What is a Bare Metal Server?

The term ‘bare metal’ generally defines the physical hardware reserved for one customer, also called ‘tenant’. Only the tenant takes the resources of the server — the bare metal server is fully dedicated to the tenant. Pay attention to the ‘dedicated’ part because often the definitions of bare metal server and dedicated server are interchangeable. While they do have some small differences, they are very much alike, and everything we are covering today applies to both bare metal and dedicated server.

Bare metal comes with a variety of benefits, particularities, and requirements. Let us break down any questions you may have.

A ‘bare metal server’ is a single-tenant physical server. In this case, a ‘single tenant’ means that the physical resources of the server cannot be shared by more than one tenant. The server belongs only to you. The name ‘bare metal’ underlines that the tenant has unrestricted access to the hardware.

A bare-metal server can have multiple users as long as all the users are part of the entity renting the server (tenant). The characteristics of a bare metal server are also its advantages, which differentiate bare metal from virtual machines or containers.

By 2025, the bare metal market is expected to reach 26.1bln USD, and the growth is due to the benefits of using bare metal.

What are the benefits of bare metal servers?

1. Predictable, stable performance, ideal for processing large amounts of data. A dedicated server can handle more data than a virtual one.
2. Bare metal servers don’t require a hypervisor, which is an additional layer of software. Using less software results in better performance in terms of workload and speed.
3. Bare metal servers offer a lot of variety when it comes to setting up specifications. On top of high performance, you can also in advance select what you need for the server based on your workload and potential usage.
4. Direct access to the server and the underlying hardware architecture.
5. Flexibility. As the tenant has complete control over the bare metal server, he is also in control of choosing the operating system and / or the bare metal hypervisor.
6. Security. Physical isolation brings extra protection. The user can integrate the preferred security protocol without involving the provider.
7. Avoid the ‘noisy neighbor’ effect, which happens when one user interferes with the performance of other users on the same server. The bare metal servers are entirely free of the ‘noisy neighbor’ effect thanks to the physical separation in bare metal.
8. Transparent billing. With bare metal, you are billed a fixed amount monthly. You can also easily monitor how much bandwidth you need.
   There is also an even better option when it comes to billing – Elastic metal (more on it below). It combines the best of the both worlds: you can opt for monthly or hourly billing.

Bare metal servers are an excellent solution for small and medium business thanks to transparent pricing and scalability of bare metal. Their simplicity and performance are what makes them most attractive to the customers. The better you tune down your requirements, the easier it will be for you to choose your bare metal server. First, answer the following questions.

• What are your current performance requirements? Having a precise answer to this question will help you size the server in advance. How many users will you have? What type of services will you provide? What kind of hardware will you use? All these questions fall under the umbrella of your performance requirements.

• How good is the network quality? The geographical location of the server will also define how well your customers can connect to your solution.

• How much downtime can I afford? If you get only one dedicated server, it means that there is no way to redirect the traffic to a different one.

• How much am I planning to scale? Bare metal servers, contrary to cloud, are more difficult to scale.

• What is the right hosting provider given my demands?

The “single-tenant” nature of bare metal makes it secure and adds up to the performance. How does it look next to the other options on the market?

The main difference between virtual machines and bare metal servers lies in the number of tenants. As we have seen before, bare metal server is single-tenant, and the virtual machines are multi-tenant. Here is how bare metal servers compare to virtual machine servers based on other criteria:

Performance. Bare metal servers offer better performance since they dedicate all the resources to only one tenant. They can usually process larger workload than virtual machines.
Scalability. Virtual machines have a large advantage over bare metal in terms of scalability. It is always easier to scale a virtual environment when it grows, rather than a physical one.
Security. Bare metal offers stronger security and privacy than virtual machines. Having several tenants increases cybersecurity risks.
Cost. Even though the billing model is different, there are no unpredictable expenses in both scenarios. For a bare metal server, you will pay a monthly bill and for a virtual machine — you will pay for what you have used during the month, which can also be adjusted based on your needs.
System recovery possibilities. Recovery in virtual environments is much simpler than in physical ones.
Deployment time. Deploying a VM server is usually a matter of a few minutes, while deploying even the best bare metal server takes several hours.

These are both solid options which answer certain business needs. What if you didn’t have to choose? What if there was an option combining the best of bare metal and the alternatives?

What if you could easily get the performance and security of bare metal with the scalability that the cloud has to offer? Scaleway offers the best of the both options for your business, so that you don’t have to sacrifice any of the benefits.

How does this option combine the best of both? Scaleway Elastic Metal offers the following:

• Pricing transparency of both bare metal and cloud. No hidden costs, stable and predictable budget. Pick whichever option suits you best. You can choose to billed at the end of the month for your resource usage or you can go with the hourly billing model.
• No noisy neighbors, just like with the separation provided by bare metal.
• Dedicated performance of the bare metal server.
• Secure and reliable servers
• Fast deployment time — the Elastic Metal server is good to go within minutes.
• Native cloud integration, which allows for extra scalability as your business grows! For example, you can combine Elastic Metal, Instances, Managed Databases & Load Balancers in the same private L2 network to build (and scale) a secure and diversified infrastructure. Or integrate tools such as API, CLI, Terraform to automate your infrastructure.

If we taking the gaming example which works best with the bare metal servers like above, how can it benefit from going with the Scaleway Elastic Metal solution? The bare metal part allows to deliver exceptional performance, while the cloud integration lets customize and scale the game during the whole development process.

The hybrid approach of combining bare metal and cloud allows you to make the best of performance, security and flexibility at the same time. Give your business the safety and speed of bare metal with the scalability potential of cloud.