There are right and wrong uses for every type of cloud infrastructure. Dedicated servers have their own particular set of characteristics that make them right for some applications and wrong for others.

An awful lot of what you can read online about the benefits of dedicated servers over cloud servers, or vice-versa, is really fluff that could apply to either solution with the right configuration. So, when do the unique aspects of dedicated, physical servers transfer benefits to your application?

When do you need a dedicated server?

When you Need Predictable Performance

Virtual Private Servers (VPS’) can all suffer from the noisy neighbour effect.

The cloud, where VPS’ are created, is a multi-tenant environment in which multiple users or applications share the resources of the host infrastructure. These must all contend for access to the available bandwidth, CPU, I/O, etc. When one application becomes too greedy, it can negatively affect availability of those resources to others, resulting in their uneven performance.

In theory, the number of Virtual Machines (VM) on any one host and the specifications thereof can be managed to minimise the risk of impact from noisy neighbours, allowing enough headroom for peaks in demand for resources. In reality, it’s all but impossible to fully protect against it in shared environments.

A dedicated, physical server is immune to the noisy neighbour problem since its resources are 100% dedicated to you.

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If your own applications exceed the available resource within your dedicated server, or the network environment around it, it is still possible that you will experience uneven performance, but both the cause and the solution lie in your hands.

When you are I/O Intensive

Optimising your server environment for IOPS is essential in business where storage is used intensively and frequently. In Big Data, analytics or Internet of Things applications, for example, high I/O throughput it a must.

The exclusive access to server resources, interconnects and local storage that dedicated servers provide guarantees the maximum IOPs possible for the specification.

The absence of any hypervisor, contention or noisy neighbours ensures your access to IOPs is predictable and reliable.

When you Want Full Control

When operating on virtualised resources, the hypervisor sits between you and the host machine, limiting your choices and the extent of your control.

With a dedicated server you get admin level access to the bare metal machine. You have the ability to choose and install your preference of OS and configure it in any way you like.

You can even install your own hypervisor if you wish and create Virtual Machines on your own terms.

When you Need to be ‘Always on’

Virtualisation has enabled dramatic changes to the way that IT infrastructure is costed out. Utility or on-demand pricing is now commonplace. In the case of public cloud giants like AWS or Azure, significant un-bundling of pricing has taken place, where, for example, bandwidth and CPU cycles can be billed separately.

These pricing innovations, however, tend to favour users with significant fluctuations in demand. In the case of always-on instances, dedicated servers often cost significantly less than like-for-like VMs.

If any of these describe critical aspects of your infrastructure requirements, you need dedicated servers.

If you don’t have an effective onboarding process many customers will abandon your SaaS product before they’ve had the chance to really see what it can do for them. What’s more, the quality of your onboarding process sets the tone for ongoing relationships with your customers and therefore has a knock on effect on customer retention. Retaining customers is a key factor in profitability, so we’ve looked at the best practice for implementing a successful onboarding process, covering all aspects from the sign-up form to the moment customers achieve initial success with your product.

Download our guide to attracting more users for your SaaS business

Streamline Your Signup Form

At this stage, you don’t need to know everything about a customer – that can come later. Over-complicating the form with unnecessary questions will only act as a barrier to customer signup. Instead, streamline your signup form to just the essentials so your customer can get started as soon as possible.

Welcome Email

Firstly, make sure your customers are expecting an email by notifying them just after signup. This could be in the form of an inline thank message that reads something like: “Thank you for signing up to our service. You will receive an email shortly to get you started”. Best practice dictates that when compiling your email, you should use a single, clear CTA directing the customer into your application.

Within the content, consider using future-orientated language throughout the email that suggests to the customer you’re a trustworthy, long-term partner. For example: “We look forward to working with you” or “your journey starts here”.

First Login Experience

As you build the elements of an effective onboarding process, the customer journey may feel disjointed because different elements might have been put together by different teams. To make sure all the dots join up, it’s a good idea to run through the immediate login experience yourself, to map the customer journey and to see what’s missing. For example, it may be a good idea to have a welcome message set up with a few basic instructions. This way, new customers aren’t overwhelmed by the complexity of your interface. After this, a product tutorial, or similar, should be on hand to guide them through the basics and direct them to areas of immediate importance, such as  the support documentation and data importation tool.

