Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated hosting refers to Web hosting in which the environment with which you are provided is a dedicated one, meaning that you are not sharing it with anyone else. Dedicated servers normally come under this category, since you are leasing a physical server from a web host and the resources contained within that one server are not shared between multiple users; however, a new technology known as VPS (virtual private servers) could also be delegated to this category since the environment which they provide is dedicated, but at the same time is still virtual since the VPS is sharing a physical node with other VPS - the only resource which is only being constantly shared is the CPU. Dedicated hosting solutions are normally taken up by companies or individuals who need their hosting environment to be customized, for example with the use of certain programs which might not be available on shared hosting packages, but in this case since you have your own dedicated environment you are able to install what you want. Dedicated server hosting solutions are only normally chosen in a situation where a return can be made easily, since both VPS servers and dedicated servers are quite costly.

Supported Operating Systems

With Dedicated server hosting solutions, you are normally able to choose any operating system to be installed on your server since your choice will not have any effect on other users or customers; one thing to note is that if you go with a VPS your operating system choices are generally restricted to those which are support by both the VPS partitioning software and the physical hosting node. Cost, support and skills are also factors which can effect the choice of operating system; for example, you could be restricted from going with Windows Server 2003 because it is too costly for you, and you don’t have the necessary skills to administer a Windows server - your web host might also not support Windows Server 2003. If you find either of those three a limitation, then you could always opt for an open source Linux distribution; this is because open source means free, and because of this you are normally able to find a mass of online forums and e-books which give you support on how to configure certain OS settings. The application or content that you are wanting to host might also put a limitation on your choice of operating system; for example, you might have an ASP.NET web application which would mean that you are stuck with choosing Windows Server 2003 as your server operating system. Finally, the security of the operating system should always be a key factor affecting your final choice of operating system; this is because you do not want your system to end up being hacked, most Linux distributions can’t be affected by viruses but by things called rootkits which can lead to an OS reload if a server becomes infected with one; there are many viruses for the Windows operating system, but with the correct precautions and protection you should not face any problems.

Bandwidth and Connectivity

Bandwidth is assigned to each and every server by the upstream provider, and is normally given in an amount; connectivity refers to the different peers with which you are connected to, the more peers you are connected to, the more likely it is that your website will have a fast connection around the entire world. Most peers connect to the main bandwidth exchanges in the world, an example of which being LINX - the UK’s main bandwidth exchange which is based in London. Bandwidth is normally assigned per GB (gigabyte), however until quite recently it was still being assigned as MB (megabytes) - the change being because of the increasing amount of internet traffic; some providers hand out unmetered data pipes which basically means that the servers on the end of that data pipe have an infinite amount of bandwidth (although this is technically not possible). Service Level Agreements, which are better known as SLAs, are normally provided for network uptime and come along with dedicated servers; an example of the content contained within an SLA would include something along the lines of customer credit for the network being down for longer than ‘x’ amount of time. Some dedicated hosting providers claim to be able to provide 100% uptime on their networks, this is normally achieved by the use of multiple connections to a mix of bandwidth and connection providers.

Management

Most Dedicated server hosting providers are able to provide management for dedicated and VPS servers to a certain extend, normally for node, network and included software problems. Since the environment given is a dedicated one, the customer is expected to have a certain amount of knowledge in order to be able to keep the server in working order and to be able to carry out general tasks such as maintenance. Support for the node would cover issues such as problems with the physical node and any hardware to which it is connected as well as software and hardware upgrades and maintenance; network support would cover general issues with the network as well as the maintenance of routers and switches; included software support would cover the base operating system as well as any software which you chose to be installed at the time of purchase, for example a control panel. Simple tasks such as server reboots, and system reload in the case of VPS servers, will normally be carried out for free by the host at no extra cost.

Security

Most dedicated servers and VPS servers are normally located behind both a software and hardware firewall. Most also contain virus scanners and rootkit hunters so that any malicious programs that do find their way onto client servers are found and removed as soon as possible. In the case of VPS servers, the nodes normally have some sort of virus scanner which means any VPS which is found to have a virus will be shut down or sorted in the correct manner Some types of software are banned from being used on the networks of some hosts for the reason being that they can compromise both the security of the client’s server and the hosts network.

Software

With dedicated hosting, you are normally able to install your own software on your server since it is a dedicated environment and your actions will most likely not effect anyone else. Some hosts allow you to purchase licenses for certain pieces of software at the same time when you purchase the server - this can prove to be an advantage for the customer since the host might be selling licenses cheaper, which is normally the case if they are a license reseller. Over the past few years, some software vendors have seen the advantages which the dedicated hosting market could bring them, meaning that many have decided to try and have their software bundled with dedicated server packages as well as setting up special pricing structures for both VPS and dedicated server solutions. Some hosts are able to offer Microsoft software through the giant’s ‘SPLA’ (service provider license agreement) which allows providers to offer Microsoft software on a monthly basis, which can cut the cost down for customers. Most hosts also offer software such as control panels from vendors including SWSoft and cPanel to allow you to manage your server effectively. One thing to note is that software such as IRC servers are not allowed on many host’s networks for the simple reason that they can easily trigger ddos attacks against the host which could lower the network speeds for all customers.

Advantages and Disadvantages of VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is seen as the fill in for the large gap that stems between standard shared website hosting, and expensive dedicated server hosting; this is because the prices of VPS hosting are very similar to those for high end shared web hosting packages, and much less than those for dedicated servers but are able to provide clients with an environment which is very similar to that of a dedicated server. Unlike standard shared website hosting, but like dedicated server hosting, you are able to install your own programs within your own VPS hosting environment - this means that you can easily customize your VPS server to work and function in the way that you want it to, which you wouldn’t be able to achieve with standard shared website hosting; this also means that if you want to host an application in an environment which needs to be custom configured, then you are able to do so at a fraction of the cost of an ordinary basic dedicated server.

VPS hosting is only really made for those who need to be able to host their applications or websites in a custom environment, since in most cases a certain amount of knowledge is needed so that you’re able to administrate your VPS, since your web host might not provide you with support in some situations; it is because of this that you should always make sure that you know what you are doing when signing up for a VPS server, since you don’t want to order it then find out that you aren’t able to use it correctly - at the end of the day, not all web hosts will give you your money back.

You should also ensure that you are aware of the specifications of the VPS that you have ordered, since in some cases web hosts can accidentally assign you with the wrong amount of a certain VPS resource, or if you are not aware of your limits you could easily end up overloading your VPS which could lead to it crashing; if your VPS crashes or overloads then you also run the risk of overloading the main VPS node on which you are hosted, which is not something that you want to do since it could lead to your web host having to suspend your VPS or even terminate it if it is continually overloading the hosting node.

