DEV Community: Shannon Dias

Ashburn vs Dallas vs Chicago Best US Data Center Locations for Crypto Infrastructure

Shannon Dias — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:28:35 +0000

Unlike a typical website, blockchain infrastructure is latency-sensitive in specific ways: validator nodes need fast global peer sync, exchange-facing servers need the shortest possible round trip to liquidity venues, and RPC endpoints need to stay close to the users calling them.

Three US cities consistently come up when choosing where to host crypto infrastructure: Ashburn, VA, Dallas, TX, and Chicago, IL. Each has a distinct strength.

Ashburn, Virginia The Internet's Backbone

Ashburn sits in "Data Center Alley," the densest concentration of data centers in the world, with close to 50 million square feet of data center space and 4,900+ megawatts of commissioned power as of 2025. For crypto infrastructure, this means rich peering with other blockchain providers and low-hop routing across the global network.

Dallas, Texas The Geographic Center

Dallas wins through geography: its central US position gives near-equal latency to both coasts. The Infomart carrier hotel connects 140+ competing network providers, and Dallas's inland location keeps it clear of Gulf Coast hurricane risk a real plus for redundancy planning.

Chicago, Illinois The Financial Markets Hub

Chicago's edge is narrower but sharp: CME Group's Aurora, IL facility runs the matching engine behind regulated Bitcoin and Ether futures. If your infrastructure touches trading or derivatives, Chicago offers a measurable latency advantage the other two can't match.

Quick Take

Need global peer sync for a validator or full node? Ashburn.
Need balanced nationwide coverage and redundancy? Dallas.
Building trading infrastructure tied to CME? Chicago.

The full article includes a detailed comparison table and a checklist of infrastructure essentials (NVMe storage, unmetered bandwidth, DDoS protection, redundant power) for any crypto-facing server.

👉 Read more on the Fit Servers blog: https://www.fitservers.com/blogs/best-usa-dedicated-server-locations-crypto-infrastructure/

E-Commerce Hosting in Brazil: Compliance + Speed for Local Markets

Shannon Dias — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 04:32:06 +0000

Brazil is the largest e-commerce market in Latin America, growing faster than most mature markets in North America and Europe. For international retailers, that's the opportunity — but succeeding there depends on two things most launch checklists underrate: real-world latency for Brazilian shoppers, and whether your data handling holds up under LGPD.

What the guide covers

Brazil's network hubs — São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, and João Pessoa, and why physical distance to them directly affects checkout conversion
Dedicated vs. shared/cloud hosting for e-commerce specifically — isolated performance, NVMe storage for database-heavy catalogs, and hardware-level DDoS protection
LGPD in practice — lawful basis for processing, data subject rights, international transfer rules, and the Encarregado (data protection contact) requirement
The Marco Civil da Internet myth — clearing up the common but inaccurate claim that Brazilian law mandates in-country data storage
Pix and checkout performance — with instant payments now around 44% of online purchase value in Brazil, slow confirmation directly undermines conversion
A practical Brazil-ready hosting checklist covering location, connectivity, storage, DDoS protection, uptime SLAs, compliance support, and scalability

Full article here: https://www.fitservers.com/blogs/ecommerce-hosting-brazil/

How to Configure pfSense on Proxmox Dedicated Server

Shannon Dias — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 07:30:43 +0000

How to Configure pfSense on Proxmox Dedicated Server

Bare-metal firewalls are the traditional approach, but virtualizing pfSense on top of Proxmox VE has become the standard way to secure a dedicated server — routing all inbound traffic through a dedicated firewall VM before it reaches any of your other workloads.

