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Web Hosting – What exactly does this two words mean?
Before we start upon – what is VPS Hosting? Ever wondered how your website works on internet? Just by merely typing the name of your website in the address bar or just by googling and clicking on the corresponding links which Google gives you and in no time, you have your website on your screen!
Let’s jump straight to the point – to make it simple we can say that all the files and supporting contents which makes your website live and working has to be stored somewhere, normally all these required files and contents are stored in a location on a server.
In general, not all individuals can afford their own personal physical servers and hence they opt for renting a server from companies. Web Hosting is the process of renting or buying space to put a website content (HTML, CSS, and images) on the WWW (World Wide Web).
Types Of Servers – Which one to choose?
Now, let’s see what are the different types of servers you can choose from:
Broadly there are three types of servers available to choose from: shared servers, virtual private servers (VPS), and dedicated servers. Each category has a defined amount and structure of the space that is allotted for your website contents and files.
1. Shared Servers: remember your school hostel? you and your friends use one school hostel (server). This is the cheapest and is actually very easy to set it up which makes it very apt fit for new sites or beginners which generally do not expect huge traffic in the short term. It’s best suited for personal websites and for small and medium-sized businesses but there are some drawbacks as well.
2. Virtual Private Servers (VPS): is somewhat similar to a building (server) where there are many other peoples living in the same building, at the same time you have an entire whole apartment (website owner) for you with your customized setup (resources) and lesser restrictions. Of course! This kind of setup has multiple advantages which would be covered later in the article.
3. Dedicated Servers: are also known as bare-metal server and normally is a combination of several computer hardware that a client or organization has exclusive rights to host their websites, data, and applications. Under this option a physical server (or servers) is dedicated to a single business customer and no resources are shared with any other customer, service or application. This comes at a considerably higher cost
What exactly does VPS Hosting mean?
VPS is expanded as “Virtual Private Server.” A VPS is a kind of server created by using a virtualization software. It acts as a physical server, but in fact this is a server which is virtually created within a server. Interesting fact is that a single physical machine can host multiple virtual private servers (VPS).
A virtual private server features its own copy of operating system (OS). The customers normally have the root-level access to that operating system instance, so they can install almost any software that runs on that OS.
Cost wise in today’s market the virtual server costs way much less than an equivalent physical server. Another fact to consider here is, as virtual servers share the underlying bodily hardware with other VPS’s, overall performance may decrease to some extent, depending on the overall workload of every other executing digital machines.
Moving on to – VPS hosting: So, VPS website hosting is the usage of a Virtual Private Server to host your website files. VPS website hosting has some first-rate benefits going for it.
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- Lower cost – It is the middle ground between dedicated and shared hosting as you get dedicated space at a lower cost.
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- No or Zero downtime – with almost no or zero downtime all of your website users experience faster site loads irrespective of traffic demands with almost no downtime.
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- Scaling is supported – gradually when your website grows up or down or seasonal peaks is possible.
VPS Hosting – Should I switch to it?
Let us help you to check if you need to switch to VPS Hosting now or in future. Assume that you already have a shared web hosting, and you happen to notice any of the situations listed below then it’s high time you should seriously consider upgrading to VPS hosting
1. Traffic – Is there a consistent growth in traffic?
This is quite normal that when you start off you had very few visitors, very less images and minimal pages. Gradually through the years, you progressively grew your website content base and added more pages. This increase in traffic or customer base demands more space on the server so that your website runs optimally. No customer or visitors in today’s fast paced digital world likes slow loading and non-responsive websites.
2. Performance- Is there any reduction in the overall performance of your internet site?
In case your website pages are taking a longer time to load, or images and other contents are not loading as expected then an upgrade is warranted.
3. Traffic peaks – have you experienced it?
Sometimes some businesses may experience peak traffic on their websites. Mainly during some festival or special occasions. During Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving Day etc. there may be a peak in traffic.
Scalability is yet another powerful feature which VPS hosting boasts off and allows you to seamlessly meet the sudden increases and at the same time you are in a position to shed off the excess resources deployed previously when traffic return to normal levels.
4. eCommerce option – What happens if I add to my website?
Gradually once your website has started attracting a good volume of visitors and you have a fairly consistent monthly traffic and then you might want to add an eCommerce option to your website to monetize your site. To do this and to accept card payments on your website, your site needs to be PCI DSS compliant. PCI DSS is expanded as – “Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard” is a set of protocols that all websites must abide by when they accept card payments.
This was implemented with the motive of protecting the customer’s personal information on top priority.
Switching to VPS hosting will strongly emphasize your website’s/company’s commitment to security of their customers data.
5. Hands-on approach – is it required?
VPS web hosting gives the owner/user the power and flexibility of root user who has all the administrative rights to all the directories for the allotted server space. Normally this kind of privileges are not available in shared hosting.
VPS hosting empowers you to use any custom operating system (OS) of your choice and implement any tools or utilities in any programming language or any other type of advanced scenarios that may utilize more resources.
To fully explore the power of VPS hosting you need to have at least above average knowledge of website hosting. Don’t just worry if you do not have the sufficient knowledge, there’s another way out! Managed Hosting – which gives you the option to pay some additional money and get all the hard Technical & Software things working out smoothly for you by an expert team of professionals.
Security – VPS Hosting & Security Aspect– does this matter?
Both shared & VPS hosting are prone to all kinds of attacks or malicious activities or accidents. In both scenario types you need to be very vigilant irrespective of the server types and initiate steps to protect and safeguard your website data and that of your customer’s as well.
You should regularly take backup of your website and all the applicable databases along with regular updation of all OS (operating system), plugins and other applicable software updation as well. An eye should always be focused to detect any suspicious activity on your server.
Conclusion – VPS Hosting or Shared Hosting – Ready to choose?
To conclude it’s worth mentioning that VPS hosting is a platform providing countless powerful flexible services which can be used in different types of hosting as per user requirements.
It should be noted that despite the many advantages that it provides VPS hosting is not everyone’s cup of tea, as a certain level of server management experience is mandatorily required to tame the power of VPS successfully. Here, users have the complete control over the service they are paying for.
Before finalizing, please make sure to properly analyze what your needs are before making any decision. This article will guide you to a great extent to decide if VPS hosting is right for you.
