If you're not a multinational business, working with hundreds of gigabytes of data that must be downloaded and uploaded daily, or dealing with a high security set of information, you don't have much of a reason to build your own server. Servers can get expensive if you're handling the hardware, and it's a lot easier to simply manage the data part while a dedicated business handles hardware maintenance. Here are a few server and remote access system details to help you understand how well your business can thrive by putting the server burden with someone else.

Server Hardware Maintenance Gets Expensive

When you build and maintain a server, you're doing more than just adding an extra computer. To be worth the investment, servers have to constantly compute information with little to no downtime because of the requests from different connected users and systems.

There is such a thing as idle operation. All computers do it, but a business server will be working every time someone in your business or every time a customer needs to access your business files or hosted website. If your server isn't always active, you're wasting electricity on a device that has too much power and too much demand without churning out business productivity.

The wear and tear of an operational server means replacing parts sooner. If you're handling file sharing or maintaining a website, you'll also need a potentially more expensive internet service plan that includes upload at higher levels instead of going for just download. Internet Service Providers (ISP) that don't have asynchronous (matching) upload and download speeds will usually charge a hefty premium for higher upload speeds.

What Can A Hosted Server Do?

Instead of managing your own server, you're looking for a file hosting service. For most people, a server host is usually something to host or provide web space for a website. You can replace the website with a connection area or web portal for your business server.

By putting your server on a third party host, your employees can connect from work, home, or anywhere in the world as long as they have the proper credentials. There are many ways to approach security, and unless your business has a certified and experienced cyber security expert, you'll likely be at greater risk hosting your own server rather than putting your trust in a professional-grade hosted system through a company that offers IT managed services.

Contact a managed IT services professional to discuss moving your business files to a dedicated server.