You could easily be forgiven for thinking that everybody around you is switching to cloud hosting, and that it is basically a must have item on your IT to do list. However, while the hype around the benefits of the cloud is in some ways justified, as it does provide a lot of flexibility, there are still some strong arguments for using dedicated servers instead. In fact, companies who offer all different kinds of solutions like FDC Hosting frequently recommend dedicated hosting as the best option for some businesses or websites.

This means you may do well to think more carefully if you were simply planning to adopt a cloud strategy for 2016 as it seems to be 'the done thing' – you may actually get better cost efficiency and performance by using dedicated servers instead.

Reduced Complexity

A lot of people mistakenly think that cloud hosting is, just by the way it works, inherently redundant. However, it is a little more complex than that. In reality a cloud node is no more redundant than a physical server in many respects, and creating a cloud infrastructure with sufficient redundancy is actually quite a complex matter. Complexity, especially when it comes to something you don't have complete visibility of, can be an uncomfortable thing to bring into your business. With dedicated hosting, things are far more transparent and cut and dried – you know exactly what resources and capabilities you are getting and how this will be overseen by the company doing your hosting.

Scalability Can Actually Be a Downside

One of the big boasts of cloud hosting is that it is great if your business or website suddenly faces more demand – you can scale very easily. Of course, scaling isn't just about access to technical resources. Just because your hosting can expand automatically, that doesn't mean your software or even your business processes are ready to face a dramatic hike in demand. Having a plan to cope with rapid scaling is good, having your business scale without you being completely aware can be a disaster!

Costs Are Unpredictable

Another problem with the way cloud hosting can suddenly ramp up is that you don't know ahead of time what your costs will be, as you pay by usage. With dedicated server hosting, you have a predictable monthly or annual cost and if you need to upgrade anything to meet bigger demand, you can plan this – you don't find yourself paying for it unexpectedly after the fact. In fact, the way cloud hosting is billed does in fact make it more expensive than dedicated server hosting in quite a lot of situations, and that is something you need to be prepared for when you are deciding whether it is the way to go.

While cloud hosting does offer some good benefits, it is important to do your research and decide carefully, rather than just heading for the cloud because it is something there is a lot of buzz about.