Red Hot Tips Point: Beat Christmas Rushes with a Dedicated Server

Sunday, October 25, 2009

If there's one time of year you don't want your servers to become overloaded, it's Christmas. By far one of the most lucrative times of year for millions of companies across the globe, it's essential that your servers remain up and running at all times - after all, many people prefer to do their shopping at all hours of the day.

That means that even when people at your company aren't in the office your servers are still doing their job.

However, if you've only got enough servers to suffice you during the year, Christmas can be a problem. With millions of people all around the world seeking out the perfect presents for their loved ones, it's crucial to your business that your site remains up and running - otherwise you could end up losing valuable customers to your competitors.

Perhaps, then, it's time to think about what outsourcing opportunities you have for this time of year.

When it comes to the festive season, it's not hard to see why you wouldn’t consider a small expense in return for guaranteed server uptime, rather than losing out on Christmas revenue because your own can't cope with the blitz of shoppers.

Some businesses can expect a 200% increase in traffic over the Christmas period and that extra strain can have a huge impact on servers that aren't up to the job. For many retail sites this is the most important time of the year and without a fully functioning website they may be losing out on a large chunk of their annual earnings.

For this purpose it is a great idea to consider getting a dedicated server. This is where you lease an entire server from a hosting company, choosing which services you require to cope with expected demand e.g. bandwidth, hard drives, memory etc.

In addition these usually come with round the clock support and managed services freeing up your time to cope with your business and orders!, For those worried that their business will be in the hands of others, hosting companies regularly allow client representatives the opportunity to keep a certain level of control over the outsourced software.

The extra server space can go a great deal towards ensuring you never experience any downtime over the festive period, thus securing all of those Christmas sales your business needs to start the new year with an extra boost.

A dedicated server could prove to be the ideal addition to your Christmas IT schedule and, with a great deal of options out there at excellent prices, the benefits far outweigh the cons.