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Business owners and IT teams often discover when researching cloud hosting options that
finding the right strategy requires some compromise. Dedicated hosting offers the most control, but it’s not cheap. Shared serving is cheap, but it’s too light on resources and heavy with potential security issues. Coming in somewhere between shared and dedicated, virtual private server (VPS) hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting and provides more control and security than shared hosting, making it just right for some businesses.
What are the Benefits of VPS Hosting?
A VPS is a virtually segregated server that actually shares a physical server with other virtual servers, making it more in line with shared hosting when it comes to hardware. Since it shares equipment, it costs the host less money to provide, making it a cheaper option than dedicated hosting.
The virtual segregation of the physical server actually allocates a specific quantity of resources to each partition. Unlike shared hosting, where resources can be hogged by one website and have a detrimental effect on all the other sites hosted on the server, a VPS won’t be affected by other sites on the server, making it more in line with dedicated hosting when it comes to resource allocation.
How can a VPS Benefit a Company?
Dedicated space on a server provides more than just allocated resources. To make a shared server work, a single operating system must be installed and all sites must conform to that system. A VPS, however, can be further partitioned and a different operating system can be installed on each partition, making it possible to run multiple websites on multiple platforms.
The ability to customize the VPS is absolute, so companies who worry about security have the freedom to install their own security measures and configure their own firewalls to tighten security as they see fit. A company’s IT team has unobstructed access to the virtual server and can manipulate it as needed in order to install applications, run scripts and get business done. Shared hosting limits many of these activities, as they can potentially impede the operation of other sites
hosted on the server.
For the most part, a VPS hosting service provides the same benefits that a dedicated server
provides. Since the equipment itself isn’t dedicated, though, it does so at costs closer to those of shared hosting. Although a dedicated server is a great choice if a company can afford it, at prices upwards of $1,000 per month it’s an expense many small businesses can’t afford.
Great Advantages without the Cost
With the same dedicated resources, the capability to control security and the potential to install multiple operating systems, VPS is a logical alternative to breaking the bank and putting a company into debt to go dedicated. Sharing a server’s resources with other companies in shared hosting provides resources that are too uncertain and security that’s too risky, and dedicated hosting is likely too expensive. With VPS’s advantages, many companies looking to save and
operate at maximum efficiency will find the VPS solution just right.