What Are Dedicated Gaming Servers?
Dedicated servers are exactly what the name says – a server dedicated to your use. Nobody else shares the resources and you have complete control over the server.
There are 3 common types of servers you can choose from to host a gaming platform or website.
1. Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is the cheapest type of server but also the least desirable, especially for gaming. With shared hosting, you share the server resources with other users, sometimes several hundred with some hosting companies. The performance suffers, there are many more security risks, and your gaming experience won’t be very good.
2. Virtual Private Servers
Virtual Private Servers, or VPS, are still shared but each user on the server gets a fixed share of the resources. Your security and performance aren’t affected by other users on the server.
A VPS is a better option than shared but it’s still not ideal for gaming or for high-traffic websites since you’re only working with a share of the server’s potential.
3. Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are exactly that – dedicated to your use. You have access to all the resources such as processing speed and storage. And you can configure the server exactly the way you want.
Why Are Dedicated Servers Better for Gaming?
Hosting a game server or website on a dedicated server gives you the best possible performance. You don’t need to worry about other users chewing up processing time or memory and you especially don’t need to worry about one of those users doing something that poses a security threat to players or visitors on your site.
You can also configure the server exactly the way you want. Choose your operating system, install any custom scripts or other tools, and optimize the configuration for the game you’re hosting or website platform you’re using.
You can even run more than one website or game on your server using virtualization technology to “share” it with yourself.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Server
Choosing a dedicated server is similar to buying a new PC for yourself in many ways. A lot of the details are similar, such as CPU and RAM, but there are a couple of big differences that you need to consider.
How Many Players or Visitors
The number of concurrent players on a gaming server or visitors on a website has a bearing on how much power you need in your server. More people accessing the server at the same time means more processing power, memory, and bandwidth are necessary to support them at full performance.
Note that this is concurrent users. If you have 1,000 players on your server but there are never more than 100 playing at the same time, the needs are much lower than if all 1,000 are playing at once.
Security
Security is an extremely important component of running an online gaming server or website. Especially if you collect personal information or payment details from your users.
You and your users need to be confident that the information on your server is safe from hackers. Keeping on top of the latest security threats is a full-time job so you need to make sure you choose a hosting company that makes security a top priority, such as NetDepot with our Security as a Service product.