You should also be careful as to what programs and types of website that you choose to host within your VPS environment, since some programs use up too many resources, which again can lead to the overloading of your VPS and the hosting node on which your VPS is hosted; your website could also be resource intensive if it is for example ‘dynamic’, meaning that every time a visitor loads a page of your website, the page has to locate and pull the required information from a database - this itself can be resource intensive meaning that if you have a site which receives a large amount of visitors and is dynamic then you should consider dedicated server hosting since it meets your needs and requirements in a more specific way. More and more web hosts are starting to provide customers with VPS solutions, since the market itself has had a steady growth over the last few years, this means that there is now a larger choice of VPS hosting packages for people who are looking to take a VPS out to choose from; the reason for this large growth is mainly down to the stabilization of the software that is used to base VPS hosting systems on - more free solutions for VPS hosting have also come about meaning that the actual price of VPS servers has been dramatically reduced, allowing people to pick a VPS solution up for as little as $5 these days.

The fine line between VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting is a blurry one, meaning that for some it is hard to distinguish the difference between the two; with the help of this article, you should be able to choose whether or not VPS hosting is for you, and what the advantages and disadvantages are when it comes down to using a VPS server for your needs.

Advantages of VPS Hosting

For many, especially those who are upgrading to VPS hosting from a shared hosting account, VPS hosting is able to bring many advantages including the ability to install any software that you want as well as being able to host your websites in your own space without the worry of being affected by any other users or websites that are hosted on the same server as you; the price of VPS hosting is also attractive to many who are in need of a dedicated server, but are unable to afford one. VPS hosting is also provides better uptime than shared web hosting, which means businesses who currently have their websites on shared hosting are attracted to VPS hosting if their websites are down frequently because of an issue on the shared web hosting server on which their account and domain reside; it is because of this that the market has begun to grow, since many are now requiring better uptime for their websites, especially those which are mission critical for some.

Dedicated Environment

The main advantage of VPS hosting over shared hosting is that you given your own dedicated environment in which you are allowed to do pretty much anything you want, just as long as it doesn’t affect the other VPS servers that are hosted on the same server as yours. With a dedicated environment, you are able to install any program that you want on your VPS so that you can configure it to work in the way you want it to, just as you would be able to with a dedicated server; this also allows you to host custom websites and application that might require certain server side settings or component in order to function, and they might not be available on standard website hosting.

Within your dedicated environment, you are able to utilize your own resources such as your own hard drive space that has been assigned to your VPS, as well as the guaranteed RAM that has been assigned to allow you to run as many programs as possible within your VPS, or just to make it run faster - although that is dependent on what you prefer. You can configure your server to be any type of server, just as long as you don’t have any type of server or web hosting control panel that has pre-installed its own services on your VPS; for example you can install Apache and use your VPS as a dedicated web server, or you could install MySQL and use your VPS as a standalone database server.

If you have a low specification VPS, then you could simply use it as a testing environment where you can test out your new websites and applications before you deploy them in a live environment, so that you are able to see what effect they will have on the server and whether there is any problems with them; this means that if the application or website is faulty and was to cause damage to the server, it would only damage the VPS which is something that can be repaired - if it was to be put live on a dedicated server or similar and was to damage the server, then the server itself may not have been repairable.

Your dedicated environment is your own, meaning that what you do within your VPS will not affect the other VPS hosted on the same server as you in any way, and anything that the other VPS on your server do will not affect your VPS; this means that unlike shared web hosting, you are able to ensure the utmost reliability, and that the main reason for your VPS to crash would be because you or your website has overloaded it with too many requests or similar.

Guaranteed Resources

Unlike shared website hosting, with VPS hosting you are given guaranteed resources that will always be available for use by your VPS server, meaning that you are given limitations as to what you are able to run on your VPS; although in some sense this might appear to be a ‘disadvantage’, the fact that you have your own guaranteed resources that can’t be used by other VPS hosted on the same server as you means that you are able to guarantee your clients or website a certain amount of reliability, depending on the amount of the guaranteed resources that you have assigned.

It is important that you know the amount of certain guaranteed resources which you have assigned to your VPS server, since these can affect what programs and services you are able to run on your VPS; for example, if you run a website which is accessing a database a lot then a low specification VPS isn’t for you, since the continual access requires a large amount of RAM otherwise you could overload your VPS. However, there is one resource which in most cases is not guaranteed equally to each individual VPS - the CPU; most web hosts have a policy which means that a VPS server can use as much CPU as it wants, but when it uses it up to a certain point the VPS is automatically shut down - on the other hand an increasing number of web hosts are starting to deploy a fair share CPU architecture, in which the CPU is split and equally shared between the VPS servers.

The three main resources that are guaranteed are disk space, RAM and bandwidth; the amount of disk space that is assigned to your VPS server physically exists on the hard drive of the host node, meaning that the space assigned is yours to use only, and no-one else’s; the amount of RAM that you have assigned is also guaranteed, meaning that the programs installed on your VPS will always have that amount to use; the amount of bandwidth is also guaranteed, meaning that you can transfer the assigned amount of data before your VPS is no longer reachable.

At the end of the day, you want to be able to ensure that you are getting good value for money, and if you have high guaranteed resources then you are able to ensure that your websites and applications which you intend to host and install on your VPS server will run smoothly - it is when your websites run smoothly that you know you are getting value for money; if you happen to have a VPS server with low guaranteed resources then you are better off using it for testing, since if it used properly then you might find that it crashes frequently.

Burstable RAM

Burstable RAM is the amount of RAM that your VPS can use once it has used up all its guaranteed RAM, meaning that you can allow your VPS to have a RAM spike every now and then, although the practice isn’t recommended since the burstable RAM might have already been claimed by another VPS hosted on the same server as you, since it can be accessed and used by all the VPS hosted on one server. The amount of burstable RAM that your VPS is able to use is dependent on the VPS plan that you have, in most cases the amount that you are able to use is double that of the guaranteed RAM that you have uniquely assigned to your VPS server; this means that if you have a VPS with 256MB guaranteed RAM, you have 512MB of burstable RAM that your VPS is able to use if it runs out of guaranteed RAM.

Burstable RAM should only be used in the most desperate of situations, since if your VPS happens to use it too frequently or ends up using too much of it, your web host may be forced to suspend or terminate your VPS since it could easily be affecting the performance of other VPS hosted on the same server as you. You shouldn’t take burstable RAM for granted, since if your VPS happens to have regular RAM spikes then you might find it crashing regularly if it is unable to acquire any spare burstable CPU; it is also for this reason that you should regularly monitor your VPS using a third party monitoring system so that you can be alerted as to when your VPS crashes if you are unable to be at your computer all the time. Burstable RAM is something that is only available with VPS servers, since dedicated servers are physical meaning that they have a physical amount of RAM which can’t be virtualized to give any extra, and shared web hosting is based on one server meaning that user don’t get their own virtual/dedicated environment in which they are able to install any programs of their choice.

