Virtual versus physical servers: what the experts recommend

Almost every company has a choice between virtual and physical servers. The decision is usually influenced by several factors, including: Help desk analyst job description

personal experience in the past;

advice from colleagues or acquaintances;

user reviews on the Internet and more.

How can you make a smart choice? Our experts, well-known specialists in the IT industry - Spartak Polishchuk , founder of Rubicon , and Roman Gershtun , founder of ProCRM , share their opinions, which were formed on the basis of personal experience and the experience of their clients.

1. Despite the fact that more and more companies are moving to the cloud, some business owners are still convinced that only the presence of iron in the office guarantees them peace and security for data.

This is also noted by Roman Gershtun : there is one point that clients often talk about is the desire to have their own server and manage it, in a word, to have a certain ownership right. But in fact, if you have your own server, you need to invest in it and constantly look after it. That is why a physical server works well only if the company has its own IT department and the ability to administer these servers, keep them operational and timely upgrade. Therefore, if you do not have your own IT staff, it is best not to set up physical servers in your office.

Spartak Polishchuk noted that in the IT field, prejudices, in the literal sense of the word, do not exist. Most likely, they can be called fears. For example, fears about the security of their personal data, coupled with a lack of fundamental knowledge of the cloud, can lead customers to use physical servers.

2. In addition to possible biases, there are still many myths surrounding virtual servers. For example, that clouds are expensive or dangerous. But how is everything really?

Roman Gershtun notes that there are usually three such myths. The first is cost, the second is security, and finally privacy. “Let's consider each of them. For example, that clouds are expensive. What is expensive? When you invest in a physical server, you pay the cost, the work of the system administrator. Then spend money on upgrades and technical support for that server. And with clouds, all these services are already included in the cost of services, ”says our partner.

The second point, as Roman Gershtun notes, is safety: “Let's simulate two situations. Fire in the office or "visit" of intruders. If the server is located in your office, its level of security is significantly inferior to virtual servers."

And the third point is confidentiality. According to the expert, if even the American Pentagon can be broken, then it is easy to guess which server is more secure: a server of a specialized organization providing cloud solutions, or a server run by a system administrator who may not even have sufficient qualifications to ensure the proper protection level.

Roman Gershtun also expresses the opinion that one should not be afraid that information may be lost on a certain server, but that data may disappear. This is a much bigger loss than just copying data to another resource. Of course, any cloud service has a much higher level of security than a physical server.

3. Let's say you have a choice right now. Need to decide: work on an iron or cloud server? The choice is not easy, therefore, for it to be thoughtful, our experts share their experience, what to look for and what characteristics to compare.

Spartak Polishchuk asserts: “With an eye to the future, I would never compare a cloud with a physical server. The fact is that if you need to scale, expanding clouds is much easier than a physical server. This can usually be done in a matter of minutes. A physical server requires significant financial and time costs. For example, one of our clients wanted to scale their server by adding RAM to it. And as a result of the transition of the whole world to new memory standards, he had to look for this RAM in the secondary market, since the motherboard did not support the modern standard. And moving to the clouds would be much cheaper and easier. "

4. Of course, there are specific cases when you can consider both physical and virtual servers to work. What exactly are these cases? And what types of business should definitely be preferred to clouds?

According to Spartak Polishchuk, there is a certain law in the implementation of CRM systems that requires the placement of data on physical servers among companies in the banking and medical sector. In all other cases, it is better to use the cloud, for example, to host the boxed version of Bitrix24.

Roman Gershtun says that the main thing is the principle, not the size of the business. “A simple example: you have an IT company that provides system administration services. There is a staff of IT professionals that makes up the core of the business. Considering a physical server is possible when you have the appropriate staff and the necessary resources for this, ”our partner is convinced. "If you are a startup and do not have this opportunity, then, of course, you should give preference to the clouds." Using the clouds, you can save on the maintenance of a staff of specialists and get more profit from the sale of goods or services. “For example, you need to build a website, install a CRM system and automate it all. If you purchase your own physical server, you will need to have staff to maintain it. With clouds, you can easily increase the amount of space, without buying additional hardware and saving time. And now it is the most important investment in business. If you understand that it is more profitable for you than maintaining a state and your own server, then, undoubtedly, you should give preference to the clouds, ”Roman Gershtun shares his opinion.