Top VPS Hosting - What is it?

• Quick Navigation
• VPS Companies
• Benefits
• How to Choose?
• Advantages
• Disadvantages

VPS means Virtual Private Server; it is a virtual machine that runs its personal a copy of an operating system and act like a virtual server which allows superuser to access the operating system and install any software on it.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting is a physical server that is divided into numerous logical virtual servers and each of this virtual servers is private. This means that, unlike shared hosting, you get full root access to your server and no other user can have access into your account or files. You can also reset all configuration files and also even run any Linux program that you may want to. VPS hosting is a type of web hosting account that you can select to host your website online, for you to have your website to be up and running on the internet, all your website files must be on a web server. But to set up and manage a server can be difficult and expensive too.

Top VPS hosting is the most preferred choice for users who are experiencing rapid growth, running complex web applications, or having heavy website traffic. Finding the best VPS hosting that offers their clients with great features at an affordable price to host your website is not an easy task.

What are the Benefits?

There are some benefits you enjoy when using VPS hosting for your website; VPS offers you features of shared hosting and at the same time offering you power and control over your websites like a dedicated server. Other benefits include:

Customization: VPS hosting allows you to have your own Operating System. This also means that you have your own instances of all server applications such as Apache, PHP, and MySQL and if you want to customize any of these services, you can do it according to how you want it or according to the need of your server.

Control: VPS gives you total control of your server, you can install any applications on it and if the application requires that you restart the server, you can restart it without affecting anybody.

Privacy: Since you have your personal operating system which cannot be shared on the server, no other website can access your server. It is a private server meant to host only your files..

Dedicated resources: VPS hosting gives you some dedicated resources such as the amount of RAM available to you at a particular time, CPU and disk space. You are in charge of your memory, and there is no one else that can use it.

How to Choose the Best VPS?

To choose the best managed VPS hosting, there are number of factors you need to put into consideration;

• Operating system of the VPS: you need to know the operating system that your server will be running on: either Linux or Windows depending on the type of programs you want to run on your server. Linux is open source and also cheaper than Windows, hosing based on Linux Operating System is user friendly and support many applications. However, there are some important applications that are not supported by Linux operating system and are better supported by Windows. If you want to install ASP, ASP.NET etc. on your server you should go for Windows based VPS.
• Server Configuration: Your server configuration plays a very important role in the performance. You have to determine the size of the RAM you need, the speed of your processor and the size of your hard disk, all these matters a lot, the quality of the physical machine that your VPS is created on, the capacity of such machine should be high and large.
• Redundancy and Scalability: Redundancy is the process of backing up your files and resources most especially in a data center so that if the power supply fails, the generators and UPS systems should be there; and if the services of the ISP are interrupted, some other alternative arrangement will be there, if one server is overloaded, there should be another standby server and so on. Scalability on the other hand means the ability to handle unexpected increase in loads on the server, usually by making use of the redundant resources in the system. The combination of redundancy and scalability will result to higher uptime and reliable performance.
• Monthly Bandwidth Charges: When you want to choose your VPS hosting, you should have an idea of the amount of bandwidth you will be consuming in a month so that you won’t be paying more than you are using or paying for extra bandwidth. Proper calculation should be done.
• Cloud-based or Conventional VPS: Cloud based VPS runs on groups of servers. The resources used are pulled from a single machine but this machine is a cluster of multiple servers and this makes it to be bigger conventional VPS. Cloud based VPS can be upgraded to any size without any problem. A conventional VPS is a small server within a bigger server which is similar to that in a datacenter. Physical limitation is the main drawback for conventional VPS, there is a limit to the amount of memory and the number of hard disks that can be added. Cloud-based VPS does not have limit to its expansion, you can add another server into cluster and more storage into the centralized storage system. The conclusion is that cloud based VPS hosting is bigger, better and more preferable than conventional VPS due to its flexibility.
• Good Customer Support: Good customer support also should be considered when choosing your hosting, this is because when serious issues on your website arises, you will need a fast and good customer support to resolve the problem. You can test various customer support and then decide which one to go for.

Advantages - Explained

• VPS hosting save cost on hardware by allowing users to access shared resources. It also provides the flexibility to run many operating systems or different programs on each servers at the same time.
• VPS can also be used to generate and store sensitive data because they have the ability to separate application and programs in a virtual server that is set aside for a special purpose.
• VPS hosting plans can be customized according to your needs so that you don’t pay for what you don’t need.
• In VPS, you have full control over your server.

Disadvantages - Explained

• VPS hosting is more expensive than top shared hosting.
• There are limited resources in VPS when compare with dedicated hosting.
• You must know how to manage a server before you can use VPS.