What the guide covers

Network architecture — separating WAN (vmbr0, tied to the physical NIC) from an internal-only LAN bridge (vmbr1)
VM provisioning — correct CPU type (Host, for AES-NI passthrough), VirtIO NICs, memory, and disk settings for a firewall workload
Interface assignment — mapping vtnet0/vtnet1 correctly on first boot so you don't lock yourself out
The throughput fix most guides skip — disabling hardware checksum offload, which otherwise causes major packet loss under VirtIO
Hardening the hypervisor — removing the Proxmox host's public IP from the WAN bridge and putting management access entirely behind pfSense, reachable only over VPN

By the end, you'll have a segmented, hardened network running on a single dedicated server — no extra hardware required.

👉 Read the full tutorial: https://www.fitservers.com/tutorials/configure-pfsense-virtual-firewall-proxmox-dedicated-server/

How to Set Up OpenVPN on a Dedicated Server (2026 Guide)

Shannon Dias — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:09:19 +0000

Running your own OpenVPN server on a dedicated server puts you fully in control of your traffic — no third-party logging policies, no shared IP pools, and no bandwidth caps beyond what your hardware provides.

This tutorial covers two reliable setup paths:

Scripted install — a maintained community installer that automates Easy-RSA certificate generation and server hardening. Best for most users.
Manual install with Easy-RSA — full control over every certificate, key, and config setting.

It also walks through current, security-conscious defaults: AES-256-GCM encryption, TLS 1.2+ minimums, tls-crypt HMAC protection, IP forwarding, UFW firewall rules, and NAT masquerading — plus a troubleshooting section for the most common connection issues.

👉 Read the full step-by-step guide here: https://www.fitservers.com/tutorials/howto/setup-openvpn-dedicated-server/

How to Install OpenAI Whisper on a Dedicated Server (Ubuntu 24.04, 2026)

Shannon Dias — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 09:34:08 +0000

Cloud transcription APIs charge per minute and send every recording you own to a third-party server. If that audio needs to stay private, or your transcription volume makes per-minute fees add up, self-hosting OpenAI's Whisper on your own dedicated server solves both problems.

This guide covers:

Picking the right Whisper model for your VRAM budget (tiny through large-v3/turbo)
faster-whisper — the recommended runtime for most production deployments
whisper.cpp — best for CPU-only or lightweight servers
whisper-asr-webservice — a ready-made REST API with Docker images for CPU/GPU
WhisperX — adding word-level timestamps and speaker diarization
Common install errors (CUDA/cuDNN mismatches, out-of-memory fixes, Python version issues)

👉 Read the full step-by-step tutorial: https://www.fitservers.com/tutorials/howto/install-whisper-dedicated-server-2026/

How to Set Up a Soulmask Dedicated Server (Linux vs Windows)

Shannon Dias — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:46:30 +0000

When deploying a dedicated server for resource-heavy survival games like Soulmask, choosing between a Windows and Linux environment comes down to overhead vs. accessibility. Linux generally wins out for dedicated environments due to its headless nature, consuming far fewer CPU cycles and RAM.

If you are looking to deploy a persistent world for your player base, you'll need to navigate SteamCMD, firewall configurations, and Telnet commands to ensure data integrity.

What We Cover in the Full Tutorial:

Hardware Prerequisites: Why you absolutely need at least 16GB RAM and NVMe storage.
Windows Deployment: Batch scripts for downloading app 3017310 and setting up automated startup files.
Linux Deployment (Ubuntu/Debian): User permission isolation, downloading app 3017300, and writing a systemd service for automatic crash recovery.
Telnet Shutdowns: A critical walkthrough on using port 18888 to safely save the world state (saveworld 1) to prevent database corruption.

Managing local infrastructure can bottleneck your network. If you need enterprise-grade hardware, Fit Servers provides uncompromised bare-metal solutions across 250+ global locations.

👉 For the complete code snippets and step-by-step instructions, visit the blog link:
Read the full tutorial on Fit Servers

How to Build a Multi-Game Dedicated Server (Minecraft, Palworld, Rust) using Pterodactyl

Shannon Dias — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 09:00:33 +0000

Renting game servers from traditional game server providers (GSPs) is often a massive money sink. They upcharge you for RAM, restrict your player slots, and lock your files behind heavily limited control panels.

