Web hosting services provide the foundation to keep your website up and running with maximum possible uptime. You may have come across the term ‘Virtual Private Server’ while looking for the right option to host your business critical website. In fact, VPS hosting is rapidly emerging as the most sought after option for ambitious web projects including ecommerce sites.
Significant highlights of VPS hosting
You need to understand the functions of web server before getting accustomed with what a VPS hosting is all about. The basic job of a web server is to hold and serve web content instantly upon being requested by visitors. The web server comes into play no sooner than a visitor has typed in your site’s domain name into the browser.
Having understood what a web server is all about, you need to find out how a virtual server is different than a physical web server. The technology of virtualization has enabled compartmentalization of a standalone server into multiple virtual servers. In this arrangement, every virtual server can be made to behave as an independent server entity that has its own CPU. RAM, and space.
Now you can appreciate, why a virtual server is termed as a Virtual Private Server. Since the independent units of virtual servers are capable of serving an individual web project or a web site, it is popularly known as a Virtual Private Server.
A virtual private server is designed to share the main server with other websites without impacting its independent existence as a single isolated server unit. This enables user of VPS hosting carry out server related and other administrative tasks without any interference from other websites that are hosted on the same physical server.
Key distinguishing factors of VPS
It is better to place VPS hosting against shared hosting and dedicated hosting to enhance our understanding about Virtual Private Server hosting.
VPS and shared hosting – Although, shared hosting is the commonest and the cheapest form of web hosting, it may not be the right fit for websites that need to incorporate complex applications or individual security measures such as firewalls and anti-malware software to name a few.
One of the most vital and disturbing attribute of shared hosting is sharing of key resources with hundreds of other accounts. New websites or startups prefer shared hosting due to its obvious economical benefits. One more beneficial aspect of shared hosting is its ease of navigation, because your web host will maintain the server environment by pre-configuring the basic server settings.
The most frequently observed reason that forces enterprises to move away from shared hosting to VPS or dedicated server hosting is lack of control and limited resource allocation in a multitenant environment. These shortcomings have a major impact on the performance of your business critical website especially during peak business hours.
VPS and dedicated hosting – Shared hosting and dedicated server hosting are radically different from each other. In a dedicated server hosting, users are allowed independent access to server resources in contrast to shared hosting that crams as many websites to operate in an environment of pooled resources.
You need not be an expert to know that dedicated server hosting is significantly costlier than shared or even VPS hosting because of the single tenant arrangement. There are many situations that demand a dedicated server hosting as mentioned ahead:
Relevance of VPS hosting
Virtual Private Server hosting can be considered for websites that are experiencing sudden traffic bursts or there are stringent protocols in terms of security and so forth. Let us examine the eight most compelling reasons for adopting VPS hosting.
Security concerns – High end monitoring systems larger space for data backup, enhanced reliability of website, and need to run online transactions are some of the vital reasons to go for VPS hosting that supports implementation of state of the art security measures.
Struggling with traffic surge – Every business needs to grow and the growth must be supported by a proper website infrastructure that can handle sudden traffic spikes without impacting its speed and visibility. VPS hosting is the right platform to meet demands of incremental traffic.
Enhancing the site speed – Fast loading website is a prime need of any ecommerce business as it assures faster conversion rates. VPS hosting can be easily scaled up to guarantee sustained performance of web applications in spite of ups and downs in volumes of traffic.
Nature of online activities – VPS hosting is an ideal platform for carrying out business critical operations such as online payments. It also supports ordering and tracking applications for smooth running of online businesses.
Choosing the right plan
One has to consider different options including managed and unmanaged VPS hosting, use of Windows or Linux operating systems, and the nature of hardware while choosing the right configuration of Virtual Private Server.