Monday 8 August 2011

What is VPS Hosting?

By Matt Ewing


When we talk about VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, it refers to the hosting of a mixed bag of entities for different customers in just one server. What it does is that it lets the service provider create a division of one single server into several virtual servers. This is fairly interesting that the customers can share the server entirely including the connection and the hardware as well. This aspect is of immense importance that like the dedicated hosting (suggesting things like a file system and a private operating system), this also endows you with safe access. This kind, which is somewhat like a combination of a dedicated and a shared hosting, is also advantageous because it cuts down the cost for providing an improved performance with privacy if you compare it with dedicated hosting.

The added benefits of the service are also quite attractive. For example, alongwith the service at low cost and full security customers can also access certain options which will help them control certain features of the service. For instance customers can change the server configurations to suit their needs, install software whenever needed, reboot server whenever necessary etc. Therefore it can be very well understood that this service is actually providing all the benefits of a shared hosting as well as that of any dedicated hosting. Thus any one who would like to switch over from shared hosting to dedicated service due to security reasons or any other reasons then they might very well opt for VPS hosting as it would serve all their needs. In fact it would only cost about $10/month and is thought to be the best for all online business men and women. The reason that it is called the best is simply due to the uniqueness of operating and file system for every single customer.

Another plus point of the hosting service is that even if you plan to sell the service off then too you are in advantage since the added services that your hosting will be able to offer to the customers gives you an edge over other hosting services. If you now reconsider selling and want to use the service to develop any social networking group or site then too VPS is your best shot. All of you out there who feel more at home using a shared hosting rather than a dedicated one but at the same time want privacy for their identity, for them too VPS is the best. You could install applications and even change applications of the server at will, whenever you want to. Further security is guaranteed since VPS environment software is unique for every single user and moreover this system has features which reduce interception possibilities significantly.

An initial and the entry level web hosting plan endows you with things like PHP/MySQL, etc., having limited disk space on a shared server. Whereas, co-location puts the hardware in your grip and you simply have to rent an Internet connection and a rack space from data center. VPS hosting stands between these two like a connector. VPS option is inexpensive and perfect if you can't afford a co-location web hosting plan but want to avail a shared hosting.

A dedicated web hosting plan is another alternative which you can consider, and it is pretty less costly than co-locating. It is also becoming very competitively priced as compared to other web hosting plans. Though it certainly costs more than a VPS web hosting plan, a dedicated plan can be reasonably affordable to you as well. As the name implies, a dedicated host gives a dedicated server to you. It actually means renting the server from the host company, and not renting the rack space for the server, as is the case in co-location.

VPS web hosting plan certainly gives you some advantages and they are:

It endows you with a root access and with the aid of this; you can accomplish the installation and configuration of any program.

Provides features which enables hosting of multiple sites by using virtual hosts that are provided by Apache.

Provides other services like mail server, FTP server and any other that the customer may require.

These servers can be used for storing files, as backup, or as anything as it might suit you

It has also some disadvantages and they are as follows:

In this format, you live up to the task of controlling the server and it means that you are solely responsible for your deeds-be it installation or security factor or anything else. So, this is positively suggested that being devoid of any experience about a Linux Server, you can't proceed swiftly.

A VPS web host server gives you the whole operating system to work with, but you need to share the hardware resources like RAM, CPU, etc. with other users of the VPS on the same host. So if your business demands high performance or the usage of programs which involve the RAM to a huge extent, it would be better to go for co-location or a dedicated server.

The manner in which it works:

A VPS system works using a combination of variety of technologies and software like Microsoft Virtual PC, XEN etc. XEN is the newest craze and with the new project of combining with Linux it will be becoming the hottest thing on VPS. It will provide freedom to users which will be ten times more than what they get now and all of this at an extremely low cost.

Putting it in a simple manner, a VPS account provides you with the opportunity of getting into the core areas of your server. Having a profound knowledge in working on a Linux server, you can do anything according to your will. But, as mentioned earlier, this outright control over the proceedings enhances your responsibility for whatever you do. So, if you can't adapt with Linux, VPS is surely not your destination.

However, this does not mean that you will have to build the whole operating system from the beginning. Almost all the VPS plans have many disk images to make a selection from, and they have various distributions in the default configurations. You just need to specify the disk image that you need, and the configuration will be done on the VPS in a couple of minutes. On setting up an account, you will be assigned the root access via SSH, where you can perform any activity that you want to.

Costs can vary from $20 to $100/month but cost does not indicate quality. At $20 you get 2GB disk space and 64MB RAM that you can start off with and move to the higher ends of the service after you get accustomed to the service and its usage.




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