In most cases you aren’t able to increase the amount of burstable RAM that your VPS has, since it is made up of the left over RAM after all the relevant VPS have been created on the server; however, you should be able to increase the amount of dedicated RAM that your VPS has, allowing you to improve the performance of your VPS at a lower cost than having to upgrade your VPS package altogether. As mentioned previously, burstable RAM is a resource which should only be dipped when really needed; this is because it could affect the performance of the other VPS that are hosted on the same server as you, meaning that your VPS might be suspended without warning - you don’t want this to happen since everything on the VPS will become unavailable. One thing to note is that burstable RAM isn’t available for Windows VPS because of the architecture of the Windows operating system; it is only available for Linux VPS based on either OpenVZ or XEN.

Disadvantages of VPS Hosting

Although VPS hosting might have a few advantages that will benefit most, it also has disadvantages like any type of hosting does, that have the ability to affect how some people are able to use their VPS server. If you are new to VPS hosting, then the main disadvantage for you will be that you might not be able to use your VPS correctly, since you might not have the required amount of knowledge to - in this case you should read a few VPS tutorials before parting with any money on one. Another main disadvantage of VPS hosting is the fact that in some cases the CPU of the main server is not equally shared between all the hosted VPS, meaning that it is open to compromise from rogue VPS, and if done correctly a rogue VPS could easily bring down the whole node if it ends up using too much of the CPU.

CPU

In some cases, the way the CPU is used by all the VPS hosted on the same server as yours can prove to be a disadvantage, sine in most cases the system architecture of the virtualization software means that the actions of other VPS hosted on the same server as your can easily affect the performance of yours; if this is the case for your VPS, then you should consider moving to a web host where they deploy the correct type of CPU splitting to ensure that the performance of your VPS isn’t affected by the performance of others on the same node as yours.

In most cases the CPU of the host node is not evenly distributed between all the VPS that are hosted on the node, meaning that the VPS are able to use up as much or as little of the CPU as needed - this system is open to abuse since one VPS can easily use up the whole CPU and cause the whole node to crash, in turn bringing down all the VPS on that single node; however, most VPS virtualization softwares have a monitoring system of sorts built in, meaning that if a VPS was to use up too much of the CPU, that VPS would be automatically suspended or shut down as to ensure that it isn’t able to affect the performance of other VPS hosted on the same node. If too much CPU is being utilized by another VPS hosted on the same node as yours, then you might notice that your VPS becomes un-responsive to certain commands, and that your website may not be loading meaning that it might be timing out; this will be because there is not enough CPU left to process your requests, which is not something that you want - it is because of this reason that you should try and choose a web host that deploys a fair share CPU architecture so that you are guaranteed a certain share of the physical CPU.

If your VPS is based on a node that is using fair share CPU architecture, then you are able to ensure that there will always be a certain amount of the CPU available for you use, meaning that you are able to guarantee your website or clients a certain level of reliability; also, with fair share CPU architecture, it is more or less impossible for one VPS alone to bring the entire VPS node down since the amount of CPU assigned to each VPS would not crash the entire server if it was used up - this means that it would take several VPS that are maxing out their CPU to crash an entire VPS node. Although in some cases, such as with the use of fair share CPU architecture, the CPU of a VPS may appear to be at an advantage, overall when you consider all the options the CPU architecture of a regular VPS can be classed as a disadvantage.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Clustered Website Hosting

Clustered website hosting is a form of websites hosting where the different services for a website are balanced across a number of servers, meaning that if one server in the cluster happens to fail then there are a large number of other servers in the same cluster that are able to replace the role of the server that has crashed or failed; this means that a websites and any services related to it such as email and DNS will always be available, since each service is either mirrored or backed up onto several servers as to ensue maximum uptime and reliability to prevent any websites or services that are being hosted in the cluster to fail or crash, since this could have a negative impact on the website or business that is using website hosting within the cluster concerned.

Clustered website hosting is a form of web hosting that is seen to be more suited towards businesses and websites that are resource intensive but require a high amount of uptime since their website is their business, and is most cases mission critical to them meaning that if their website was to become unavailable for even a short amount of time, they would still lose trade; if a business loses trade because its website is down, it might have to consider moving to another host since downtime to any business could potentially mean a great loss of money, in turn damaging them financially - it is for this reason that many choose clustered website hosting, since the reliability of it is much greater than that of standard shared website hosting or even specially designed business hosting packages.

If you run a business whether it be online or on a high street, you should always consider clustered website hosting for your needs if you are looking for that extra bit of reliability to ensure that your website is always available for yourself and for those who might require access to it at any time of the day; this is also more important if you use your business website to sell your products online, since if your website becomes unavailable and people want to your products from your website, they will be unable to - if the goods that they are after are easily available elsewhere, they might go elsewhere meaning that you could lose customers and it could also give others such as prospective customers a bad idea of your business if your website’s isn’t available.

You should always ensure that you choose a popular clustered website hosting provider with a good reputation, since at the end of the day it is easy for anyone to create a web hosting package and claim that it is ‘clustered‘, since a majority of server clusters utilize internal servers meaning that most of the time IP addresses are being shared and the internal servers aren’t accessible externally; this means that you should always read the reviews that are contained on website hosting review sites regarding clustered web hosts that you are interested in using, since at the end of the day you want to ensure that you choose a clustered website hosting provider who is truly using clustered hosting technologies within their hosting environments to ensure that the platforms that clients are hosted on are indeed clustered. By using a clustered web host, you are able to ensure that any part or service related to your website will always be available as to enable you to ensure that that you are always able to receive email, and that visitors and servers are able to navigate to your website via the means of DNS with ease; this also means that you are able to ensure that your website will always be available to the general public so that people who want to purchase a product from your website, or want to just find general information about your business from your website or may need to contact you, then they will be able to without facing any problems such as downtime on your behalf.

So, if you need to ensure that any service related to your website such as the email and the DNS always needs to be available, and that the website itself always needs to be available so that customers and visitors are able to purchase products from your website or just so they are able to view it.

Advantages of Clustered Website Hosting

For some, especially large businesses who need maximum reliability for their website, clustered website hosting will bring many advantage since it will mean that the most important aspects of their domain and website such as the DNS, email and the website itself will always be available for use, since all the services will be spread across a server cluster meaning that if one server in the cluster fails, the affect on the website and other services will minimal if anything; with other types of web hosting, namely shared website hosting, the reliability of clustered website hosting is not achievable since in most cases one server is used to host all the services related to any single website.

