VPS Hosting Shopping Guides

Posted in Featured Article on May 20th, 2010 |

Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a small private server that runs within another bigger server. When one talks about VPS hosting, it simply means hosting service that is offered based on such hardware setup.

What VPS hosting providers do is to split a server into multiple smaller size individual servers via virtualization technology (for example: Ensim, Sphera and Parallels) and rent it out to different customers. Each virtual servers in VPS hosting functions more or less the same as a dedicated server – except that a VPS shares the same hardware. In layman’s term, a VPS account can be understood as a single unit in a condominium (the server that house multiple accounts) where each unit (individual VPS account). While housed under the same building block (the larger server), each of these condominium unit (VPS account) owns their private space (CPU resources allocated by the provider) and personal setup (software setup).

Why VPS hosting?

A VPS ( Virtual private server ) will be the right type of hosting platform for those who needs better flexibility and stability for their website.  VPS hosting exists for mainly one reason – to provide an intermediate step between shared and dedicated hosting. When a website needs more than a shared hosting can offer and the website owner refuses to take up a dedicated hosting (normally due to financial issue); virtual servers come into the picture. In brief, here are a few advantages of VPS over a shared server.

Performance Isolation
By using VPS, the CPU load and heavy traffic does not affect other private servers running on the same machine. Therefore, whatever the activities of your neighbors are, it would not affect your website.

Functional Isolation
Because VPS are standalone and are not visible to each other, they do not have to share services or software. In addition they don’t have to share processes or the same file system.

Fault Tolerance
Unlike shared hosting, problems on one VPS does not affect the rest.

Unique IP
Besides that, each VPS will have its own IP address and network stack.

Root Access
VPS also allows you to have root access. They significance of having root access is that you can install whatever application you please and have full control on the management of your website.

Guaranteed Resources
As you are not required to shared crucial resources such as CPU, memory, bandwidth and disk space, VPS hosting gives your website higher uptime and availability.

Enhanced Security
For the same reason as above, VPS able to give you better security. VPS allows you to have full control over the processes, disk space and network stacks.

Note that when compared with a shared hosting, what’s best about VPS is the isolated hosting environment that secures a website’s performance and safety. A VPS-hosted website operates in an isolated environment just like a dedicated server – you do not share disk space, RAM, processes, TCP/IP stacks, operating system, or whatsoever. What’s going on with the neighbourhood (other VPS accounts that run on the same server), whether it’s overloaded with heavy traffics or severely hacked, will have zero impact on your website’s performance.

Also main reason why people choose to go with VPS instead of shared hosting is because of its flexibility. The security aspects and other benefits listed above makes VPS a good solution for those who wish to run their own business online regardless of the size,. Such hosting option allows you to have the freedom to install your own software, multimedia technologies, database, and even operating system.

What to look for when choosing a VPS hosting?

VPS is totally different from a shared hosting. In other words, you need a totally different approach when it comes to choosing the right VPS hosting. Let us review some of the key elements when which we need to focus on when it comes to choosing the right VPS hosting provider

Memory capacity (RAM)

Memory capacity (RAM) is one of the most important factors in VPS hosting. In fact, RAM allocation often serves as the "price determiner" of the entire hosting package. RAM capacity directly influences the VPS’s efficiency, speed, and power consumption. The important thing to take heed of is that the RAM requirement of VPS will be higher as it has to run on its own operating system unlike shared hosting.

How much RAM does your VPS need?

Generally, a 512MB RAM should be sufficient for a website that just shifted from their shared hosting (assuming that you will be using cPanel or Plesk on your server). However, if you are planning to host many websites and expecting website expansion then 1GB or 1.5GB is highly recommended.

Do place some attention on the "“burstable RAM" capacity. A burstable RAM actually refers to the back up RAM that you can use in case your VPS had used up its allocation.

Why do you need such type of RAMs? Well, think about traffic spike from Digg or StumbleUpon. For example you may purchase 512MB of RAM but the provider offers 2GB in “burstable” RAM. The provider could sustain this because many VPS runs on the same machine and VPS hosting provider normally do not sell the entire available RAM on the machine and thus enabling one VPS o overflow without affecting other VPS. Having "burstable" RAM will help your site get by with less dedicated RAM as you don’t have to prepare back up RAM in case of emergency. As such, this can help reduce your expenses but it is not a good solution as a host would not tolerate VPS which frequently runs beyond its allocation.

Dedicated IP address

When comes to IP addresses, you’ll need at least 2, one for each nameserver.

How much IP address do you need?

Nowadays, VPS providers normally will provide 4 to 6 IP addresses for each account. Two of which will be used for the nameservers whereas 2 others for domains contained in it. How the addresses will be used depends on the customer’s needs. Bottom line, if you don’t have specific needs that require more IP address then 2 should be good enough for you though 4 will be slightly better.

Control panel

VPS providers will normally offer you several options of control panels where the normal ones are either Plesk or WHM/cPanel. These control panels offers similar functionality where they enable you to edit files in the server for a web interface rather than manually and both are equally good. An user-friendly control panel as it makes day to day server management easier – tasks such as adding domains, debugging, and setting up email accounts.

Security protection

Check out if there are any types of security control which are offered by the web host to protect the VPS server as well as the accounts of their clients.  A reliable and highly committed web host offer 24 hours protection and support to their clients.   Assigned technical engineers will be on shift duty around the clock to provide real time assistance to their clients should there are any unexpected downtime due to computer hackers attack or DDOS attack.   With these on-going monitoring and protection in place, many a times, the down-time can be significantly reduced or eliminated all the way.

Do you really need a VPS hosting?

Before making any decision, try to justify your website traffic requirements honestly and know how busy your current sever is (or will be) working. Many who opt to VPS could have just stick with a shared web host and avoid the heavy bill of a VPS hosting.

Why spend on things that you do not need?

Ask questions like: What’s your 12 months plan for the website? How busy will your website traffic grow? Does your website really need those extra RAMs and CPU power? What are the custom applications to be installed? If you need an extra IP address, can it be done with the original shared hosting plan?… etc. These are the important questions that can only be answered by yourself. If ‘Yes’ is the answer you had for most of these questions, then it’s time to check out our list of recommended VPS hosting provider.