Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual Private server hosting is a type of web hosting that can be labeled as both shared and dedicated website hosting in terms of functionality. A Virtual Private server is held on a physical hosting node with many other Virtual Private servers, meaning that this makes it a type of shared web hosting; at the same time, a Virtual Private server is provided with its own resources and is provided with its own dedicated environment in which users can carry out commands on their VPS without disrupting other Virtual Private servers hosted on the same node – this makes it a type of dedicated web hosting.

A Virtual Private server is able to function in the same way as a dedicated server, meaning that you can install any application of your choice, and tweak the server to work and perform in the manner that you want it to function in. Although each Virtual Private server is assigned its own amount of guaranteed RAM, or in another words RAM that will always be available for that VPS, other resources such as the hosting node’s CPU are normally shared by all the Virtual Private servers hosted allowing one VPS to use up the entire CPU. However, most web hosting providers use software that ensures that each Virtual Private server isn’t allowed to go past using a certain amount of CPU.

In terms of operating system, you can get Virtual Private servers running both Windows OS and Linux OS meaning that there is more than enough choice and a VPS available to suit everyone’s needs. The most popular VPS Linux distributions at current are Ubuntu and CentOS, although more or less any Linux distribution can be used on a Linux VPS Hosting regardless of the distribution that the hosting node is running. Windows Server 2003 is the main Windows operating system offered by VPS hosting providers at current; however, once the most popular Virtualization software in the web hosting business, Virtuozzo, supports Windows Server 2008 you will see alot more providers offering Windows Server 2008 VPS.

Linux Virtual Private servers are capable of running basic to medium level PHP and MySQL websites, although this is normally dependent on the specifications of your Linux VPS. For example, if you have a VPS with 256MB running the cPanel control panel, then you will find that it won’t run PHP and MySQL websites as well as VPS of the same specification without cPanel, the reason being that cPanel like any other control panel consumes server resources with ease. Windows Virtual Private servers may not run ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server applications with ease though; Microsoft SQL Server is a notorious server resource hogger, and since most Virtual Private servers are low specification, a Virtual Private server is no place for a Microsoft SQL Server installation.

If you have a high specification Virtual Private server, then you may want to take advantage of the fact that you could install a control panel on it and then resell the disk space and bandwidth of your Virtual Private server as your own web hosting. The most popular control panel for mid-range VPS hosting is cPanel; this is normally run on Linux Virtual Private servers and allows for the setup and management of both shared and reseller web hosting accounts. cPanel can be a bit of a resource hogger, which is one of the reasons that it should only be run on a high specification Virtual Private server. Control panels are also available for Windows basic VPS, meaning that you could offer hosting on your Windows Virtual Private server. The most popular control panel for Windows VPS hosting is Plesk, which in itself can also be a resource hogger.

In conclusion, VPS hosting is a type of web hosting than can be classed as more of a type of dedicated web hosting than shared web hosting due to the fact that you have flexibility in the programs that you can install on your Virtual Private server. Unlike a shared web hosting package, you are given your own dedicated environment and IP address that you can do as you like in; this means that you can use your server for an array of purposes from a mail server to a web server. However, a VPS can’t be used for the hosting of all services, such as a basic VPS wouldn’t be able to cope with a large PHP/MySQL application, just like a Windows VPS can’t cope with a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 installation.