What Is a Bare Metal Server?
A bare metal server is a physical server dedicated entirely to a single user. It allows direct access to the server’s hardware without any virtualization. This gives the user full control over every aspect of the infrastructure, including the choice of operating system, hardware configurations, and applications.
By avoiding virtualization and hypervisor overhead, a bare metal server provides the superior performance that comes with all the processing power and memory being allocated to a single tenant. The isolation inherent in bare metal servers means that users avoid the “noisy neighbor” problem, enjoying enhanced security and stability. These features make metal servers ideal for high-performance computing, large databases, or gaming servers.
What is bare-metal cloud?
Bare-metal cloud is a public cloud service where the customer rents dedicated hardware resources from a remote service provider. It offers the hardware resources without any installed operating systems or virtualization infrastructure.
Commercial cloud service infrastructure enables the virtualization and subdivision of compute, storage and database resources so that servers and storage arrays can be carved up and shared by multiple customers. But while virtualized compute instances provide flexibility and cost benefits, there are drawbacks, particularly related to resource contention — the so-called noisy neighbor problem. There are also risks from incomplete isolation of execution environments and virtual networks. Bare-metal cloud solves these issues, allocating isolated physical resources to customers.
The bare-metal-cloud is a good option for big data applications and high-transaction workloads that do not deal well with latency. Most of the largest cloud vendors, such as AWS, IBM, Oracle and Rackspace, offer bare-metal cloud services.
How do bare-metal clouds work?
Bare-metal services are cloud offerings that are comparable to renting a raw, dedicated server from a managed service provider (MSP).
Bare Metal Server Initial Setup
The initial setup of a bare metal server includes several crucial steps:
1. Hardware selection and configuration. Choosing the appropriate hardware includes deciding on the necessary CPU power, RAM, storage capacity, networking capabilities, and other elements that contribute to the successful development and deployment of applications.
2. Physical setup. After selecting the hardware, it is necessary to install it in a server room or data center. This includes ensuring adequate power supply, cooling systems, and physical security, as well as providing bandwidth for connectivity.
3. Operating system installation. The user selects an operating system based on their business needs. The OS is installed directly on the server’s hardware.
4. Configuration and optimization. After installing the operating system, the user configures the server by setting up user accounts, deploying security protocols, and installing software and applications. During this step, it is necessary to ensure that the network configurations provide maximum efficiency and performance.
5. Maintenance and monitoring. Continuous maintenance and monitoring ensure that the operating system and applications are up to date, and all security protocols are in place. Regularly checking the state of the physical servers makes certain that all components are functioning correctly.
Who Should Use a Bare Metal Server?
Bare metal servers are suitable for many types of users and organizations, including:
• Large enterprises with resource-intensive applications.
• High-traffic websites and ecommerce platforms.
• Gaming companies hosting multiplayer games.
• Organizations with stringent security requirements.
• IT and cloud service providers.
• Companies with stable, predictable workloads.
• Research institutions and universities.
• Media and entertainment companies.
• Development and testing environments.
• Businesses requiring hybrid IT environments.
Benefits and drawbacks of bare-metal cloud
There are both benefits and drawbacks related to a bare-metal cloud environment. It’s important to examine them carefully before deploying one.
Benefits
• Predictability. One benefit of bare-metal cloud infrastructure is the performance predictability of dedicated resources.
• Security. Dedicated resources also provide customers with control of system and network security.
• Flexibility. Businesses can customize a bare-metal cloud to meet their OS and software stack requirements and troubleshoot applications without having to worry about neighboring VMs.
• No resource contention. Public cloud environments are multi-tenant and VMs share physical servers, which can result in VMs contending for resources. The dedicated servers that make up a bare-metal cloud avoid resource contention.
• Scalable. Thus, most bare-metal services are highly scalable, including systems with more than 20 sockets, hundreds of CPU cores and terabytes of memory. That makes them good options for big data applications and high-transaction workloads that need low latency.
• Direct access to system hardware. Bare metal allows applications requiring access to system performance counters to run in a cloud environment.
• Financing flexibility. Storage and other hardware resources are provisioned as needed and typically billed based on a specific time period — per hour, day or month, eliminating the need to tie up Capex budget. This approach is particularly valuable for workloads where hardware requirements are unclear and likely to change.
• Access to high-end hardware. Customers get this access sometimes before it is available in enterprise systems.
• Cloud migration advantages. Bare metal enables the use of cloud migration software not supported on a VM or with restrictive, hardware-based licensing.
Drawbacks
• Added management overhead. Customer must configure all hardware and is responsible for installing and managing the OS, hypervisor, container stack and all software.
• Application performance bottlenecks. These problems may arise due to network and storage throughput and latency issues.
• Added costs. Some services require monthly leases resulting in paying for underutilized resources with bursty or nonsustained workloads. And bare metal might be more expensive for sustained, predictable workloads that can amortize a server’s cost over three or more years.
• Limited options. Aside from AWS and IBM Cloud, most vendors have a limited selection of bare-metal systems with some configurations unavailable in particular cloud regions.
• Security vulnerabilities. Cloud vendors may do a better job configuring, monitoring and patching systems for security threats.
• Legacy software issues. Legacy software often has strict hardware compatibility requirements that might not include the available bare-metal configurations. For example, it could take months for a cloud vendor to certify its compute services for complex products like SAP HANA.