Getting Customers Familiar with your Application

It’s essential to educate customers during the onboarding process. Failing to deliver support could have dramatic consequences. For example, according to Totango, 75% of potential SaaS customers leave during the free trial period – a worrying statistic conderising SaaS capital found that a 1% difference in churn rate can impact a company’s valuation by 12% 5 years on.

When considering the platform you want to use, feel free to be inventive. Instead of providing a simple “Getting Started” PDF, consider more interactive elements, such as a product tutorial or introductory video. Whichever you go with, make sure it’s as un-intrusive as possible by allowing customers to skip if they wish. The more comprehensive this introductory element is, the less likely trial users are to drop out of your trial or fall back on your support team – freeing up their time to focus on existing customers.

No matter how good your introductory element may be, this shouldn’t replace support documentation. Educational, up-to-date resources are helpful at any customer lifecycle stage, but arguably more so in the onboarding process. They allow the user to download information and go through it at their own pace, something that may be difficult with videos or product tutorials. And finally, make sure they are stored in a clearly visible and relevant part of your website.

Go the Extra Mile

While most of the above should be sufficient, there are always things you can do to make your onboarding process easier. For example, check-up calls are a great way to establish stronger relationships with your customers, as well as obtain feedback to improve your onboarding process for future customers.

To perform at your best, you need to optimise engagement at every stage of your customer journey. Before onboarding new customers, you first need to get them. For inspiration, download our ‘How to Attract More Users’ guide for SaaS companies.

Recent studies suggest that the IoT is growing, but according to Gartner, the ‘hype’ is over. Just weeks after Gartner released their latest hype cycle for emerging technologies, we ask: where did the IoT go?

The IoT first featured in the 2011 Hype Cycle and has been regular feature ever since. For many years, it made little progress, as it slowly raised expectations on the left side of the hype cycle. Just last year, the IoT reached the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ with an estimated 5 to 10 years before it would reach mainstream adoption. So why has it suddenly disappeared and what does this mean for the IoT?

It Was a Similar Story for Big Data

To answer these questions, we can look back one year to when ‘Big Data’ also dropped off the hype cycle. In this instance, Betsy Burton, a Gartner Analyst, stated that: “Big Data has quickly moved over the peak of inflated expectations” and “has become prevalent in our lives”. From what we know of Big Data since, this seems to be the case. Big Data is now the focus of many technology companies, such as Dell and Micro Focus, who have recently announced mergers/acquisitions with companies who specialise in Big Data analytics. Nowadays, Big Data crunchers can use larger servers, such as bare metal clouds, to cope with their increasing volumes of data. By doing so, they can gain access to predictive analytics that can transform customer experiences.

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Based on what we know about Big Data, IoT is set to become more ingrained in today’s IT infrastructures. A recent study by CompTIA of 512 IT and business executives suggests that 80% of organisations have a more positive view of the IoT today compared to a year ago. And, it’s predicted that over 50 billion things will be connected to the internet by 2020. This is likely to result in an unprecedented volume of data. Crunching this amount of data down into usable insights isn’t a job for hypervisors, shared resources, and multi-tenancy. Instead, businesses will need the power of a single tenancy, bare metal cloud or IaaS platform.

What’s Next for the IoT?

Despite the IoT dropping off the hype cycle, it’s not disappeared entirely. The ‘IoT platform’ first featured in last year’s hype cycle, just slightly behind the IoT itself. The IoT platform refers to ecosystem-enabling software that enables remote data collection and control over the connected devices within the IoT. Essentially, the IoT platform is the foundation for the IoT, bringing organisation to an otherwise chaotic environment.

This year, the IoT platform has raised expectations and, according to Gartner, is one of the emerging technologies that comprise the ‘platform revolution’ – one of three key technology trends identified by Gartner. Alongside other emerging technologies, such as Neuromorphic Hardware and Quantum Computing, the IoT platform is expected to revolutionise how platforms are defined and used, resulting in entirely new business models that form the bridge between employees and technology. Just like the IoT, companies must redefine their strategy to include this influx of technology to exploit the opportunities for powerful analytics.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, just because Big Data and the IoT have gone from Gartner Hype Cycle, that doesn’t mean they are dead – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. With more and more connected devices predicted in the IoT, Big Data crunchers have the potential to cash in on the meaningful analytics it can offer, providing they use the correct server and platforms to securely manage th vast amount of data.