2020 was quite the year. The world changed in ways that no one could have predicted, showing us that we do not live in a static world. It’s important to be aware of how the world is evolving, and one of the changes 2020 brought in was a dramatic shift from in-person to online experiences. Stores someone would typically shop in were forced to adapt to selling their goods on websites instead. While this trend was already taking place, 2020 expedited the shift far more than we thought it would.
Now with 2020 behind us, the question becomes what trends we should be watching in 2021. And with the online world larger now than ever before we can adapt that question to be what dedicated server trends we should watch in 2021.
1. The Hosting Market Will Continue to Grow
At this point, it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that the online world is immense. There are aspects of all our lives that simply can’t go back click here to functioning without an online presence. By no means does it seem 2021 would revert the online transition back to brick and mortar experiences, in fact, odds are the online world will continue to grow exponentially.
As new technologies continue to emerge companies will find new ways to service their user bases remotely and cut their costs on things like physical stores. Likewise, both existing and new companies will be pushing their marketing and tech teams to come up with new creative ways to engage users. A company’s bottom line is to return a profit, and the online world offers a plethora of ways to do so.
Assuming a direct correlation between a company’s large presence online and their need for hosting, we can conclude that the hosting market will grow along with the internet. As online demand grows, we will either see larger companies grow even larger and increase their dedicated hosting resources, or new companies will emerge to meet the demand and do likewise. Depending on the size of these companies they may go with the VPS or shared hosting routes as opposed to dedicated hosting, but regardless the hosting market is sure to grow.
2. Prices Will Go Down
It might be tempting to conclude that with an increase in hosting, the price of hosting will go up. That would be the conclusion from the basic economic law of supply and demand, but there are other factors to consider. The hosting market is not run by any one company, so competition at that level still exists and hosts will continue to attempt to undersell their competitors to capture the growing market. As long as the market doesn’t trend into a monopoly, consumers are better off with larger hosts battling over clients.
And as this battle rages technology will continue to advance. R&D on how to provide dedicated servers at lower prices will accelerate as companies attempt to outbid their competitors. These R&D costs could be revealed in increased prices for a short time, but over the past few years, we’ve seen an increasing trend of tech companies taking financial hits at the tradeoff of capturing larger market shares. It’s a long-term strategy for the business, and as long as it doesn’t evolve into a monopoly that then gets abused, it’s great for the end user’s wallet.
3. Additional Services Will Be Included
Prices will likely go down, but it’s also possible we see an increase in add-ons to attract new customers. Dedicated hosting plans can involve some technical expertise if you go the unmanaged route, but training programs may come as an add-on with hosting plans to help prepare a client to manage things themselves. Likewise, things like marketing credits could become intertwined with plans. A marketing stipend every month for ads to attract users offers a unique way for plans to distinguish themselves from the competition and show clients that they want to not only host a business but help them grow.
4. Security Will Improve
Cybersecurity is a never-ending power struggle. When a new technology emerges, it is only a matter of time before a black hat hacker out there finds a way to abuse it. Then a security patch comes through or a new and improved technology replaces the insecure one. Rinse and repeat for the cybersecurity cycle.
This doesn’t mean that the level at which your data is secure is always constant though, it just means that technology is always improving to try and overcome these data leaks. In 2021 with such a large rush of new users into the cyber world we are sure to see an influx of scams and security breaches. But as this migration takes place, we are also sure to see security improvements to attempt to combat this.
There are many threats that already exist online such as DDoS attacks. Distributed Denial of Service attacks are a popular one where a hacker overloads a server by sending it a large number of fake requests. As the server becomes burdened and unable to process all the requests quickly enough it slows and down and freezes up on real users. Many existing hosting plans have anti-DDoS protections in place to help monitor for and protect against these fake requests. Just as hosts monitor for this currently, they are sure to evolve to combat new security threats that emerge.
Consider investing in a security model like a privileged access manager. Privileged access management helps to safeguard important users, like system admins with access to sensitive data.
5. Ease of Entry Will Increase
Sites like WordPress make it incredibly simple for anyone to get started creating a website. In just a few clicks you can begin publishing blog posts and gaining a following. Shared hosting plans offer a great way for people to get started, but they also can come with the tradeoff of sharing resources and being overshadowed by other sites. Dedicated hosting alleviates this issue by creating a server whose resources are dedicated entirely to your site. It is more expensive than shared hosting, but as technologies continue to improve odds are, we will see plans involving dedicated hosting and cloud VPS become easier to implement and therefore more affordable.
2021 In A Wrap:
No one can predict the future, but we can certainly analyze past trends and the current landscape to make educated estimates for how the world will change. With an ever-increasing population in the cyber world, it stands to reason that demand for hosting is not going anywhere. And as new technologies continue to emerge, we will see new ways of hosting that provide more secure and fluent experiences both for plan owners and users.