If you are comfortable with Linux and command-line interfaces, setting up your own dedicated server using the open-source Pterodactyl Panel is a massive upgrade. It allows you to host multiple heavy-hitting titles simultaneously with maximum performance using Docker containers.

In our latest tutorial, we break down the exact architecture needed to run resource-heavy games like Minecraft, Rust, and Palworld on a single dedicated machine.

What You'll Learn:

Prerequisites & Hardware: Sizing up your CPU/RAM for heavy loads.
Firewall & Security: Configuring UFW for game ports.
Automated Pterodactyl Deployment: Setting up the Panel and Wings daemon.
Cloudflare Tunnels: Bypassing complex Nginx/Let's Encrypt setups by tunneling your web interface securely.
Node Allocation: Deploying the actual Docker containers for your games.

If you are looking to optimize your community's infrastructure and ditch the GSP limitations, this guide will walk you through the entire process.

👉 Read the full step-by-step tutorial on the Fit Servers Blog

Ryzen 7 vs Ryzen 9 for Dedicated Game Servers: Which Do You Really Need?

Shannon Dias — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 05:38:04 +0000

If you are architecting a machine to host a heavily modded Minecraft network, a massive Rust instance, or an ARK cluster, your CPU choice is the single most critical factor in keeping your server's tick rate stable.

Desktop gaming and server hosting are entirely different workloads. Let's look at the hardware from a server admin's perspective.

Single-Threaded Engines vs. Multi-Tasking

Most modern game engines are notoriously bound by single-threaded performance. The server software relies primarily on a single CPU core to calculate the game's main simulation loop: player movements, physics, entity AI, and block updates.

Ryzen 7 (The Sprinter)

For hosting a single, high-population game server, the Ryzen 7 (specifically X3D models like the 7800X3D or 9800X3D) is the superior choice.

The 3D V-Cache Advantage: Server software constantly needs to retrieve small bits of entity data. Keeping that data on the CPU's massive L3 cache (up to 96MB) rather than fetching it from the system RAM drastically reduces latency.

Ryzen 9 (The Bodybuilder)

If you plan to run multiple heavy server instances simultaneously on the same machine, the high core count of the Ryzen 9 (like the 7950X or 9950X) makes it the superior, heavy-duty workhorse.

Up to 16 physical cores / 32 Threads prevents resource fighting between containerized servers.

The "Overkill" Debate

If you are only hosting one server for a dozen friends, a Ryzen 9 is completely overkill. You will be paying a premium for 16 cores, but your game server will only use 2 to 4 of them. However, if you are running a lobby server alongside three survival worlds, a Ryzen 9 is exactly what you need.

Want to dive into real-world game engine behaviors and RAM requirements?

👉 Read the full technical breakdown on the Fit Servers Blog

Startup Guide to High-GPU Dedicated Servers for AI Training

Shannon Dias — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:44:27 +0000

The artificial intelligence boom has fundamentally changed how startups build, scale, and budget. If your engineering team is training Large Language Models (LLMs) or processing massive computer vision datasets, virtualization overhead in public clouds can quickly deplete your capital.

Why Transition to Dedicated GPU Servers?

Cost Predictability: Avoid unpredictable public cloud egress fees and hypervisor markups. Sustained training on bare metal typically saves startups 50% to 70%.
Raw Performance: No hypervisor means direct, unthrottled access to PCIe lanes, NVMe storage, and high-speed GPU clusters.
Data Sovereignty: Single-tenant environments make compliance with strict privacy regulations (HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2) seamless.

Choosing the Right NVIDIA GPU

NVIDIA H200 (141GB HBM3e): Unmatched memory bandwidth for training massive LLMs (70B+ parameters).
NVIDIA H100 (80GB HBM3): Raw FP8 compute speed for foundational models and heavy fine-tuning.
NVIDIA L40S (48GB GDDR6): Cost-efficient versatility for generative AI and multi-modal fine-tuning.
NVIDIA L4 (24GB GDDR6): High energy efficiency built specifically for AI inference and serving.