Reliability

As mentioned previously, clustered website hosting is able to provide both individuals and businesses with a new level of website reliability which wasn’t previously possible with other types of website hosting including shared website hosting, VPS hosting as well as dedicated server hosting; this is because in all of the aforementioned scenarios, one server was used to serve all the services for all the websites that the server hosted, meaning that it took just a small spike from one running process to take down the whole server or to kill off certain instances of the service concerned.

All the services for all the websites that are hosted within a clustered website hosting environment are spread across a number of servers, meaning that at any one time there is always more than one server that is able to process a request from any one service, allowing for fast responses to almost any request which is almost non-existent with other types of web hosting; this also means that if one server within the cluster fails, there is a number of other servers that are available to take up the roll of the server that has crashed - this means that downtime is almost an impossible thing to consider within a clustered website hosting environment, since only something major such as a power failure in which the back up electrics systems didn’t kick in could affect a clustered web hosting environment.

Reliability is one factor that is important to both individuals and businesses, since if a website is unavailable or another service such as email or DNS is down, then the affect that it might have can be inconvenient; for example, if a website is unavailable then visitors or customers won’t be able to access it meaning that if it is a business website that you are hosting, customers might not be able to purchase products from your website, and if the mail service is down on the server on which you are hosted, you won’t be able to send or receive any email under the domain concerned.

With a clustered website hosting environment, you are also able to ensure that your website will load fast and any server requests that you do make will be responded to by the server almost automatically, since there are multiple servers or nodes within the cluster that are available to take the load of any requests that are made by yourself or anyone who is hosted in the same cluster as you; with regular website hosting, there is only one node available that is able to take the load of any requests that are made to it - this means that if there are too many requests made, the server will end up crashing - this type of scenario could be classed as a ‘DDOS‘ attack on the hosting server concerned.

The chances of your website being taken down for over usage of server resources is also one thing that is highly unlikely within a clustered hosting environment, for the main reason that there are the resources of many servers available for your use. Also, the chances of your website being taken down because of a malicious attack such as a DDOS attack are also reduced, since there any many servers within the cluster that are able to take the strain of the attack meaning that the attack would have to be pretty heavy in order to take down an entire clustered hosting setup.

Multiple Servers

The main advantage of being within a clustered website hosting environment is that there are multiple servers that are able to take the load and strain of your website, meaning that the threat of downtime because of an overloaded server is almost nil since the servers within a clustered environment are normally of high specification, and are designed to take the load of several different services at once as to ensure maximum uptime for you.

In a standard shared website hosting environment, there is only one server and the resources of one server available to take the load of all the services that the server has to host as well as all the websites that are hosted on it, meaning that a high CPU load is a common occurence within a shared website hosting environment as well as the server itself running short of physical memory to use; this means that a shared hosting server crashing is a common occurence, however in a clustered website hosting environment there are multiple high specification servers in most cases that are able to take the load of all the websites hosted within the cluster.

Although it is said that either VPS hosting or dedicated server hosting is the right kind of hosting for people who are hosting resource intensive websites, clustered website hosting should also be a considered alternative since there are many more resources to go about meaning that the affect which a resource intensive website is able to have on other websites that are hosted within the cluster is minimal; however, it might still be possible for poorly coded websites to have an affect on an entire cluster, meaning that in this situation your clustered website hosting provider might ask you to move to a different host which might cause you inconvenience if you have to transfer all the data that you are hosting over to a new web host. In some cases, services within a clustered hosting environment are ‘load balanced‘ meaning that the load of each service is spread across a number of different servers that are dedicated to running that service only; however, in other situations you might find that the servers within the cluster that you are hosted have been setup in a way which means that if the ‘master’ server fails, a second ’slave’ server comes into force meaning that no downtime will be experienced, although the services within the environment are not clustered - this type of website hosting solution is commonly known in the industry as a ‘failover‘ setup.

The fact that a clustered website hosting setup utilize multiple servers is one reason why many people who are streaming media from their websites, whether it be live or download, are choosing clustered website hosting in order to host their websites so that visitors are able to access their multimedia content as well as their website in general; this is because the multi-server setup is able to take the extra strain that streaming media puts on a standard stand alone server hosting setup - in a standard shared hosting environment, most people who were using or were wanting to use their account to stream media or allow visitors to download multimedia content would be asked by their provider to find another host, because of the strain that both put on the server as well as bandwidth.

Disadvantages of Clustered Website Hosting

Although clustered website hosting might appear to bring people who are after a reliable web hosting service and those who have resource intensive websites advantages, for those with smaller websites which don’t receive that many visitors, clustered website hosting might prove to be a disadvantage for them; at the end of the day, when considering website hosting solutions, you should always take into consideration both the advantages and disadvantages of any form of web hosting.

Cost

In some cases, clustered website hosting services can be prove to be pretty expensive when compared to other forms of website hosting, meaning that for those who after reliability on a small budget, clustered website hosting might not be the right type of website hosting for you and your website; in this case you should consider a lower end shared website hosting package or a lower end reseller hosting package since these might be able to meet your needs with ease.

The main reason that clustered hosting services are generally more expensive than other forms of hosting is because of the number of servers that are involved in keeping the cluster up and running, and these servers require a lot of time and money in order to ensure that they carry on running with ease, to ensure that the cluster itself is running with ease and isn’t affected by any sort of downtime; however, this also means that you are ensured a high level of uptime if not 100%, and you should also be able to receive a high level of support from the web host from which you have taken out your clustered website hosting plan.

However, for large businesses and individuals who require a high level of uptime and reliability for their website so that they are able to trade with ease by selling goods online, the high cost of clustered website can be easily justified since they are able to claw back any money spent on website hosting from any revenue that they bring in from their website which they are hosting within their clustered website hosting account; this means that if you are running a website that you are using to sell goods on, you should consider clustered website hosting if you are currently on a standard shared website hosting package since you will be able to greatly improve the reliability of your website and any services related to it both for yourself and any visitors that your website might receive at either day or night.

Overselling

In some cases, you might find that your clustered website hosting account has been assigned rediculously high amount of certain resources - this practice is known within the web hosting industry as ‘overselling‘, since resources are being sold that don’t even physically exist on the server or cluster in which the website hosting account will be created, since in reality you will probably never use all the resources that you have assigned to your clustered website hosting account.

