Who is VPS Right For?

Often businesses find that their shared server is no longer enough for them; yet their website doesn’t yet require the resources of a dedicated server – and they don’t want to pay the cost. A virtual private server, or VPS, is the perfect option for bridging that gap and putting control back in the customer’s hand. A VPS looks and feels like a dedicated server so the customer can do what they would like with it – but without the high cost of the dedicated server.

A VPS is one computer that is virtually divided into separate compartments. Those compartments contain one website, or one company’s important data, and they each operate independently of each other. Because of this, one website on a VPS can run off a Linux-based operating system, while another can work with Windows. One compartment can also add or remove software, without it affecting any of the other websites on the server.

In fact, one website on a VPS can be completely shut down, while the others continue to operate as normal.

Also contained with each VPS are different resources that are allocated for speed, storage space, and bandwidth. These resources are managed by the hypervisor inside the VPS, and it’s this hypervisor that distributes the resources to each different website. Businesses that make the switch from a shared server to VPS will find that the latter is much faster, and the website downloads much more quickly, than it does in the shared environment. The website, from the end user’s perspective, also operates much more quickly and efficiently than it would when being stored on a shared server.

However, some business owners become confused about this aspect of VPS, thinking that the bandwidth and storage space resources on this type of server will be the same as with a dedicated server; but this is one area where the two differ from each other.

Because a VPS is still just one physical computer, it’s still only going to have a limited amount of resources that each website on that server will have to share – even though the computer is divided virtually. It’s not like a cloud server, that can draw from other resources – it’s simply one server divided up into many.

For this reason VPS, while good for many business owners, will not work for everyone. Those who need a lot of RAM, disk space, and heavy duty processors won’t find those features with a VPS. For businesses that need these kinds of resources, a dedicated server is probably going to be a better option.

VPS may also not be the best option for those that are not comfortable running and managing a server, or that don’t have a technical team waiting to take on those responsibilities for them. VPS web hosts typically don’t offer managed VPS options and so if a business owner is going to need constant, on-going support, a dedicated server may also be the better option.

For small business owners that need a better experience from their website than they’re currently experiencing on their shared server though, and don’t want to pay the high cost of dedicated services, might just find that VPS is the perfect combination of both!