Advantages of Choosing VPS Over A Shared Server

Having a website to advertise your products and services is one of the best ways to expand your business into reaching the global market. To ensure that this website is up and running 24 hours every day, every day of the week, you will need a web site hosting server and there are many different options for you choose from.

Shared Hosting and Dedicated Server

Most of the websites on the internet are hosted using the shared server option where many web sites are located on the same hard drive or server. The popularity of this option is mainly due to its low cost in comparison to the other option known as the dedicated server.

With this option a server is exclusively reserved for the website/s of a single company or business. The shared server option is not necessarily the best option for most sites, but due to the cost of the dedicated option most persons settle for the shared option.

Virtual Private Server

There is however another option known as VPS which stands for virtual private server. This server is basically an option between the two above named option in that it is cheaper than the dedicated option and provide users with a lot more options and control than the shared option. If you are dissatisfied with the performance of your site using the shared option or have out grown this option, the virtual server may be the option for you. Below are a few advantages of the virtual server over the shared option.

Virtual Private Server vs. Shared Hosting

Better Performance: With a shared server account, your performance is always being affected by the performance of the accounts with whom your share the server. Hence if another account holder chooses to dishonour the terms of service in anyway, it can have a negative impact on how all the other accounts perform on the server.

However, with the virtual server, your resources are guaranteed. The persons with who you share can never deplete your resources or have a negative impact on your performance. This is because with this option the internet views each account as a separate server.

Increased Customizability: VPS allows you to have functions that are very similar to those available with the dedicated server, giving you the option to use many functions that would not be possible with shared hosting. For instance, for better security on the shared server it is advisable that you do not have custom firewall configurations.

However, there are applications that require this, it is however possible with the VPS option as it allows for partitioning between accounts. In addition with the virtual server, you are allowed to have your own IP address, root access, and the liberty to reboot your server whenever you desire. You can also customize things like domains, mail, panels, web, database and so on. You will not however be allowed to have your own kernel installed.

Better Security: Due to the nature of shared hosting, it is very hard to have all the sites completely secured. For instance, if someone were to break into one account, the perpetrator could damage the whole server, or if a server were to become blacklisted by a spammer, it could cause the other accounts which are mailing legitimately to be blocked until the server becomes white listed again. VPS is however designed to prevent this, by reducing the risk of hackers or another customer entering an account. In addition, because your account is isolated, the risk of you being affected by a DoS attack that was planned for another person is reduced.

Host an Unlimited Number of Sites: With this option you have the freedom of managing as many web sites as you so desire without having to worry about sharing problems. While this is more expensive than with shared hosting, the value you receive for the dollar paid is much better.