When to Upgrade to a Dedicated Server: Signs Your Hosting Isn’t Cutting It

When a website starts increasing traffic volumes, the most common hosting solutions, such as VPS or shared ones, might not cope with the needed performance level. Except for the performance issues, websites that launched on the shared hosting might not give the required level of control, needed customization, and security level. That’s why a dedicated server can be the most suitable option for lots of high-intensive projects. So, when is the right time to switch to a dedicated server from the current hosting solution?

Here in the article, we will dive into all the details and specific signals that it is the right time to upgrade.  

Signs Your Hosting Solution Isn’t Cutting It

New functional requirements and increased traffic volumes sound like a problem, but very soon they will transform into real challenges, such as lowering of users’ experience, slow load time, and constant failures.

So, let’s proceed to understanding the real signals that you should switch to the dedicated server.

Increased volumes of traffic

When traffic activity starts to grow, this is obviously a great signal that you might consider the choice of another, more powerful hosting solution. If you notice slow loading times and server errors occur more regularly, then later on, the reputation of your website can be damaged.

Here are some signals that you should switch to the dedicated server:

• During the peak traffic loads, your website crashes.
• You received a couple of warnings from the web provider about exceeding disk space or CPU usage.
• Loading speed is significantly lower, even after some code optimization.
• The company's success fully depends on the uninterrupted operations.

Slower performance of the website

Once you have noticed that the performance of the website decreases, it is an alarming sign that the hosting plan should be upgraded. This fact can be noticed by the loading delays of the webpages, longer processing time of forms, and client sharing their unsatisfied experiences on the platform. Start with the optimization of databases, caching, and images, and if that doesn’t help, then you obviously need a dedicated server.

A dedicated server can immediately improve the situation by excluding all the limitations that are in the VPS or shared hosting solutions. Exclusive access to all the hardware resources means that you can get more stable performance even during high workloads.

Security concerns

When you start noticing that the number of hacker attackers on the platform has recently increased and you are not sure of the current protection, you might start considering the choice of more reliable solution. Other hosting solutions might have higher vulnerabilities, because there are other users on the same server. In case an attacker enters the hosting solution of your “neighbor” on the server, you might be at the highest possible risk level. Among all the alarming signals to switch to the dedicated server, there are regular suspicious activity, DDoS attacks, or even the introduction of malicious code.

Software needs and customization

There are lots of hosting solutions with significant limitations for projects with non-standard configurations. If you require specialized software, specific server components, you might start considering the choice of a dedicated server.

Here are some obvious signals that you might need an upgrade:

• The necessity for the specific services. This relates to the complex load balancers, deployment of their own caching servers, and the need for non-standard DBMS.
• Incompatibility of the software. You might require the use of the outdated software for some experimental uses or specific versions of certain software, which usually aren’t allowed on the shared hosting plan.
• Integration with certain hardware. Virtual options are not your choice if you need specific hardware security modules, NVMe drives, or GPU acceleration.
• Installation of specific security tools. Custom firewalls, monitoring systems, and some audit tools can be allowed only on the dedicated server.

Launching resource-intensive project

The majority of modern web apps require more computing resources than it was ever before. If your project is based on the processing of huge data volumes, complex calculations, the usage of the standard hosting plan may be ineffective.

Once the app starts to use more than 75% of the VPS resources, it might be a signal that you should start considering the choice of a dedicated server. Access to the physical resources of the rented server will surely impact the level of stability.

Here is a list of projects that surely require a dedicated server:

• Machine learning platforms.
• Video editing projects.
• Online gaming.

If you notice some issues with your current hosting solution and continue to use it without any customizations and upgrades, you will surely experience serious consequences of such a decision. That’s why it is highly recommended to be proactive and plan the switch to another hosting plan beforehand.