What Is A VPS? A Comprehensive Guide For Beginners

You need flexibility, good security, and scalability. This is what a VPS can offer.

00:12 27 December 2022

As businesses grow, they should need better hosting features than simple shared hosting plans. Yet, the exorbitant costs of acquiring a dedicated server can be too much for them. To meet these needs, a virtual private server (VPS) is the right option to explore. You need flexibility, good security, and scalability. This is what a VPS can offer.

A virtual private server offers the level of experience of a dedicated server, yet with the economy of a shared hosting solution. This guide will explain what a VPS is, when it can be needed, its security, and its reliability. Now, let's dive in!

What is a VPS Hosting?

A Virtual Private Server hosting plan makes use of a physical server to host different virtual servers, which are separated from each other. A hypervisor is then used to implement a virtual layer on top of the OS to divide the multiple virtual servers into segments.

With this separation between virtual walls, each user can then install their software and OS. This creates a private server.

A virtual machine can help in hosting a single website for a company. It can also host numerous websites under one account. The latter is a technique that might be embraced by new web hosting companies to host the sites of different companies.

However, every site hosted by different virtual machines can share resources from a single hosting physical server. By doing so, users can rely on virtual private server hosting to help them configure and manage websites independently. This is similar to a dedicated server, yet at a reduced cost.

A virtual private server hosting environment enables website owners to enjoy control over numerous aspects of their site's functions. VPS hosting plans offer the environment to grow, without the need to upgrade to dedicated hosting.

When Should You Switch to VPS Hosting?

Are you currently on a shared or dedicated hosting plan and you wonder if you should switch to VPS hosting? If so, this section will explain the right time to switch to VPS hosting.

VPS can handle more website traffic

If you currently adopt a shared hosting solution and your website has outgrown the limits of this hosting plan, then you need a virtual private server hosting plan to ensure that your website handles a high level of traffic without compromising its functions.

If you need more server reliability than a shared hosting plan, then a VPS hosting plan is the right option for you. A standard virtual private server can easily handle 2000 to 3000 visitors daily. Yet, certain factors can affect the true capacity of such a server to manage site visitors:

• Type of content you post on the website
• The number of resources allocated to the VPS
• Types of server requests received
• The amount of time needed by the server to process a single request
• Number of concurrent website visitors

However, when a VPS is optimized well, about 4500 to 5000 visitors can be handled per day. Also, your VPS is even capable of more if the traffic is distributed all through an entire day.

On the other hand, if you adopt a dedicated hosting package but your website is not attracting enough traffic, you may be frittering away a significant amount of money due to the cost of acquiring and maintaining such a plan. 

Why not consider a VPS hosting plan? After all, your website has grown, but not beyond the limits of VPS hosting. Besides this, the lower cost of renting a virtual private server hosting package should not be ignored.

Customize applications

Website owners in a shared hosting environment are restricted by the number of functions and features their site can possess. The various aspects of a site that can be customized or configured depend on the host company's individual hosting plans.

Generally, a shared hosting plan ensures that users cannot enjoy the level of access they require to customize the core aspects of their site's functions and appearances. These limitations are tackled effectively by a virtual private server hosting package.

The VPS provider - just like in every other hosting environment - helps in maintaining the physical server, as well as upgrading the server software. They also help in managing computing power and bandwidth. However, a virtual private server offers users the chance to control multiple aspects of managing and configuring their sites.

Thanks to the fact that VPS hosting plans offer users complete access to the operating system of the site, website owners who are proficient in web design and development can configure their sites from scratch. They can configure the site's infrastructure while also installing applications that are needed for the company's activities.

This could include

• installing security features of a specific industry
• Creating apps that can protect consumer details
•  Establishing payment gateways.

However, if you don't have this level of technical expertise, then you can rely on the support of the VPS hosting providers. With their assistance, you can easily set up and maintain the site on the VPS.

Reduce server errors

When a website is hosted in a shared hosting environment, its functions can be influenced by issues involving other websites on the same server. When there is fluctuation in traffic, security challenge, or any other event involving one website, the functions of other websites on that server can be impacted.

The site may experience slow speeds or downtime. A website could even crash if enormous, abrupt demand is placed on the resources of the shared server. This error is significantly reduced by a virtual private server hosting solution.

What VPS hosting does is that it improves a site's performance since all sites on the single physical "parent" server can function independently. Sudden fluctuation in traffic or any other issue in one site cannot affect the functions in another.

Since all sites in a VPS hosting environment are divided into virtual segments, website owners are exposed to a reduced risk of "contamination" or error triggered by a compromised neighboring website. With a VPS hosting plan, every website has its amount of allocated resources.

Is VPS Hosting Secure?

VPS hosting offers a higher level of security than shared hosting. This is due to the virtual technology that separates individual sites. All sites have their unique number of allocated resources, including security features, which are based on the specific website plan. These security features are based on the specific requirements of the website.

VPS hosting providers should also help in setting up and maintaining all essential security features of the server. This provides adequate protection against different kinds of cyberattacks.

Since the sites on a virtual private server hosting environment are all virtually separated, the risk of exposure to viruses from another site is significantly reduced. It is also possible for users to install any other type of monitoring application and customize their sites based on their specific needs.

Is VPS Hosting Fast and Reliable?

Bandwidth involves the amount of data that an internet connection can easily transmit. The higher the bandwidth, the greater the data that can be transferred. This also implies that your website can load faster.

A website that is supported by sufficient bandwidth may take more time to load. This will significantly compromise the performance of your website. It is no secret that an increase in the flow of traffic may cause a shared hosting server to start lagging. As a result, the load time may also increase.

However, for websites that have outgrown the capabilities of shared hosting plans, the significantly increased bandwidth that a virtual private server hosting package offers can handle any surge in traffic. Just as in dedicated hosting, VPS hosting ensures that the resources allocated to a specific virtual server are adopted by a particular website.

As a result, the strain on the server is significantly reduced. This offers improved reliability that your website can take advantage of.

Conclusion

The right hosting features are needed by all businesses to improve the performance of their websites. Different plans offer different features. Due to their low costs, beginners are often associated with shared hosting plans. As their growth includes adding more content and higher traffic inflow, the limits of these basic plans are reached. To keep the website running well, higher features are needed. This is what a virtual private server hosting package can offer.

As your website begins to enjoy improved features and resources, which are not shared by other neighboring websites (as in shared hosting), VPS hosting can help you handle higher traffic, customize applications, and reduce server errors. Furthermore, VPS can help many companies manage these functions without spending huge amounts of money (as in dedicated hosting). As you move from a shared hosting environment to VPS hosting, your website can enjoy increased speed, reliability, and security.