pricier than a cloud platform provider – remember, you’re renting an exclusive server that is exclusively yours to use, and you’ll need to factor in the hardware you want installed, such as whether you need huge amounts of RAM and high-end graphics cards for raw computing power.
Cloud providers tend to charge more for bandwidth and traffic, whereas bare metal servers charge for usage. So you can reduce costs by using a bare metal provider that charges based on time, such as hourly billing.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a whole world of business applications that can run on bare metal servers. They make the switch to virtual apps an attractive proposition and provide much greater control and flexibility to the user.
So the next time you consider virtualizing your company’s workloads, think bare metal servers first. With proper research, you can make sure your business gets the performance it needs, with a minimal impact on your business resources.
