Virtual Private Server (VPS) - What Is It & Do I Need It?

If you’re planning to start an on-line enterprise, or if you’ve already got one, you’ll know that there are many different web hosting plans out there – each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

The least expensive is shared hosting with hundreds of web sites all sharing a single, very large hard drive. The really big sites employ dedicated servers. One company. One server.

In between these two options is virtual private servers, or VPS, perhaps the most misunderstood of the three broad categories of web host services. VPS is less expensive (much less) than a dedicated or private server, and offers more freedom and many more options to a growing on-line business than shared hosting.

What is a Virtual Private Server?

Simply put, a VPS simulates a private server in that you, the site owner, can deploy whatever software you want or need to continue growing an e-biz. This isn’t possible with shared hosting plans which limit you to the software options offered by the hosting company, thus limiting the database, checkout and other software you use. Now, this isn’t a problem for start-ups or the techno-challenged. You’re better off going with the limited menu of software options provided by web hosts. You can be certain that the software is compatible with the host operating system. No conflicts.

Virtual private servers are not actually private in the physical sense, like a dedicated or true private server. The virtual in VPS enables web hosts to host numerous on-line companies on a single, physical “host” server, so with VPS you still share the same physical hard drive as other sites. However, each virtual server is kept isolated from its neighbors (that’s where the private in VPS comes from) and access by a site to hardware resources such as RAM, CPU and disk space is managed by the web host at the server level.

With shared hosting, all companies on a single server (remember, there can be hundreds of them) are competing for these hardware resources. So, if a number of the companies on your shared server are performing CPU-intense activities, your site’s access and response time might be slowed down when consumers actually try to visit the site. With VPS hosting, hardware assets are either divvied up equally among the companies on that VPS or managed by server side software. In either case, you’ll be assured of having the bandwidth you need to accommodate all the visitors that stop by your site.

Most VPS plans are Linux-based though there are other software packages that allow the creation and management of VPS accounts. Is one better than another? Not necessarily, though some VPS plans that employ Windows-based software can be quite a bit more expensive than the Linux ‘family’ of server software. This, of course, is built into the monthly service fees you pay to the host company. However, from an operational point of view, you wouldn’t notice the difference between one system or another so go with the lower cost VPS plans. They deliver all of the benefits for less money.

What Are The Advantages to VPS?

We’ve already mentioned one – managed access to hardware assets. You and your VPS neighbors will divvy up everything from RAM to network throughput. This is important for sites with a lot of interactivity (sales, information gathering, data transmission, etc.) taking place. You don’t want potential customers waiting for a download or a sales transaction to be completed. However, if you don’t see a lot of site traffic yet, or your site simply serves as an on-line billboard, you don’t need VPS and its additional monthly costs.

Root Access

Root access lets you choose which software to deploy – an especially critical consideration if you already have a huge customer d-base that you want to maintain without transfer issues to a different database. So, if you’d rather run PHP with PostgreSQL than the more common MySQL you’re free to do so with root access.

Again, if you’re just starting out, these are features you don’t need at the moment but if you plan on growing quickly, consider starting with a VPS package to make transitioning to upper-tiered packages seamless (and painless).

Unlimited Websites

Another advantage to VPS is the ability to manage numerous web sites. You aren’t limited to a single domain and several sub-domains, i.e. mywebsite.com, info.mywebsite.com, etc. You can host as many domains as you need or want and link various sites to best affect your bottom line.

Once again, you won’t run into problems with hardware sharing even if you run a dozen different sites. Your access to server assets is assured through the use of server-side software such as Apache Virtual Hosts and similar VPS packages. This, by the way, is one of the reasons that VPS hosting plans are a bit pricier than shared hosting. But with more and more sites coming on-line (approximately 6,000 a day!) VPS offers better value for your server dollars when you can host as many sites as you want. When considering VPS plans, amortize the monthly costs over the number of sites you anticipate creating. You’ll quickly see that VPS monthly costs are consistently lower than shared hosting on a per site basis.

More Services

With shared hosting you get what you get – whatever the host offers in the way of tools and applications. With VPS plans, you’re able to access and offer more services to your customers or clients.

For example, if you’re moving large amounts of data from Point A to Point B, an FTP (file transfer protocol) server is essential. FTP isn’t available with shared hosting plans. It takes up way too much bandwidth. However, with a VPS, you can upload your own FTP server to your VPS account and move mountains of data quickly from one place to another – safely and securely.

With a VPS account, you can deploy any kind of server you want – email, FTP, d-base – whatever your server needs, you can meet them with a VPS package.

Increased Security

VPS plans isolate clients sharing the same physical disk space. This makes it much less likely that your site will be hacked through a neighboring site because your VPS site is isolated – a distinct entity on the server.

Next ->

Disadvantages of Virtual Private Server hosting