Overselling is one thing that can draw many people into clustered website hosting, whether they have the need for that extra reliability or not, since by getting all the extra resources which aren’t available with lower end website hosting packages, they think that they are getting more value for money than they would be with any other form of hosting; this means that overselling is one factor that is able to bring those who have the ability to abuse the hosting platform on which they are situated, which in turn means that in some cases they do have the ability to abuse the hosting cluster in which their account has been created - although not entirely possible, in some cases this is able to have an affect on the other sites that are hosted within the hosting cluster.

Overselling is only a practice which is common in shared website hosting and among hosts who are after the biggest number of customers and domains possible, and are offering rediculous offers such as 100GB disk space for a stupid price of $1 - most people ignore the stupidity and the fact that this is almost impossible since they are always after value for money; it is because of this that you should try and find a clustered web host that provides you with a reasonable amount of disk space and bandwidth that you can actually use and is reserved for use by your account only within the clustered website hosting environment.

If you have a clustered website hosting account that has unlimited or resources which goes into the 100’s of GBs or even TBs, then you should consider moving to another web host that is not overselling its web hosting services; this is because the affects of overselling could easily impact the performance of your website as well as other websites that are hosted in the same cluster as yours - and low performance and reliability is not something that you want since you could lose customers, in the case that you are running and online shop.

Conclusion

In conclusion, clustered website hosting is the right form of web hosting for you if you need that extra reliability that isn’t found with other forms of website hosting, for any reason such as the hosting environment in which your account is hosted is shared with other people or that you don’t have the budget to cover a dedicated server which might be able to meet the same criteria and reliability as a clustered website hosting environment would.

However, the reliability of clustered website hosting can come at a cost, since the cost of clustered website hosting is in most cases higher than that of other forms of web hosting, meaning that if you have a small budget and are after the reliability that is provided by clustered website hosting you will not be able to find a solution that will suit your needs - if you are after clustered website hosting in particular then you should try and increase your budget to cover the cost of clustered website hosting; if you are unable to increase your budget, then you should consider a higher range shared website hosting package or a lower range reseller hosting package since both of these should be able to more than fulfill your needs and should give you the room to expand which you might need for the future without the need to upgrade your web hosting package. So, if you are after reliability and in some cases value for money then you should consider clustered website hosting for your needs.

Monitoring Your VPS or Dedicated Server

One of the most important factors that you should be constantly monitoring with your VPS or dedicated server, especially if you host clients on it, is the uptime of it; this means that you should always be using some type of monitoring service to ensure that your VPS or dedicated server, and if it isn’t you need to ensure that you are notified of the down time ASAP so that you are able to sort the problem out yourself, or notify the support team of your web host to ensure that the down time caused is minimal and that your server will come back online ASAP.

If you are a web host which is providing a responsible and sensible service, then in your terms and conditions you will probably have conditions set out regarding up uptime, which in most cases states things such as if a customer’s service is down for over a certain amount of time, or if the monthly uptime record doesn’t meet the one which is guaranteed then customers are able to request a refund; this in itself should provide you with the motivation to fix a server problem if you have set such rules out in your terms and conditions, since most companies wouldn’t want a servers worth of customers requesting refunds since they don’t think they have been provided with the amount of uptime which has been guaranteed. Most web hosts use their own internal monitoring system for their servers, since in most cases it will alert them quicker to a problem than an external solution would since an internal system is most likely monitored more closely, but with an external solution in place as backup in case the internal one fails. One thing to consider is that most external monitoring services monitor your website or server from multiple geographically different locations which means that they are able to provide a more reliable source of information when it comes to checking to see whether your VPS or dedicated server is online or not when compared to a monitoring system which is monitoring your VPS or dedicated server from one location or from one country or data center, which means that the produced results might not always be accurate and reliable.

When considering uptime solutions for your VPS or dedicated server, you should always take into consideration the effect that a program might have on the performance of your VPS or dedicated server; for example if you use an internal solution then you might need to install an ‘agent’ program which posts data about your server back to the master monitoring node, since information such as the speed that your server’s CPU is running at and the amount of memory that your server has left are factors that can only be gained by internal access to your server unlike other factors such as whether certain services are running or not that can be found out easily via pinging the port which the service runs on. You want to try and maximize the uptime of your VPS or dedicated server, which means that you should optimize the programs that you have installed on it, so that they don’t use up too many resources since the most common reason for a server crashing is that there aren’t enough resources available to keep the operating system going, which means that it just crashes because it is unable to run for any longer on the scarce resources that are available for it.

To maximize the uptime of your VPS or dedicated server, in the case that you are running the Microsoft Windows Server operating system, you should ensure that you have Microsoft Update scheduled to run at a certain time, since in most cases it will require you to restart your machine once that you have installed the updates; if you schedule the updates to take place at a certain time of day when the server isn’t going to be accessed much, as such as midnight then you should be able to minimize the disruption that is caused to you and your customers. If you are using a VPS or dedicated server that you have purchased from a web hosting company, then you should ask them about the monitoring services that they are able to provide you with; if you have co-located your own dedicated server then you can always ask the data center in which your server is located about the monitoring services that they provide - although both solutions would be internal, the price that you would be charged might be less than that for an external service.

Uptime

As previously mentioned, you should try and maximize the uptime of your VPS or dedicated server to ensure that if you are hosting clients on the machine concerned, that they are happy with the level of service and uptime that you have provided them with; if you fail to provide them with a certain amount of uptime then in most cases they will request a refund - this will most likely happened if you have set out a sensible terms and conditions policy which states that if services that you provide fail to stay up for a certain percentage of a period of time, in most cases a month, customers can request for their money back.

If you are using your VPS or dedicated server to host one primary website, then you might find that your website is losing visitors since your server is unable to stay up for a respectable amount of time; this means that if you run a website which you use to make money, such as online shop or an advert supported website then you might also find that your income from your website is decreasing since the amount of visitors that you are receiving is decreasing as well. One way in which you can easily increase and uphold the uptime of your VPS or dedicated server is to optimize both the operating system and the programs that you run on your VPS; by doing this you are ensuring that there are more resources available for use by other programs that are on your VPS or dedicated server, since you have reduced the amount of resources that were being used by other programs that you have installed and running on your VPS or dedicated server hosting - an article which can help you with optimizing your VPS or dedicated server hosting for lower resource consumption can be found here.

If you are running a VPS or dedicated server that has low specifications, but is running cPanel then there is a new version of cPanel which you can use within your dedicated environment that will ensure that the amount of resources that cPanel uses is much less than what the standard version uses, which means that you are able to host more websites and domains on your VPS or dedicated server allowing you to use it as much as possible; a useful article discussing this new optimized version of cPanel and the changes that have been made in it can be found here.

