Whether you are a small office or a multinational company, servers are the lifeblood of your business. As your business expands, the speed of obtaining information becomes more important. Therefore, you may be considering using server options to help your employees to collaborate and share tools and information.
Buying a network server is undoubtedly a huge investment. Now is the chance for you to enhance your server knowledge and choose the one which suits your needs. Below are the few things you need to consider before purchasing a server:
What Server Fits Best for You?
So, what business goals do you want your server to accomplish? For your information, servers come in different shapes and sizes that are categorized into racks, towers, and modular.
Rack Servers are designed to be installed in a rack cabinet that stacks multiple servers on top of each other. These functions are very useful if you want to prepare for business expansion and consolidate IT.
Tower Servers are built for stand-alone operation. It takes up the least floor space and can be placed under or on the table. These servers can also provide excellent first servers because they are powerful and similar to desktop computers. However, in terms of expansion, they do take up more space.
Blade Server is a thin, lightweight, modular computer that slides in and out of a rack called a blade enclosure. It is able to minimize physical space required although they have some disadvantages such as limited capacity.
What is your budget?
For your information, servers are not cheap. They may cost you thousands depending on the specification or model. Therefore, the budget should be the main consideration. After determining the budget, you can make a decision based on the brand, size, and warranty details. Meanwhile, you may also look at the long-term return of this investment. You may lose a lot of money to your business at first, but if your business can save a lot of money in the future, this may be worth considering.
Do you expect for Future Growth?
Speaking of scalability, you might consider how many people are accessing the network now, and how much space and power are used today. The importance of a product which is scalable because it will impact the total cost of ownership and business. Scaling late may require the purchase of more servers than originally anticipated.
What about the security?
Cybersecurity is a major issue for all businesses. You cannot afford to make your data vulnerable to security breaches, cyber threats, and other vicious virtual attack. Therefore, you need to give attention to your server’s security capabilities.
What about the management?
Whenever a server problem occurs such as server crash, technical assistance must be provided. It is strongly recommended that you trust companies that provide reliable and 24/7 technical support. Before choosing a server, please contact them and make sure they support the server brand you had chosen. Last but not least, when considering a server hosting provider, you should also consider experience and expertise in server management.