Dedicated Server

Colocation Versus Rented Dedicated Hardware Both put a physical server in a data centre. The difference is who owns the hardware, and therefore who is responsible when it breaks, which matters f... How to Choose Server Hardware: CPU, RAM and Storage Cores versus clock speed, why memory failure is worse than CPU shortage, storage tiers, and what to leave out. How to Choose a Data Centre Location Location is chosen by instinct: near me, or near the customers. Both are sometimes wrong, and the reasons that decide it are usually latency to the da... How to Plan Server Capacity and When to Scale Finding the real ceiling, keeping a baseline, which resource fails how, optimising before scaling, and lead times. Introduction to Dedicated Servers What a dedicated server gives you beyond a VPS, what it costs in ongoing work, and when capacity is not the real problem. Understanding Bandwidth, Port Speed and Network Limits What each number limits, reading unmetered versus unlimited, traffic that is not your visitors, and DDoS questions to ask. Understanding IPv6 and When You Need It IPv6 is not urgent for most servers and is genuinely important for mail. The dangerous state is neither on nor off. A published address that does not ... Understanding Uptime Guarantees and What They Cover Translating the percentages, what is excluded, how credits work, why response time matters more, and measuring it yourself.

How to Benchmark a Server Meaningfully Deciding what you are measuring, checking the hardware, testing your real application, and keeping dated results. How to Test a New Server Before Putting It into Service A new machine is the most likely time for a component to fail, and the least costly time to find out. Testing under load beats testing by hoping. Installing and Managing Applications on Dedicated Servers The ongoing cost of software installed outside the distribution, what to check after every install, and why to uninstall rather than disable. Installing and Managing Operating Systems on Dedicated Servers Choosing a distribution is the easy part and the same on any machine. On physical hardware the layout of the disks is fixed at installation, and corre... Installing and Managing Web Server Software The setting that decides how much traffic a server actually handles is not the processor or the web server choice. It is how many requests it will pro... Provisioning and Initial Setup of a Dedicated Server The first hour on a new dedicated server, in the order that keeps you able to reach it. Setting Up RAID and Storage Management Which RAID level to use and why, what a rebuild actually involves, and the monitoring that stops a degraded array going unnoticed.

Configuring a Firewall on a Dedicated Server Choosing a tool, avoiding lockout, outbound rules that limit a compromise, and verifying from outside. DNS and Nameserver Configuration on Dedicated Servers Running authoritative nameservers on your own server, the registrar half people skip, and the recursion setting that matters most. Server Hardening Best Practices The operating system hardening for a dedicated server is the same as for any Linux machine. What is different is the hardware underneath it, including... Using IPMI and Out-of-Band Management Power control, remote console, virtual media and hardware alerts, and the two rules that keep it safe.

Backups and Disaster Recovery for Dedicated Servers What a complete backup contains on a dedicated server, where it must live, and turning archives into an actual recovery plan. How to Decommission a Server Safely Inventorying what is on it, watching traffic before calling it idle, the final backup, data handling, and closing the account.

How to Manage Multiple Servers Consistently Writing the build down, saving profiles, standardising access and monitoring, patching together, and checking for drift. How to Plan and Run Server Maintenance Windows Choosing a window, telling people, the four things to write down first, rebooting on purpose, and verifying properly. Monitoring Performance and Server Health A dedicated server has hardware nothing else is hiding from you. Three of its failure modes are completely silent. The machine keeps working perfectly... Optimizing Server Performance The order for performance work on a dedicated server, and the failure that gets misdiagnosed as a code problem. Troubleshooting Common Dedicated Server Issues A diagnostic order for dedicated server problems, including the hardware failures a VPS simply does not have. Understanding Single Points of Failure in a Server Setup Most setups described as redundant are redundant in exactly one place. Listing the layers honestly shows where the real single points are, and they ar...