The cloud has changed how small businesses work and there has never been a better time to start using a server in your company with decreasing costs and improving efficiency. But which one should you choose?
With a variety of varieties of servers to choose from, knowing your choices and then making the right choice can be a daunting task. Is there a server on line that you should have? Will a cloud-based platform be providing your company the best service? And how virtualisation will make your choice of server even more versatile?
All the big name companies like Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle have cloud systems that target the consumer of the small business. It’s important to fit your business needs to the correct type of server. Ask these five questions:
- Are you buying a server for file sharing?
- Will your server be predominantly used for email?
- Does your workforce need to connect to the server remotely?
- Is your server going to be used for data backup?
- How much space do you have available to accommodate a server?
- Answering these questions will give you a clear picture of what sort of server your business needs include. Also, multiple workloads such as file sharing and data backup can be handled through a server. Building a list that prioritizes your server needs is a good practice though. This offers you a clear roadmap that will lead your company to choose the right server for its main requirements.
Business platforms
Where the right choice is made, switching to a server for the first time will offer productivity rewards. Thomas Jeffs, founder of Lucidica–a small business technology partner with more than 500 SME business customers in the London area–says: “We tend to push customers more towards NAS (mini-servers) and in particular QNAP and Synology NAS drives. It offers on-site storage of data that can be integrated with cloud drives while remaining cost-effective.
“Besides NAS drives, Dell also offers full blown servers of great value to clients that need on-site servers. Essentially though if you’re’ needing’ a server on-site, you need to spend £ 2,000+ on hardware. A ‘cheap server’ is something that will cost your business a whole lot more than the initial price tag.”
Concerns over security when hosting sensitive information in the cloud have bolstered the onsite server market to a degree. But as concerns dissolve, small businesses in particular are looking at their costs and asking whether they need a new onsite server at all, or see greater benefit in developing a hybrid approach.
“Many SMEs are utilising Office 365 to host their mail and SharePoint data,” says Scott Rundle, senior consultant at Riverbank IT, the Oxford-based managed services provider. “This is by far the most popular hybrid solution that SMEs adopt. Many medium-sized businesses are also utilising the cloud to host resource hungry applications. The cost of running these virtual servers would be too much for clients to host by normal means without significant investment in their existing hardware.”
Creating your new server infrastructure then means carefully preparing and ensuring that your server meets your key needs. There is pressure to choose one type of server, because the hybrid approach always leads to a better server platform for your company.
In the Cloud
Of course, cloud-based services have had a huge impact on how small businesses, in particular, handle their data. When the time comes to buy a new server, this is smooth and invisible for many companies, because they simply extend their cloud-based server resources.
“The cloud has definitely changed the attitude SMEs have to server technology,” commented Roger Keenan, MD of London data centre City Lifeline. “The modern business has various requirements such as file and network security, securing reliability, centralising data storage and virus management, which can be met by the implementation of the cloud.
“For businesses in London, space for servers is expensive, as is the security needed to protect them. The cloud, therefore, opens up opportunities to save in terms of budget, something small businesses will be highly interested in doing.”
Lucidica’s Thomas Jeffs also stated: “At Lucidica we’re now deploying servers to less than 25% of companies we used to deploy to. Within Accelerator, a London-based incubator which supports startups providing office space, mentorship, training, a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and introductions to investors, we have decreased the number of servers within the onsite comms room by 75%. Without a doubt every new client we meet mentions ‘cloud’ servers/storage for their future IT and where they want to move.”
And the seamless expansion provided by virtualization has been fully embraced by the small business community, as TechRadar Pro explained to Alexander Vierschrodt, Head of Commercial Management Server at 1&1 Internet: “Many SMEs no longer spend much time thinking about virtualization itself. On-premise virtualization of hardware allows an expensive idea as most servers are overdimension to be used for one role only. Virtualisation helps automate the use of resources by separating one piece of physical hardware into many virtual servers.
“In the cloud, this does not matter anymore as these considerations are not necessary because SMEs can seamlessly scale resources, ordering the exact amount of computing power and storage space that is need for the task at hand.”
When you find the cost of purchasing a license to host Microsoft email on your own server to be more costly than hosting this email service in the cloud, small businesses can easily choose whether they are looking for a new email server.
Riverbank IT’s Scott Rundle concluded: “Virtualisation is a big part of IT these days. Microsoft allows you to utilise two Virtual Servers for every copy of Windows Server 2012 R2, which allows you to take advantage of server virtualisation in a big way.
“Due to this licence feature it is rare for us to provide a client with just one physical server running multiple roles. It is far more beneficial for us and the client to run in virtualisation as it becomes easier to backup, migrate and restore when running in a virtual layer.”
There is little doubt that every small business will have the cloud and virtual servers in the future, as the economic and productivity cases for their use are overwhelming. Taking the time to learn how to handle this server option is essential to ensure your company fully realizes the power it provides.
Make your choice
When finally making your decision, be sure to follow these steps to ensure that your company purchases the correct server.
Match the server to your primary need
A dedicated email server is a good idea if you want to improve the way your business uses email. Alternatively, if your business needs to manage large numbers of shared information, the ideal option would be a file sharing system.
Buy an affordable server
Please set a budget and stick to your new server. The server market has a number of vendors who are all vying for your company. Just shop around, as there may be some great deals to have.
Choose best of breed
Once you’ve determine which server model is best for your business needs, look for vendors that are pioneers in that particular type of server. This will ensure that you always buy a server from a reputable source and fully supported one.
Buy the right operating system
As with your company desktop PCs, it’s important to choose the best operating system to ensure that programs are stable. Likewise, servers need a stable operating system to handle the many thousands of data requests they could have to handle over a typical session.
Build in expansion and redundancy
In the short term, the company doesn’t want to be upgrading its server, so it is highly recommend to grow. Typically this will mean using hard drives which can modify because your server needs more memory. Using a RAID system will also ensure that any fail hard drives don’t lose any of your important business data.
Support and maintenance
If your company doesn’t have IT help on-site, this will need to be outsourced. Also, the vendor from whom you buy your server can give maintenance as a package deal. Look closely at the service level agreement that you will asked to sign to ensure that it meets all your needs.
Choose the right cloud service providers
Small businesses will often exploit the huge advantages cloud-based computing can offer. Treat these facilities as getting the server at your premises. Take some time to perform due diligence on your shortlist of vendors. Speak to their other customers and look at the levels of service you may receive before you sign up for their services. If you plan to store sensitive information on your cloud-based servers, take a close look at protection.
Match virtualisation to your needs
The ability to break up a single server to act like multiple servers is now a highly popular way. It using existing hardware to create new servers. The virtual server operates as if it were a real server. But the new server is build using software known as a hypervisor. Care should taken to ensure the processor’s underlying hardware and storage can accommodate the additional virtual servers.
Conclusion
At the moment a wholesale transition to the cloud might be a step too far. But simply adding to an existing server sprawl is not an option either. Being smart about buying server resources means understanding how data is fundamentally use in your business. Choosing the right server is a much simpler and less dangerous undertaking when you understand that part of your business.
