10 things to do with your dedicated server

If you have your own dedicated server, congrats! This opens up a lot of possibilities and opportunities for your business. Usually, most people start their online business with shared hosting and having a dedicated server is their goal, or the next medium or long-term step.

Whilst a dedicated server is useful for hosting your business – don’t think it’s the only thing it’s good for! It can be much more if you let your creativity free to make the most out of such a resource.

Unleash the true power of your dedicated server with our top ten things to do – check them out below!

1. Build a database server

Building a database server in your dedicated server offers two big advantages: security and privacy. Website owners need a place to store their important databases. There are options available to solve this need, but in the case of shared hosting, that mostly means the data will be saved on someone else’s server (the provider’s). For example, with Database-as-a-Service (DbaaS), you get only the software to access the server of your provider and from there your databases.

Having your database server will give you total control over saving, organizing, and accessing your information. You can use software to allow access to the employees’ devices you need which means you can enable local and remote access.

If you are interested in building a database server, you can check “10 Steps to build your database server”.

For sure, if you want to host your website you will need a database server. Luckily there are many easy ways to install a database server on your dedicated server. If you are a Linux user, go for LAMP, or if you are a Windows user you can choose XAAMP.

2. Create a Mail server

Yes! By having a dedicated server, you could avoid hosting and paying for your e-mails to be hosted on a third-party server. This will help protect you and your data by taking total control over these business communications. Everything can be personalised, from setting up antivirus systems, advanced firewalls, etc., to monitoring all e-mail accounts, limiting the attachments’ size, and much more for you to enable a secure, completely functional, and spam-protected Mail server for your business.
It is one of the best things that you can do with your dedicated server, especially if you need to manage many users. You don’t need to pay each time you add a new one, and you can have different settings for different groups of users. That way, you can better manage your resources.

If you want to host your e-mails on your dedicated server, you can check “Building Your Own Mail Server on FreeBSD”.

3. Use your dedicated server to backup your data

Backing up your website’s and your business’ data, in general, is good practice, and something we’ve recommended many times before.

If you missed it, you can check out our “Is the 3-2-1 backup rule still valid?” Blog here. The threat of online attacks is growing every day, and to backup up data is the best way to protect yourself in case of a ransom, DoS, or DDoS attack. Having a backup means you will be able to completely restore your site without losing clients, credibility, and money. Your website can also experience issues, crashes, and human errors like deleting something important accidentally, or an element such as a plugin or a theme can cause problems. If you have to start everything from scratch to solve an issue, you need a trustworthy, reliable and updated backup.

Consider how large and how many resources your website demands. If you can generate a backup in your dedicated server without affecting the website’s performance – it is a great option.

You can always ask for additional storage space, but since it is a dedicated server and not a cloud server, it might take some additional time. Keep that in mind.

4. Configure VoIP and reduce expenses

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the combination of technologies for multimedia transmission that enables you to make and receive phone calls over the Internet Configuring VoIP services in your dedicated server could be great for your finances; it’s a convenient method to handle all the calls your business makes and take, but at a much lower cost. Local and international calls to mobile phones or landlines can all be made without harming your pocket.
Also, VoIP data can be saved in the cloud which helps to better protect the security of your business communications.

If you want to save money on better-featured and higher quality phone calls for your business, configure VoIP in your dedicated server. Here you can check how to do it, “What is VoIP and how to set it up with Asterisk”.

5. Enhance your security by setting up a VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an encryption method to securely access a remote computer through the Internet. Setting up a VPN in your dedicated server will help you to make your traffic and wireless connections more secure. The pandemic massively increased the number of employees working remotely (home office). If that’s your case or the nature of your business has always had this requirement, you must think about how to secure their access to your internal network resources and the information that’s exchanged. A VPN is the tool to solve this problem.

A VPN gives you the control to decide who accesses what through permissions linked to IP addresses, usernames, etc. giving you total control. A VPN will allow them to connect to your business’ data without risking the integrity and security of such business’ information. Communications will be encrypted to offer further protection so data won’t be readable by prying eyes.

A VPN set up in your dedicated server can make security more robust to avoid data breaches. If you want to delve deeper into the world of VPNs, check “What is OpenVPN and how to install it on Ubuntu”.

6. Create a game server

Team building events are important for having a happy work environment – they improve productivity by helping to break down potential barriers between teams etc. The pandemic became a big obstacle to having such meetings and challenged business owners to look for alternatives. Creating a game server in your dedicated server is a great and fun idea. It can have an incredibly positive impact on your employees’ moods. Hosting games on your dedicated server will enhance the speed to an optimal gaming level and reduce latency and downtime. Multiplayer gaming will make your employees happy – there’s nothing like a bit of healthy competition like Sales vs. Marketing, or Admin vs. Accounting!

Try it, you won’t regret it! The results will be reflected in your business results. These articles can help you to create a game server based on the game you choose.
• “How to make a Valheim dedicated server”
• “What to know about building a Counter-Strike server”
• “How to build a Minecraft server”
• “How to make your own FiveM server just in 10 minutes”

7. Build a media server

A media server will host all the digital media of your business (images, audio, video) to make them available on a network. If you promote your business services through videos, you could give access to them to potential clients or your Sales squad. They could be prepared for every meeting to show these media files through all types of devices (computers, tablets smartphones) and these videos, images, and audio tracks can be accessed and played on different devices simultaneously.

Having a media server on your dedicated server will provide you with a powerful and organized media library easy to access and manage through the proper software. Forget those frustrating moments, when things don’t work, while trying to show your business reel to a client caused by network errors or downtime.

This could be particularly useful for media companies, where many people need to access media files at the same time. Such a server will facilitate the working process for everybody.

8. Create a development server on your dedicated server

If you own an online business and you like to tweak the systems, experiment to create new content, or enhance your system, your dedicated server can become a development server. Creating a safe environment where you can develop and test before enabling changes is a big advantage. You can be sure you won’t affect end-users or your employees working on their tasks while you’re trying things out. And finally, when everything is ready and well tested, your changes will be made smoothly.

You can rent a dedicated server for just a specified short period of time, so when the project ends, and you’ve developed the software you wanted; you can stop this expense easily.

9. Build an FTP server

Configuring the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) on your dedicated server is a smart solution for uploading and downloading all the files you need no matter where you are. This type of server will be especially useful for transferring multiple directories or files without a problem. You also could add files to a queue for being uploaded/downloaded, schedule transfers, re-start a transfer that stopped due to a connection loss, and much more.

For better security, you can use either FTPS or SFTP. Both are encryption-enabled to further protect the communication and make it safer. The choice is yours.

10. Host your business website

This is the most obvious thing you can do with your dedicated server. Compared with other hosting alternatives, a dedicated server is far superior. The level of control, space, resources, and possibilities for your business means room to grow. When traffic levels and your demand for security increases you will be ready to handle them. Also, there aren’t limits to the number of websites you can host. You can have five, ten, or even more if your server is powerful enough. In some cases, a dedicated server can save you money, and make the whole site management process a lot easier.

Conclusion

Now you know these ten things to do with your dedicated server. Just analyze your business needs, and priorities and get creative while you get the most out of it! And if you want to make the jump and get a dedicated server, be sure to speak to our expert team who will be able to advise you, and check out our available options here.