Dedicated Servers a Must when Developing Large Scale Applications

There are many reasons why business owners choose a dedicated server for their web hosting needs. Many of these are obvious, such as requiring a large amount of bandwidth or storage space. But one of the benefits that comes with a dedicated server is the ability to have full root access. This means that business owners, or their IT staff, have full access to configuration settings; and that’s important if you’re going to be developing large scale applications for your site.

Large scale applications are those that have three or more database tables, or that offer 20 – 50 different features to any user at any given time. These could include things such as contact databases, search functions, forms, inquiries, or any other of the many different features and functions typically offered on websites. These applications, especially when several of them are grouped together and used at the same time, are very complex and require an extensive amount of development. But developing the application isn’t enough. And unfortunately if you don’t have a dedicated server, that’s all you’ll be able to do.

This is because with shared servers or a VPS (virtual private server) you or your developers won’t have full root access; and they’ll need it in order to make sure that the application is working properly before being released for use on your website.

When applications, especially complex ones, are first developed they can often contain bugs or glitches that need to be fixed; and sometimes the developer or business owner may also want to add or improve on the development software. In order to find these bugs or add to the software however, the developer must be able to get right into the software, which means they need to be able to get into the configuration settings.

Once there, the settings can then be changed easily and the application. Things such as port values can be set, user access levels can be changed, file extension settings can be changed, and server settings can also be adapted. All of these steps allow for the application to be developed and work exactly as it was intended.

This type of access doesn’t come with all servers however, and you certainly won’t find it with a shared server or VPS. Because other clients and websites also reside on these servers (albeit sometimes virtually,) typically no clients are provided full root access, as that could change the settings of other websites.

It’s true that dedicated servers come with many different benefits and features for business owners and those working on their websites. Gaining full root access is one that’s sometimes overlooked, but may be one of the most important there is – especially if you’re going to be running large scale applications on your website.