If you are a web host that displays its uptime statistics on a part your website, then you should always try to maximize the uptime of your servers since if customers see a high percentage of uptime, then they are more likely to purchase a hosting package from you; this rule is more likely to apply to businesses and customers who require a high percentage of uptime to ensure that they are able to sell their products through their website still, in the case that they are running an online shop through their website. If you do need to carry out emergency maintenance such as the installation of new updates and hardware that will require for a server to be switched off for a certain amount of time or for one to be restarted then you should try and schedule these tasks to be carried out late in the evening or in the middle of the night since less disruption to customers will be caused at this time. If you do schedule for maintenance tasks to be carried out during the day then you could annoy a large amount of your customers or website visitors, and might even lead to some leaving your company or going elsewhere for the information that they might need; this is because most visitors come to websites during the day which means that daytime maintenance would cause the most amount of disruption to people which is the mean reason as to why it should be avoided.

Monitoring Systems

One of the most important tools which you should use when trying to maximize the uptime of your VPS or dedicated server are monitoring systems, since they are able to alert quickly if your VPS or dedicated server goes down, or if in the case of an internal monitoring system, whether there is an internal problem with the server such as a low amount of memory available for use by the operating system that you are running as well as the programs that you have installed on your server; this means that you are able to be notified of any problem as soon as possible, allowing you to alert your web host’s support team of the problem so that they can fix it for you, or so that you can then fix the problem yourself. If you are to use an internal monitoring system for the monitoring of your VPS or dedicated server, then you are able to gain the ability of being able to monitor internal resources of your server such as the amount of CPU which is available for use by the operating system and programs that you have installed on your server, as well as the amount of memory that is available for use by the programs that you have installed on your server; however, one thing that you are losing with the use of internal monitoring systems is that you aren’t able to monitor your server from different parts of the world to ensure that it is reachable from almost any country that visitors to your website might originate from.

If you choose to use an external monitoring system for your server than you are able to have the status of your server monitored from multiple geographical locations, thus ensuring the most accurate results when producing a chart to show the uptime of your server; with the use of external monitoring systems you are unable to monitor the status of particular resources within your server, you can however monitor the status of different services that are running on different ports of your server. If you are hosting clients on your VPS or dedicated server then it is important that you use an external monitoring system that is able to provide you with accurate results and that are able to produce graphs for you; this is because you might have customers complaining about the uptime of a particular server, which means that with the use of graphs and other material you can easily prove them wrong as they can be used as evidence.

If you don’t actively monitor your VPS or dedicated server then you might find that it is going down without you knowing; this can prove to be annoying for you since if you use the server concerned as an email server, then you might find that any email which has tried to be sent to has gone astray and that if you are using it as a web server, then your website visitors won’t be returning since your website has been down for too long - if you host clients on it then you might have some of them asking to leave you since the server has been down for a period of time with no communication on your half. If you are to purchase an external monitoring solution, then you should always take into consideration the number of external locations from which it monitors your server or website, since the higher the number the more accurate the results produced are likely to be, and it also means that the monitoring vendor has plenty of failover is one of the monitoring servers that they use was to fail; with the use of geographically located monitoring systems, you are also able to ensure that your website is accessible from different countries - for example it might be accessible from one country but not from another, for a reason such as the country from which your website does work doesn’t employ a country level web block, whereas the country from which your website doesn’t work has deployed one since they don’t want citizens viewing certain material on the internet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the use of either internal or external monitoring systems, you are able to maximize the uptime of your VPS Hosting or dedicated server, thus ensuring that your customers, if you host them on your server, are happy with the service and level of uptime that you have been able to provide them with; you are also ensuring if you use your server for other purposes such as for receiving emails or for a website that emails are received as often as possible, and that visitors will still return to your website thus increasing your amount of revenue that you earn from adverts if applicable. You can also optimize your VPS or dedicated server as well as the programs that it runs to ensure that the amount of resources used is far lower, thus ensuring that you can install some more applications on your VPS or dedicated server or leave it as it is so that it is able to run fast; if running cPanel, then you can use the new optimized version since this will run much fast on a lower specification machine since it has been designed to take up less memory and utilize less CPU.

If you choose to use an internal monitoring system then you gain the ability to monitor internal factors of your server, such as the amount of CPU and memory that is available for use by the operating system and programs that you have installed on your VPS or dedicated server - this is very important if you are running a server which is hosting web hosting and design clients, since you don’t want their websites going down because of a lack of resources. Other factors which you might want to consider when choosing a monitoring system is the accuracy of the results that are collected and in turn produced; for example, with an external monitoring system you will want to be considering how spread the multiple geographical monitoring stations are and with the case of an internal monitoring system, you should find out whether internal server resources can be monitored or not - this will give you an advantage since you will be able to monitor all aspects of your server then, both internal and external which means that accurate results should be produced.

Optimizing Performance of your Virtual Private Server

VPS are the latest range of hosting products that have taken the market by storm, since they are a cheaper alternative to Dedicated Servers because of their ability to provide you with a dedicated environment such as that provided by a dedicated servers but at a fraction of the price; this means that they are a fill in for the large price gap that sites between regular shared and reseller hosting packages and dedicated servers. VPS are able to run any type of software as long as its compatible with the specifications of the VPS, since you are installing the software within your own dedicated environment which means that any actions which you carry out on your VPS Hosting are unable to affect the other VPS which are hosted on the same node as you; this means that you are able to use your VPS Hosting service for a variety of purposes, just as long as the programs which you want to use are unable to conflict with each other since this would mean that your VPS would crash easily and neither of the conflicting programs would be unable to function correctly within your VPS Hosting.

When you are first provided with your VPS, you might find that there are already certain applications installed on it which you might want to remove since they might not serve any purpose to you because they are not the right programs for you; by removing these programs you are also ensuring that you don’t have unneeded programs on your VPS server which are taking up disk space and memory which might be better used by another program that you already have installed on your VPS or by one which you are wanting to install on your VPS so that you can use it for what you want. An important thing to consider is that with the more programs that you install on your VPS hosting, the slower that it is likely to become, meaning that you should always consider carefully the programs that you want to install on your VPS hosting since you don’t want to install programs that you don’t need since they will be taking up needed disk space and memory, as well as CPU if they are to be running as well; this means that if you do want to use your VPS for multiple purposes, then you should consider buying multiple VPS hosting plans for your needs since it means that you will be able to run all your services plus more if you have multiple VPS hosting plans that you are able to use.

You should always optimize your VPS hosting as well as the programs that you have installed on it to ensure that you are able to achieve the best possible performance from it, since if your VPS is slow and in some cases unusable then you should consider finding another web host or ask to be moved to a different node since you don’t want to be paying for a slow VPS hosting service; you will be able to notice a performance increase in both terms of the programs that you have installed on your VPS as well as in the VPS itself - you might even be able to install another couple of programs if you are able to get your VPS to function with speed with the existing programs that you have installed on your VPS Hosting.

