Reduce Operating Costs Through Virtualization

Running your own server farm can consume a lot of money. In addition to the costs for hardware, software and licenses, maintenance and electricity costs must also be considered. For this reason, more and more people are switching to virtual servers. This means that many individual server systems are installed on a server that has a lot of capacity. The technical term for this is Virtual Server Hosting. By using virtualization software you have the possibility to switch your servers to virtual servers. Less hardware is needed, which reduces investment and operating costs.

A big advantage of virtual servers (technical term often simply vServer) is that they can be restored and made available very quickly in case of failure. First of all, the costs for this conversion are quite high, which is why many companies do not immediately switch to virtual systems. In the age of the fast Internet, new possibilities are opening up. Many companies that used to only offer web hosting now also offer vServer hosting or individual virtual servers.

What Is A Virtual Server?

A virtual server is a server system that has been installed on another server as a guest system. Some hosting providers usually offer Linux systems for this purpose, but Windows server systems are also possible. Depending on how much money you want to spend, you get virtual servers with different configurations. That means you have the choice between the number of processors, the size of the RAM and the hard disk capacity. You can then manage the server yourself and set it up again if necessary. Unlike root server hosting, you do not rent a dedicated physical server.

A common synonym for vServer is VPS, which means Virtual Private Server. Most shared hosting services are virtualized internally by web hosts anyway. The reason (and main difference) why people want VPS at all is the “private”. It is an independent virtual server that can be used by the customer.

Important Things About VPS Hosting

Basically, Virtual Server Hosting is a server farm consisting of several servers that form a cluster. Many vServers are usually installed on this cluster. As a hosting provider, you can provide many virtual servers for individual customers or a lot of space for a customer’s virtual servers. The server room is kept relatively small because only a few servers are used. This saves money for buildings and electricity.

Hypervisor and Management at VPS Hosting

The hypervisor manages the various virtual private servers on the physical resource. It is a software that can divide the device into different virtual private servers.

The hypervisor controls the hardware resource (memory capacity, RAM, CPU) accordingly and makes it available to the individual administrators.

The admin is guaranteed a certain performance, which is usually only the minimum performance. The hypervisor has the possibility to scale the unused performance of other virtual private servers on the system and thus increase it if necessary.

Full VPS Root Access for Administrators

The different virtual servers on the same hardware resource can be equipped with different operating systems, such as Windows or Linux. Administrators have full root access to their VPS and can individually install the system they need for their applications.

This so-called encapsulation in virtual server hosting allows strict separation of foreign VPS on the same hardware system.

Distinction from Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting works very similarly from a technical point of view. However, there is a serious difference. While the costs for a virtual private server are fixed, the costs for cloud hosting are only calculated according to the actual use.

With cloud hosting, different items are charged individually, but this is not always cheaper. Usage-based operating costs can even quickly become more expensive than on-premise with a dedicated server.

Advantages of a Virtual Private Server

VPS are located exactly between Shared Hosting and Dedicated Server. Therefore they offer a possible intermediate route with the following advantages:

• Hardware problems rarely lead to longer downtimes because the VPS can be quickly restarted on other hardware.
• Usually cheaper than a complete dedicated server
• Flexibility in performance upgrades
• Similarly good performance as with a dedicated web server

Disadvantages of Virtual Private Servers

The downsides result in differentiation from the dedicated server and are as follows:

• Limited resources in CPU, RAM and memory capacity compared to a dedicated server
• Usually there are more VPS in a host system than can be controlled via network and LAN.
• In contrast to shared hosting, administration is more extensive.
• Who Should Use Managed Virtual Private Servers?

If you have a strong community, a corporate website with many subpages or a medium-sized e-commerce business, a VPS is probably the right choice for you.

The decision for such a system presupposes good knowledge for the administration. In small companies the effort is too high or the knowledge is not available. Managed services are a real help here and can be booked in different categories.

The installation and maintenance of a managed server is always done by the web hoster. Make sure that the Managed Service is always provided by “people”, there are providers who already want to sell an administration and configuration interface as Managed Hosting.

Why It Pays To Compare

Before you rent a virtual server, you should think about what you want to use it for. The processor, main memory and hard disk capacity must be selected accordingly. Since there are many hosters with different vServer offers, a Virtual Server Hosting comparison is worthwhile, so that you come cheap and suitable to your VPS hosting. For this reason, we have also provided this comparison table for you.