A Beginner's Guide To Virtual Private Server Hosting

Cloud hosting has diversified over the last 3 years, so much so that many organisations are uncertain how to take advantage of the services offered. Multi-tenanted, shared hosting environments are still common for webservers but don’t offer the security and resilience that the Cloud can provide. It is worth knowing about one of the most rapidly-growing trends in server hosting available on the market known as ‘Virtual Private Server hosting’ or ‘VPS Hosting’.

 

Simply put, a virtual server is just like a physical server that your current website or system is hosted on however the fundamental difference is that its located somewhere else. Data is stored on a virtual server in the form of a virtual machine and this works just like the server you may have located in your company’s IT suite. 

 

There are several advantages to these virtual servers as opposed to physical servers, the first being that you no longer have to maintain your server – the owner of the virtual server will be responsible for that. 

 

Secondly, in the Cloud, physical server resource is divided by several companies. The best way to think of it is several virtual machines sharing the same physical server resource. These virtual machines will not interact with each other or even “see” each other, despite the fact that they may share the same physical server resource. With strict protocols and security, a service provider can create a “virtual private server” that only you and those admininstrators who have proper permission can access it. 

 

But be careful when selecting the right provider for your Virtual Private Server Hosting as not all Clouds are the same. The main consideration is how secure and dedicated your server is. Leading providers will introduce another layer into your server, known as a ‘Hypervisor’. VMware is the best and most common. Don’t opt for a cheaper equivalent, even if it does have a Microsoft or other ‘big name’ badge on it – VMware is simply the best for ensuring correct partitioning of your server and ultimately guaranteeing the security of your virtual machine.

 

There are several reasons why you may want to consider a switch from a shared web hosting to a virtual private server hosting solution. The first is a need to manage multiple machines from one single place. With a shared hosting provider, the options to manage and update sites on a regular basis are limited, just like your bandwidth and storage space. With a virtual private server, you can have access to a far greater amount of space, as well as to multiple VMs if you want to host each virtual machine using a different OS or give each one different permissions.

 

A VPS hosting solution offers a number of direct, immediate benefits over shared web hosting or on-premise hosting. First, both allow a variety of customisation options to clients, such as the ability to choose the OS they would like to run. In addition, privacy is always assured on these kinds of systems; since other servers cannot even “see” the VMs around them. Add to that a larger measure of control over the way the server operates – most of the functions of a VM are in the hands of the user, not the server host – and the benefits are apparent. Uptime is another significant factor and the removal of capital expenditure can make virtual private server hosting an attractive proposition to start-up firms.

 

Find out more about Virtual Private Server Hosting