Do you really need an Onsite Server?
Technology touches every business these days whether it is online or not. For ones that rely on the internet completely, reliable servers act as the backbone of sales, operations and customer support. For the common business owner, it becomes difficult to understand whether they should have onsite server or not. By the time you finish reading this piece, you should have a fair idea.
The Need for Onsite Servers
Despite some drawbacks like the need for maintenance and physical space requirements, onsite server can prove beneficial, especially for businesses falling under specific categories.
Security
Companies that deal with highly sensitive data usually find onsite servers beneficial because they have exhaustive controls over who, where and when of data storage and sharing. This can include healthcare, insurance, pharma and banking organizations.
Legal Compliance
Some local, national and regional laws may require servers to be within the premises of the organization. PIPEDA in Canada, HIPAA in the US and GDPR in Europe although do not exclusively state server requirements, it is much easier to abide by the guidelines through in-house setup.
Budget
With on-site setups, there are upfront investment costs associated with installations. However, the company becomes the legal owner of server equipment. For some businesses, the server would essentially recover the costs associated with it after a year or so, and after that, it is free of monthly usage charges.
Transmission
For a company that frequently works with large files and data sets, the speed of data transmission between the networks is the key to higher productivity. For video files, for instance, local servers facilitate all three aspects of storage of media, editing and serving files for exhaustion.
On the other hand, for a business that has to work mostly through its website, an onsite server would not be ideal to run websites. It would be arduous to host web-based data and transmit e-mails back and forth between the internet, the onsite server and users.
The high bandwidth of onsite servers gives the privilege of speeds up to 10 GB per second, which makes downloads and uploads faster. This is incredibly helpful for video editing companies, animation agencies and corporations with the need to mine big data because all they need is a local area network.
Personnel
With an onsite server installed in your company premise, from a first-time setup involving OS installation and wiring to the regular upkeep that it demands, everything is the company’s responsibility. In places where there is one or more dedicated IT personnel, it is feasible to have onsite servers, while in other cases it might not be practical.
Every business is built differently and has unique goals. In the end, your nature of business, local laws and other requirements should be the drivers behind the decision to pick onsite servers for your business.
For an expert opinion and recommendations on customised server solutions for your business, get in touch with the professionals at XllenTech.