Benefits of Using Virtual Private Server (VPS)
Every organization endeavors to compete, gain market share and see overall growth. And one of the best ways to excel at all of this is to have a lightning-fast development cycle. Companies that consider an online presence a necessity are looking to grow their site quickly, keep it up to trends and stay ahead of competitors. For a developer who wants to swiftly and efficiently launch a project, create a website layout for a client, or manage an online server for a company, there is nothing better than the simplicity and speed of Virtual Private Servers (VPS).
Let’s overview the most significant VPS benefits.
Speed of Machine Deployment
One of the biggest VPS hosting advantages is that virtual servers can be deployed within minutes. Being able to get started on your work shortly and presenting it to your clients sooner means greater success and less struggle.
Many readers may now think that because VPS is pre-built and pre-defined, they won't have as many options as they would like to. Well, the truth is the opposite. Virtual servers today offer numerous options for customization that are second to none. The required amount of memory, hard disk space, CPU cores - all that can be leveraged depending on clients' needs.
Increased Website Reliability
There is nothing more damaging to your online business than the inaccessibility of your website. When using a shared server, you can experience slower speeds and website overloads, which can have damaging effects on your business. Slow loading times can negatively impact your conversion rates and lead to a loss of users. This happens because a shared server is configured in such a way that many users utilize it simultaneously (see image below).
source: The Indian Wire
Another advantage of VPS hosting is that a website hosted on a VPS is sectioned off and traffic from other websites will no longer be a problem. Thus, your site will exist in a space where you can ensure an excellent user experience.
VPS hosting provides an efficient and resourceful environment tailored specifically for your website and no other.
Freedom of Resource Utilization
Thanks to the dedicated resources that a virtual server provides, you're free to use them in whatever fashion you see fit. This is another differentiating characteristic between this type of plan and shared hosting in which you can’t fully control resource utilization.
When you use a VPS, you know exactly what resources you have at your disposal. The system will provide resources that are exclusively yours to use and manage as necessary, for all of your content. This way, running more than one website on your web hosting account is easier than ever before.
Other pros include not being constrained by a single physical server (as it would happen with a dedicated plan). Hence, you can expand your resources as much as you need to meet the needs of your site.
Effortless Licensing
One important VPS benefit that can be overlooked is licensing. Undoubtedly, licensing can become complicated, especially when a company is working with multiple platforms. Virtual private server licensing is a simple process. The per-month server subscription usually includes the related costs of the license. So you know all the costs of deploying a virtual private server days before you deploy it to be able to prepare for and what should be taken into account.
Flexibility of Settings
Using VPS hosting means getting root access to the server, and managing it like your own computer. On shared hosting, you can change only those server settings that your hosting provider allows you to change. On VPS hosting, you will have root access, so you can change the settings as you want: edit system files, change the rules for the webserver or firewall.
You are not limited by anything other than the amount of CPU and memory resources allocated to you. Shared hosting will not be able to give you such freedom of action. The hosting benefits that you will get:
ability to install and configure any software to fit your needs, including system software;
ability to delete and modify any files in the system;
control of users and processes running on the VPS;
VPS uses its own web, mail, database server, FTP server and provides SSH access;
ability to scale the server, increase performance resources if necessary.
Shared hosting has strict limits on the number of running processes, scripts, and database queries. Also, you will not be allowed to host too many executables, images, audio, and video. While this may not be a problem when you are just launching your online presence, as your website grows, the need for more resources arises. On VPS hosting, you will only be limited by the volume of resources in your plan.
Usage of Necessary OS and Software Only
Shared hosting is usually very limited when it comes to the server configuration settings. Web hosts manage it completely on their own, so they decide what applications and operating systems they want to use. On these types of hosting it can be difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of how the server is set up.
VPS plans, however, often carry numerous choices in order to meet various needs. They often provide their customers with various operating systems options, a selection of control panels as well as automated installers for common development apps. There are unmanaged plans that allow you to install and administrate the hosting itself.
Ultimately, VPS benefits are especially useful for web developers. Shared hosting will not work if you want to install your own operating system or use technologies like Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, or C ++ on your site. Shared hosting usually only supports PHP. To use more complex technologies, you will need to take a VPS server from the start.
Scalability
Many businesses, whether they are small or medium-sized, aspire to grow. For some companies, it takes a lot of time to grow while others start off around a very short time period and stay successful through their exponential growth. Regardless of what your growth goals are, a cloud virtual private server has a vast potential to scale with you.
