AWS or dedicated server?
aquaphile: AWS -- we run our entire insurance company, and its multiple applications, using the EC2, EBS, S3, SQS, and FPS services provided by AWS.  I think the only AWS we haven't used to date is Mechanical Turk.  We highly recommend AWS: we started with dedicated hardware years ago, migrated to an excellent virtual host, and then finally moved to AWS last year when they implemented EBS and provided the SLA.  Once you have multiple servers, it makes increasing financial sense to use AWS.