In this article, we will be going over what Dedicated IPs are for Minecraft and why they are useful to have.
General Information
Having a Dedicated IP basically means that you will get access to port 25565. This port is the default port of Minecraft, so when using this as the active gameserver port, you will not need to specify a port when connecting to your server from the Minecraft launcher.
For example, let's say you have a server without a dedicated IP and your main port is 25566. In this case you will need to connect to your server with 127.0.0.1:25566or use example.com:25566 (if you have a domain!).
If you have a server with a dedicated IP your main port will be 25565. In this case, when connecting to your server you can simply use the IP of your server; e.g. 127.0.0.1 and will not need to specify a port. For a domain you can simply connect with example.com.
Some people believe that a dedicated IP is the same thing as a domain. This is NOT true. A domain name and a dedicated IP are two different things. When purchasing a server with a dedicated IP, you will receive access to port 25565, not get a free domain.
To purchase a domain, click the link here.
SRV Record
If you are the owner of a domain name you'd like to use with your server, you could also use an SRV DNS Record. This record is able to 'mask' the port of your server, thus not needing to specify a port when connecting.
SRV records aren't supported by all ISP's, and you can experience issues with SRV records not working properly. If you don't want to have these problems, you will need a dedicated IP!