Normal academic traffic and registration/exam peaks are very different. Size infrastructure from peak concurrent users, database load, file/video traffic, personal data and backup needs.
A properly sized VDS can be enough for small/mid student portals and LMS systems. Thousands of concurrent exam users, large file/video traffic or multiple services may require separating database, application and storage layers. Dedicated hardware should follow measured need.
Exam systems can create bursts of logins and database writes, while video archives are bandwidth/storage-heavy.
On a single server, backup IO can increase database latency. Separating services improves failure isolation and capacity management.
Education systems may process identity, contact, grade, exam and staff data. Authorization and logging must also exist at the application layer.
Do not make your first scaling attempt on the live exam day; scaling and rollback should be tested beforehand.
It depends on CMS/LMS, plugins, concurrency and database load. Size for registration/exam peaks rather than average traffic.
No. A properly sized VDS and architecture can be sufficient. Dedicated should be justified by load testing and resource usage.
This depends on institutional policy, data transfers and legal assessment; do not decide from location alone.
Share LMS/portal type, exam concurrency, database and file/video load; we can plan VDS or dedicated architecture.