Bare metal means running your operating system and software directly on a dedicated physical server, with no provider-managed hypervisor in between and no other customer sharing the machine’s processors, memory, disks or network cards. The server can be one you own in your own building or in colocation, but in buying conversations the term most often means a hosted bare-metal service: a provider owns the server, keeps it in its data center and rents the whole machine to you on a recurring bill. Hosting providers, some cloud providers and data center operators sell it under names such as bare-metal server, dedicated server or bare-metal cloud. This page focuses mainly on that hosted model.
At a glance
- Your software runs directly on dedicated hardware; no other customer shares the server, though you can install your own hypervisor on it.
- With a hosted service, the provider owns, racks, powers and repairs the hardware; you usually manage the operating system and everything above it.
- It is typically billed monthly or on a term, and some providers also offer hourly billing and API provisioning.
- It suits steady, performance-sensitive or license-sensitive workloads more than short-lived or highly variable ones.
- Pricing, provisioning speed, hardware choices and support scope vary widely between providers.
What problem it solves
Public cloud virtual machines run on shared hosts. That is efficient for the provider and flexible for the customer, but it creates three problems for some workloads. Performance can vary because other tenants share the same physical hardware. Costs add up for workloads that run around the clock, because hourly pricing is designed for flexibility rather than constant use. And some enterprise software is licensed per physical core or socket, which is awkward or expensive to apply to virtual machines on shared hardware.
Buying your own servers solves those problems but creates others: capital spending, hardware refresh cycles, spare parts and a data center or colocation space to put them in. Hosted bare metal sits between the two. You get dedicated hardware with predictable performance, and the provider handles ownership, power, cooling, network and hardware repair.
How it works
You choose a server configuration, such as processor model and core count, memory, disk type and capacity, network port speed and sometimes a GPU, and the provider assigns or builds a matching machine in one of its data centers. Some providers deliver from stock in minutes through a portal or API; others take days for custom builds. You then install an operating system from the provider’s images or your own.
Responsibility split. The provider is responsible for the physical server, the facility and its network up to your server’s port. Unless you buy a managed tier, you handle the operating system, patching, monitoring, backups and security. Because there is no provider hypervisor, you can install your own hypervisor, such as VMware ESXi, Hyper-V or Proxmox, or run containers directly on the server with an orchestrator such as Kubernetes, and build a private environment on hardware no other customer uses.
Pricing. Most bare metal is priced per server per month, with discounts for one- to three-year terms. Bandwidth may be included up to an allowance, billed per gigabyte or billed on a committed port speed, depending on the provider. Extra IP addresses, private networking between servers, storage add-ons, backups and managed services are often priced separately.
Networking. Servers usually connect to the provider’s internet transit and, where offered, a private network between your servers. Many buyers also connect bare metal to their offices or public cloud environments through private links. You can read more on our Bare Metal solutions page.
When it matters for buyers
- When a cloud bill is driven by always-on workloads. Databases, analytics clusters, game servers, media processing and similar systems that run all day are common candidates for moving to bare metal. Model the full cost, including the operations work you take back.
- When performance must be consistent. Latency-sensitive applications and high-throughput databases benefit from not sharing hardware.
- When software licensing is tied to physical hardware. Per-core or per-socket licenses are often simpler to count, and sometimes cheaper, on dedicated hosts. Confirm with the software vendor.
- When compliance requires isolation. Some security policies or customer contracts call for single-tenant hardware. Hosted bare metal can satisfy that without buying servers.
- When you are leaving or reducing public cloud. Bare metal is a common landing place for repatriated workloads, and it can sit alongside cloud in a hybrid design.
Questions to ask vendors
- What exact hardware will we get, is it new or refurbished, and can we pick the processor generation?
- How long does provisioning take for a standard configuration and for a custom one?
- What is the hardware replacement SLA, and do you keep spare parts on site?
- How is bandwidth billed, what is included, and what do overages cost?
- Is private networking between our servers included, and can we connect privately to our offices or public cloud accounts?
- What is the minimum term, and what happens to pricing at renewal?
- Which tasks, if any, are managed by you, such as operating system patching, monitoring or backups?
- How are disks wiped when we cancel or return a server?
How it differs from colocation and public cloud
The three options split ownership and operation differently. With colocation, you rent space, power and cooling in a data center and own the servers you install there, so you buy, ship, install and repair the hardware. With a hosted bare-metal service, the provider owns and repairs the hardware and rents the whole machine to you, while you run the software directly on it. (Your own servers in colocation are also bare metal in the technical sense; the difference is who owns them.) With public cloud virtual machines, the provider owns the hardware and also runs the virtualization layer, and you rent slices of shared servers that you can create and delete on demand. Many companies use more than one: bare metal or colocation for steady core systems, and public cloud for variable demand and managed services.
Problems this helps with
- Cloud bills that keep growing for workloads that run all day, every day
- Inconsistent performance from shared virtual machines
- Software licensed per physical core or socket
- Not wanting to buy and maintain our own servers