It is also important that you check the performance of your VPS at regular intervals - especially the amount of disk space and RAM which you have free, as well as the average CPU utilization if your VPS; these three factors are the main ones which should always be checked since they are the three different main resources that programs utilize when they are running - they use CPU to carry out their main operations, RAM to temporarily store program related data and disk space to place their main files to ensure that they can run without any problems. If you find that either of the main resources are being utilized too much then you should consider uninstalling the offending program or even upgrading your VPS hosting package to the next higher one that is provided by your web hosting company; although upgrading your VPS will mean more money, the benefits to you in the long term will be far better than the negatives which could affect you if you don’t upgrade, and uninstalling the offending program might prove to be inconvenient for you since it might be one of the main programs that you use on your VPS.

Apache/HTTPD

Apache is the world’s most popular web server, and has a large market share of over 50% - it is also referred to sometimes as ‘HTTPD’ since this is the name of its host process when run on a Linux distribution; Apache is known to be a large resource hogger since there are many modifications and add-ons which you can use to expand its use and capabilities, although these can in some cases add to the low performance of Apache on a VPS when someone using it has not optimized it correctly to reduce its resource usage. If you are planning to use Apache on a system in conjunction with other programs, especially other resource hoggers such as MySQL, it is important that you optimize Apache to ensure that it uses as little resources as possible since it could end up affecting the overall performance of your VPS server, and in some cases might even lead to your VPS server crashing; a crashing VPS is the last thing you ant since it will affect your overall uptime, and if you are using your VPS to host other people’s website whether they be friends or clients, they will start to get annoyed if their website is online and offline at intermittent times since it means that people accessing their websites when they are down will not be able to do so.

The first factor for Apache that you should consider when optimizing it to run better on your VPS is whether you want to load certain modules dynamically or to make them static; this factor is an important one to consider since if you dynamically load modules, then you will be able to cut down the amount of memory which is used by Apache, since modules will only be loaded when they are needed, since if you were to make modules static then they will be running all the time along with Apache meaning that the amount of memory used will be more constant but is more likely to be higher than if you were to make modules load dynamically when they were needed. If you have multiple modules attached to your Apache install, then you should consider optimizing the configuration files of these modules to ensure that they are able to run efficiently just as Apache will be able to once you have made the necessary changes to its configuration files as well as other files that it is based on to ensure that it uses less of your VPS’s resources; by modifying and optimizing the configuration files of modules that you have installed for use with Apache, you are able to ensure that the modules concerned will be using up less resources than they would have been if they were not optimized to operate in a more controlled and less resource intensive way.

You can modify modules all you want to ensure that you reduce the amount of resources which are used by them, however, you should always optimize your actual Apache install since this is where the largest amount of resources can be saved then you get around to finishing your VPS optimization work; the most basic way to improve Apache’s performance to ensure that it isn’t using so much of your system’s resources is to clean up the main configuration file by simply removing a few commented lines which can benefit you hugely since it means that several hundred unneeded directives will no longer be used whilst Apache is running which in turn allows both your VPS server and Apache to run faster - after that you can then move on to uninstalling certain elements and other parts of Apache that do not benefit you in any way since they may not be used and might be taking up needed resources.

One final method that you can use to reduce Apache’s resource usage within your VPS server is to disable certain parts of it which you might not want to use at this point in time, but might come in useful at a point in the future; if you find that there are certain components within Apache that you don’t need and feel that they might be using up a certain amount of your VPS’s resources, then you should consider removing them - it is suggested that you disable Apache logs since they are a time consuming Apache process and when they are being written, Apache tends to use up quite a bit of memory which is the reason why you should disable them unless you absolutely need them.

MySQL

MySQL is arguably the world’s most popular open source database system, for the main reason that it can be easily integrated with PHP based websites and applications to ensure maximum use of it; it is also commonly used in conjunction with the resource hogging Apache web server, which means that with MySQL and Apache running at their best on a lower specification VPS Hosting plan, you will find that you will be running into problems whether it be either of them crashing or your entire VPS crashing since your resources are just being exhausted by both programs.

If you are using a website which is based on a MySQL database, then you should certainly consider optimizing MySQL since you want your web pages to load as fast as possible, and if MySQL itself isn’t functioning all that fast then you shouldn’t expect your web pages to be loading quickly either; this is because if your website is waiting for access to a MySQL database, then your website will load at the speed which is dictated by how fast MySQL is running - for example if MySQL is running and processing queries slowly then your website will load slowly since it isn’t able to gather the necessary information from the database which is trying to be accessed, and if your website fails to access the database at all then you might find that your website’s visitors are being presented with error messages from the web server that you are using.

One of the main things you can do to ensure that MySQL is able to run fast and effectively within your VPS is to ensure that MySQL has its dynamic durability settings enabled - this will mean setting a certain value for the ‘innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit‘ option which is located within the MySQL configuration file; there are 3 main values which you are able to change this option to, these are: 0 - with this value, Innodb will flush the log approximately once per second, 1 - this should be chosen if you have high durability requirements since log records will be automatically pushed to the disk on transaction commit, 2 - this will ensure that data is flushed to the operating system cache. If you have not installed MySQL yet, then there are certain options which you should consider changing once you have installed it within your VPS Hosting environment. The first option which you should consider changing is ‘key_buffer size‘; this option can end up taking up as much as 30-40% of the memory which you have available on your VPS, although this is only really applicable if you have chosen to use MyISAM tables within your MySQL database server setup to serve your website. Another option which you should consider changing is ‘innodb_buffer_pool_size‘; this option is only applicable to you if your tables are using the Innodb framework since they are much more sensitive to the buffer pool size than MyISAM tables are.

Conclusion

In conclusion, with the optimization of both the Apache web server and the MySQL database server which you will most likely have installed on your VPS server, you can easily reduce the amount of resources used on your VPS meaning that your websites will be able to load fast, and that you have the space to install more programs to expand the uses of your VPS if you feel the need to; by having a faster VPS, you are also able to ensure that your VPS will be up more than it would be if more resources were being used and you weren’t able to cut down on its resource usage.

It is apparent that with optimized Apache performance that there are probably components and modules which you have attached to your Apache installation which aren’t necessarily needed and might be using up resources which you could otherwise be using for other programs which you have installed on your VPS server; this means that you should always check and optimize the different parts of your Apache installation to ensure that there aren’t any components or modules installed and running which you don’t necessarily need on your VPS server.

