What Do You Know About Virtual Private Server Hosting?

What Do You Know About Virtual Private Server Hosting?

The VPS (Virtual Private Server) is an excellent advancement on two basic web hosting types: Shared Hosting and Dedicated Server. The former is popular as the cheapest hosting option, while the advantage of the latter is that it has a dedicated RAM, along with an operating system, CPU resource and storage.

The features of a VPS Server are more or less like a Dedicated Server and is divided into virtual compartments. Despite being a Dedicated Server, it comes at a cheaper rate. It strikes a balance between Shared Hosting and a Dedicated Server effectively combining both.

Web Hosting Stages

Various web hosting options available in the market are according to their stages of advancement. For instance, Shared Hosting can be compared to the early stage of a person’s career. Because sharing is a cheaper option, a person who has just started off in his career, looks for a shared space. Shared hosting is similar. A website with this type of hosting shares the setup and resources on its server with several other websites.

Moving on to the next stage of his career, a person looks at having an apartment of his own. He completely owns the space he lives in although there are several other apartments in the building. He has complete control over its furnishing and decor. The second stage, VPS hosting, is somewhat like this. A website with VPS hosting will be on a server which has other websites too, but a portion of that server space is marked only for this website. This also means that the website owner can have flexibility about how your VPS server should run.

Next comes Dedicated Hosting. This is like the same man at a more advanced stage of his career, with a house and family, fully settled. Using dedicated hosting puts your website in complete control of the entire server space. You can benefit from all the resources of the server.

The next stage option is Cloud Hosting. In this, your website is not located on a single server. It is distributed across various cloud servers. These are all connected only by the internet. The benefit of cloud hosting is there is a backup server to pick up if one server goes down, and your website happily lives on multiple cloud servers.

The Top Two

Let us now see a comparison between the two most popular types of web hosting – VPS hosting & Dedicated hosting. You can make a decision as to which one suits you better.

Of the two options, VPS Server is cheaper, despite the number of benefits it brings. For instance, you get control over the setup and specifically allocated resources. However, there will still be other websites on your website’s server. Although each website has a separate space, the possibility of another website eating up the server’s resources still exist. And this can affect your website’s performance.

A Dedicated server relieves you of this difficulty. You can safely choose if performance of your website is your priority. But this has its downside. Because the server is dedicated to your website, it is obviously expensive. Besides, their setting-up is tedious and they are difficult to maintain.

What does a VPS Server offer?

1. It can host unlimited websites with access to control panel.
2. The IP address of the website is only shared with sites hosted under the same VPS.
3. A VPS runs its own operating system, just like a dedicated server.
4. It allows custom software installation.
5. You can remotely access the server with a remote desktop or SSH.
6. All VPS resources are available for the websites on the server.
7. Cost varies between $30 and $150 per month.

Why upgrade to a VPS Server?

There are several reasons as to why a Shared hosting plan can be a dicey proposition and needs an upgrade.

1. Your website is dawdling: It is common knowledge that a website slows down as you go on uploading more and more content to it. And the only solution to this problem is to accept that it’s high time you upgraded your hosting.
2. Heavy traffic: You make a lot of efforts to up your website’s popularity and succeed at it. But then this is followed by a very heavy traffic spike, which might cause your Shared hosting to crash.
3. Internal server error: This error appears only after you have exhausted your current hosting plan’s resources. There are two ways to tackle this. Either contact your hosting plan provider, or make a switch to VPS hosting.

Choose your VPS Server carefully

After you are convinced that you cannot ignore the need for a shift to VPS hosting, there are factors to consider before you choose a provider.

• See that your VPS hosting provider offers a live chat support for your VPS concerns.
• Cheaper options are not always bad, but can be dicey. Check what all is included in a VPS hosting plan to avoid problems in the future.
• Choose a plan that has a system to take regular backups. That will ensure that your hours of work is not lost.
• Do not forget to check how much uptime the provider is offering. It must be 99.5%. Anything below that is unacceptable.

So, make your decision based on the advantages VPS servers have to offer. Do you find them worthy of investments? Do they bring you value for your money? It all depends on what stage your business is in. It is for you to decide which option suits your budget and the performance you expect.