Do You Need an On-Site Server?

Earlier this week, TechSoup and Dell hosted a Twitter chat featuring Antonio Julio, Director for Enterprise Product Management for Small and Medium Businesses of Dell to discuss what questions nonprofit organizations and small businesses need to ask and what issues to consider in deciding whether they need an on-site server. With recent estimates by Dell indicating that an estimated two-thirds of small businesses use a desktop as a server and concerns over cloud server outages, understanding how an on-site server can benefit your organization is incredibly valuable. Here, we recap some of the highlights of the discussion.

The decision to add an on-site server to an organization’s existing technology infrastructure is based on the “customer nature of the business and budget.” Some key benefits of adding an on-site server include:

• A server will ensure reliability for daily consumer and constituent activities.
• A server on premises provides a solution for data backup and remote management.
• Even a small organization with few employees can benefit from a server on premises, as it not only provides reliability but performance and allows for scalability. Scalability is important since a proper storage solution should fit an organization’s growing data needs.
• Another key factor to consider in adding a server to an organization’s technology infrastructure is how a server will aid in implementing virtualization. Virtualization helps users improve and maximize their server utilization and consolidate legacy systems.

In time, organizations will need to supplement their existing server with a formal storage solution or storage array. When to make this move will be predicated upon the amount of data that needs to be managed.

On-site servers need not replace virtual storage solutions and can, in fact, complement them. According to Julio, implementing virtual area technology helps a business’ bottom line because it lowers overhead costs by reducing power consumption and consolidating legacy and security systems. By way of example, instead of using multiple physical servers, an organization can consolidate many of its resources to one and utilize virtual machines, which ultimately require less power to run. The addition of virtual machines also improves scalability without the added cost of physical servers.

Julio advises growing businesses exploring the possibilities of cloud computing to consider the nature of their business, budget, and security needs. Although some might be wary of putting data in the cloud and the possibility of outages, security has and continues to improve over time.

Further information on servers and data storage solutions, courtesy of Dell and TechSoup, are listed below:

• Take the First Step to a More Efficient Infrastructure
• A Field Guide to Servers
• Virtualization 101: How virtualization software can turn one computer into several
• Why Should Nonprofits Care About Cloud Computing?