Another improvement which has been discussed is how your databases will be able to be accessed quicker since MySQL will be optimized to run faster but at the same time use less resources which means that both you and your server will benefit. It has also been shown that with optimized Apache and MySQL installations, you are able to cut down the amount of time that it takes for your website to load for your visitors at their computers, meaning that you might even want to consider making your web pages more graphic heavy for example if you want to take advantage of the faster loading times; however, a faster loading CMS based website will only be achieved with optimization of both applications, whereas a static website will only need an optimized Apache installation since static pages don’t need to and are unable to access any sort of database application, even if it is installed on the same machine as the static page is being hosted on.

VPS and Dedicated Server Hosting Terms and Their Meanings

VPS and dedicated server hosting are two types of dedicated hosting; VPS is also a partially a type of shared web hosting since the CPU on the node is shared amongst all the VPS on the server unequally in some cases. Due to the technical nature of VPS servers and dedicated servers, there are many different terms which you will come across when searching for either a VPS or dedicated server package. Before purchasing either, it is important that you know the meanings of these terms since they could end up effecting your final decision when you come to purchase either; if you don’t know the meanings of these complicated terms whilst looking for or when you have purchased either a VPS or a dedicated server, you could end up with something that you don’t want because it isn’t what you need since they might not actually fit your requirements. One thing to note is that some web hosts don’t offer a money back guarantee on dedicated servers due to the costs of setting them up; this could mean that if you have ended up with a dedicated server that doesn’t fit your requirements because you didn’t know the meanings of some technical terms originally, you will not be able to get your money back. However, the story is different with VPS since many hosts do offer a money back guarantee on VPS servers since they are a type of shared hosting as well as dedicated hosting meaning that there are no costs involved in setting them up; this means that if you do not know the meanings of some VPS and dedicated server< related technical terms to begin with, you can start with a VPS because if you find out about something that you don't understand or receive something that turns out not to fit your requirements, you are able to get your money back.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is something referred to as traffic, and is the amount of data that can be transferred between your website and the client computers which visit it. Bandwidth is normally measured in gigbytes (GB), but used to be measured in megabytes (MB) before the internet became the busy traffic exchange that it is now. In dedicated server terms, bandwidth also refers to the data transfer rate (normally both up and down) that the server will receive; in most cases dedicated servers are connected to 1GB/ps internal networks and then fed through to the internet via 100mb/ps uplinks - the same can also be applied to virtual private servers, but the NIC (network interface card) on the host node is shared between all VPS which are hosted by the machine. When looking for a VPS, you should always consider the amount of bandwidth that you will receive on the package concerned since this will effect how many visitors your website can recieve; if you are a web host or a reseller then the amount of bandwidth assigned to you could effect how many clients that you are able to host on your VPS.

Disk Space

Disk space is the amount of space that you are able to use to host your files, or clients. Disk space is a valuable resource, and since the amount of disk space the host node has is ‘limited’, you are in most cases unable to purchase extra disk space, and your only choice if you do want more disk space is to upgrade to the next VPS hosting plan that your web host offers. The amount of disk space that you have can dictate how much you are able to host; for example, if you had an account with 200MB (megabytes) of disk space then you will not be able to host many images or videos for your website, one another thing to note is that emails take up a certain amount of disk space, thus reducing the amount that you are able to use.

RAM

RAM stands for ‘Random Access Memory’ and is the amount of usable memory which is assigned to your VPS. RAM for VPS comes in two different forms: guaranteed RAM and burstable RAM. Guaranteed RAM is the amount of RAM which has been uniquely assigned to your VPS, and will always be available for your VPS to use - in other words this is the amount of RAM which you ‘own’ and cannot be touched by other VPS that are hosted on the same node as you; burstable RAM (sometimes referred to as swap RAM) is left over RAM on the physical node which can be accessed by any VPS which may have run out of guaranteed RAM and just needs a bit more so that it can get it’s activities back on track - this type of RAM is shared amongst all the VPS on the host node meaning that it might not always be available for your VPS to use. The amount of guaranteed RAM that you have assigned to your VPS is crucial for your the performance of it; this is because if you don’t have enough RAM then certain programs might not be able to run at all, and if your VPS runs out of free RAM at a certain point and there isn’t any burstable RAM available, then your VPS might just crash or be shutdown by the VPS daemon software.

Root Access / Remote Desktop Access

Root access is the name given to the ability of being able to access a Linux VPS over SSH using the root account; Remote Desktop access is its Windows counterpart. This is one important feature of VPS hosting over other types of hosting which fall below it; for example with root / administrator access to your VPS you are able to administer any part of it you want since you are able to access any part of it, the most crucial point though is that you are able to install any program you want since the actions of the program will not have any effect on the other VPS that are hosted on the same node as you. With the ability to install any program that you want, you are open to a whole load of idea on what you could use your VPS for; if your VPS is powerful enough then you might want to run several different programs or services off it to make the most of it, or even sell hosting on it so that you can make a return on your investment within a VPS.

Virtuozzo / OpenVZ

Virtuozzo is the software produced by SWSoft to enable web hosts to host VPS servers in physical nodes; the program is available for both Linux and Windows. Virtuozzo adds a virtualisation layer to the main node to ensure that the VPS which will come to be hosted on it do not interfere with each other in any way. OpenVZ is an open source alternative to Virtuozzo for Linux; it has most of the features that Virtuozzo has, but does not have the Virtuozzo Power Panel which is used by customers to manage the basic needs of their VPS. There are however other panels which can be used alongside OpenVZ to enable customers to manage the basic needs of their VPS, an example of which being HyperVM which is made by LXLabs.

Private Name Servers

Private name servers are name servers that can be created under the branding of a domain of your choice. For example, with private name servers you are able to have ‘ns1.yourdomain.com’ and ‘ns2.yourdomain.com’, both of which should point to separate IPs - most VPS come with at least two individual IP addresses anyway. If you are a web host or website designer, then using private name servers is a big ‘must’ since it can help improve your corporate identity, as well as extend it. Private name servers are only achievable on VPS hosting and dedicated servers due to the nature of IP address assigning; however, in some cases it is achievable on reseller hosting but never on standard shared website hosting.

Control Panels

Most VPS web hosts offer some sort of control panel as such with their VPS packages - some offer one for free, others you have to pay to receive a control panel. Most VPS control panels give you the ability to create multiple ‘client’ accounts and host multiple domains along with many features such as email account creation and managements, FTP account creation and management as well as file manager so that you can manage the contents of the web space of the domain concerned whilst you are on the road as well as an auto-script installer to help get your website started. A control panel is the perfect solution for you if you are new to VPS hosting and have no or little knowledge of server administration since they give you a web based graphical interface which you are able to use to administer your server and websites; if you have a good level of server administration knowledge then you might not need a control panel since you will probably have the skills to set your VPS up to the way you want it to be.