So you’ve put together optimized content, built a great looking website rich in features like a product-filled shopping cart and an anticipated popular blog, now it’s time to share it with the world. Not a big deal right? Well, not until you’ve unexpectedly used up all of your resources and your site can’t even load. This is a common limitation encountered with shared hosting. But then the other option of getting a dedicated server is not quite in reach with its high costs. Well with the development and update of a past technology of splitting a single server, the option of virtual private server (VPS) hosting is available.
VPS hosting is the midway between shared and dedicated hosting. Just as a dedicated server, you get an independent operating system, software, and resources, such as RAM and disk space. And of course with this being a “virtual” private server, there are some shared aspects, such as the physical server itself and CPU. But these are minimalistic in comparison to shared hosting, which has all shared resources and will hinder the ability of a site’s continuous growth.
Benefits of VPS hosting:
- You have SSH/Root Access – In other words, you get “server-level customization,” which was previously only available with dedicated hosting. Due to security reasons, hosting companies would never give access to this with a shared hosting plan.
- Scalability – Shared hosting is a great start for simple websites. But with most sites, the purpose is to keep moving forward by adding additional sites, increasing traffic, and so on. But with shared hosting, your resources are very limited, whereas a VPS allows for plenty of room to grow.
- You’re able to accommodate Traffic Spikes – Let’s say the popularity of your blog is on the rise. In addition, links to your site are added to large sites like Digg or Slashdot. This can become a disaster and can cripple your site very quickly on a shared server. However, on a VPS, this wouldn’t be much of a problem with the availability of “burstable memory,” which in essence is reserved memory that can be used when needed, such as in times of very high traffic.
- E-commerce Stability – If you’re site is a source of income, you don’t want to risk site failure due to someone else using up the resources, which can happen in a shared hosting environment. With VPS hosting, you can rest assure of encountering this problem since your site doesn’t rely on the same resources as others on the same machine.
- Cost – With the ability of having many of the great features of a dedicated server available at a fraction of the cost (dedicated servers can go for hundreds of dollars a month), why not make the small investment in the technology of VPS hosting and allow more opportunities for your site’s expansion.
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