Business VPS can be scaled in response to demand, based on usage. Servers can scale up, down, in, and out to handle the amount of traffic anticipated. A server resource increase, more memory, more CPU, and more disk often result from an expansion. You can usually make these changes on the go by shifting to a new plan and outfitting your machine with a new set of features.
When implementing multiple virtual private servers in a clustered resource, we refer to it as a scale-out. Companies that are experiencing rapid growth in website demand often use this method. Capacity and performance can be enhanced and optimized with VPSs that come equipped with multiple nodes and the ability to deploy and network traffic between these nodes.
Improved Website Performance
Another great advantage of VPS hosting is that it allows for improved website performance. On shared hosting, all resources except hard disk space are shared. Because of this, it can happen that your site loads slowly because someone is using more resources than they should. The provider makes sure that such situations do not occur; still, sometimes there may be interruptions in the work of the site. This does not happen on VPS hosting, because virtual servers are almost completely isolated from each other.
source: woblogger
So, the reason your website may operate faster on a VPS server is due to how such servers typically aren't affected by website slowing that sometimes occurs on the shared hosting side. However, the leap in performance doesn't only happen because of that reason.
The plans that VPS hosting providers typically offer allow for more resource freedom than shared-plan companies. You will be able to benefit from more bandwidth and storage as well as access to new advanced technology. With the advancement of technology, website visitors should experience faster page loads. Furthermore, they should be less likely to bounce away after finishing their tasks on your website.
Ability To Pick a Service You Need
Along with the aforementioned benefits, many VPS plans also offer you a choice of services. In comparison, shared hosting is only used for the site to run on, providing little or no additional functionality.
It is essential to consider whether you want a managed or unmanaged plan for your website so that you can make the right decision. You are in complete control when you operate an unmanaged VPS. On the other hand, you are responsible for configuring and maintaining it yourself. If you are looking for a simpler solution, then you should consider choosing from a number of managed VPS options. With this hosting advantage, you can devote your time to developing your website and business without being distracted by the problems of managing the server.
Simple Backup
Using a VPS allows you to back up server settings, files, and systems. Some VPS providers implement this service for free, which is another great hosting advantage. The time interval between backups can be different, usually two weeks, but you can find VPS with free daily backups. You will also need a place to store your backups. It has a limited size and the backups themselves have a limited shelf life.
How to Choose a VPS
Selecting the right VPS can be frustrating. That is why we’ve collected a number of important things you should consider before choosing a VPS:
Administration. Unlike shared hosting, where all programs and technologies are already installed from the very beginning, the VPS server will be empty by default. It won't have a control panel or Apache with PHP. All of this will need to be installed and configured. Then you will have to constantly monitor its operation. You can manage the server yourself or negotiate with the provider for its specialists to do it. Some providers will help you with a basic setup for free, but more often you will have to pay extra for it. If you yourself are not versed in administration, think in advance who will deal with this on your project.
Resources. Your website speed will depend on the processor power and RAM of your VPS. If you already have a website, start with up-to-date statistics on resource consumption. If the project is new, you will have to roughly calculate the number of resources, and then decrease or increase their number along the way.
Traffic. Also, pay attention to how much traffic the provider allocates per month. Traffic is consumed when you upload or download something to a server via FTP, visitors visit your site, or you yourself connect somewhere from the server, for example, install a browser and go from it to other sites.
Scalability. Find out how easy it will be to increase the resources of your VPS server if necessary. Will you be able to do it yourself or will you need to contact support? How much time will this process take? All these questions need to be answered before you deploy a VPS.
Support. You will need it if you are a beginner and cannot figure out every aspect of VPS deployment and usage yourself. Plus, it happens that some things with the server can only be done with the help of support. For example, a change in the volume of resources on the VPS server or finding out if something has happened to the server. Therefore, it is important that the support service is always in touch and responds quickly.
Operating system. Which apps you can use will be determined by the OS. Usually, everyone chooses servers with Linux, because this operating system is free and is most often used in development. A Windows VPS is more of a business VPS used when the company plans to employ certain applications that are not supported in Linux. For example, MSSQL databases, ASP, or ASP.NET scripts.
Final Word
As you can see, there is plenty of VPS hosting benefits. VPS web hosting offers a number of benefits. If you are looking for the right solution for your company, then the specific solution will depend on the specifics of your website or the activities of your organization.
Contact our team for help with VPS web hosting or any other IT service!