Outside the data centre, SMEs need servers built for the real world

As cloud-computing take-up drives the industry towards high-density data centres, server manufacturers have focused on building rack-mounted servers that pack more compute power into less space.This has seen cloud-computing providers and large enterprises splurging on new commodity and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) servers. No wonder IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker found that worldwide server market revenues increased 37.7 per cent year-on-year through the third quarter of 2018.While this level of revenue growth signals strong growth among cloud service providers and large enterprises, what about small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – which are generally focused more on reliable systems to run on-premises applications in everyday environments such as restaurants, retail shops, and shop-floor offices?