Read the full comprehensive guide to look into power/cooling requirements, avoiding CPU bottlenecks, and cluster orchestration: FitServers Blog

Why Atlanta Is the Ultimate Hub for Enterprise Dedicated Servers

Shannon Dias — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:10:39 +0000

Why Location Is as Important as Hardware

Enterprise teams evaluating dedicated server providers tend to focus on CPU specs and RAM configs first — but the physical location of that hardware shapes latency, disaster resilience, and long-term uptime just as much. Atlanta has become one of the strongest choices in North America for exactly this reason.

What the full guide covers

Strategic geography — Tier-1 fiber routing, direct LATAM gateway access, and why an inland location matters for disaster recovery planning
Latency benchmarks — real RTT numbers to Miami, NYC, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, and São Paulo
Hardware configurations — when to choose high-frequency single-threaded CPUs vs. dense multi-core AMD EPYC/Intel Xeon builds vs. enterprise GPU servers for AI/ML training
Storage tiers — NVMe vs. SATA/SAS SSD vs. high-capacity SATA arrays
Unmetered bandwidth — what the term actually guarantees, and where it matters most (CDNs, streaming, VPN infrastructure)
Compliance standards — Tier III, SOC 2 Type II, and PCI-DSS, and why they matter for FinTech and e-commerce deployments

Read the full breakdown

The complete guide, including the full latency table and FAQ section, is available here:

👉 https://www.fitservers.com/blogs/atlanta-dedicated-servers-hub/

The Ultimate Guide to Installing PyTorch on a GPU Server

Shannon Dias — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:05:49 +0000

If you are diving into deep learning, training large language models (LLMs), or running complex AI workloads, a GPU dedicated server gives you the bare-metal performance required to maximize compute efficiency. However, to harness the full power of your hardware, you need to configure your software stack correctly.

At Fit Servers, we've put together a comprehensive guide to help developers and AI researchers set up their environments from scratch.

What You Will Learn

In this guide, we walk you through the exact steps to install and configure:

System Preparation: Purging old drivers and updating Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
NVIDIA Drivers: Installing stable production drivers (v560).
CUDA Toolkit & cuDNN: Setting up CUDA 12.4 for modern PyTorch builds and compiling custom kernels like FlashAttention.
Environment Management: Using Miniconda to isolate your Python dependencies.
PyTorch Installation: Fetching the latest CUDA-compatible wheels.
Benchmarking: A custom Python script to verify your TFLOPS and ensure your GPU is fully recognized.

Why Bare-Metal?

Virtualization overhead can silently eat away at your model training times. Setting up PyTorch directly on a bare-metal GPU server ensures 100% of your compute goes toward your matrix multiplications, not hypervisor bloat.

👉 Read the full, detailed guide with all code snippets on the Fit Servers Blog

How to Install Coolify on an Ubuntu 24.04 Dedicated Server

Shannon Dias — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:59:57 +0000

Running Coolify on a dedicated server running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS gives you complete control over your infrastructure, maximum performance, and the ability to scale your deployments cost-effectively.

Coolify is a powerful, open-source, and self-hostable Platform as a Service (PaaS) that serves as an excellent alternative to Heroku, Netlify, and Vercel. It allows you to manage servers, applications, and databases on your own hardware using Docker—without the risk of vendor lock-in.

What You Will Learn in Our Guide:

System Preparation: How to properly add swap space (crucial for Docker memory spikes during builds).
UFW Firewall Security: How to secure your server without conflicting with Docker's internal routing.
Automated Installation: Deploying the core containers securely.
Custom Domains: Securing your dashboard with Let's Encrypt SSL.

At Fit Servers, we provide the enterprise-grade bare-metal hardware you need to run your own PaaS reliably.

👉 To get the complete code snippets and step-by-step instructions, read the full tutorial on our blog: Read More: How to Install Coolify on Ubuntu 24.04