Has VPS Hosting Finally Replaced Dedicated Hosting?

As server hosting evolves, a more clearly-defined gap between virtual private servers and dedicated hosting has begun to emerge. For many small and medium-sized businesses, a VPS has become the hosting platform of choice, and there is some evidence to suggest that VPS hosting may be on the way to replacing dedicated servers as the go-to hosting solution.

The Rise of the Commercial VPS

There was a time – not too long ago – when only two options for hosting were available to you: dedicated hosting and shared web hosting. Shared hosting allowed for theoretically unlimited bandwidth and storage, but often had no guarantee on the amount of resources you would have access to. In other words, it was great for small websites, but awful if you needed server-heavy applications. Dedicated servers cost more, but bought you the use of an entire physical server, including all memory and CPU resources. With the increase in virtualized technology and the rise of the cloud, the third option of VPS hosting emerged. In virtual server hosting, you are given a portion of a server to use as your own, and though you share it with others, your OS has no idea that it is not alone, and has no interaction with others on the server. With a cheaper cost and performance almost as reliable as that of dedicated servers, VPS hosting has seen a steady increase as virtual server performance has increased and security has improved.

VPS Advantages – Customization

A VPS begins its life as a single, physical server that is located off-site from your business and managed by a hosting company. The company then cuts up the server into slices or sections that are sold to companies that need server space. As a customer, you are able to initially choose the size of “slice” you want. It is important to understand that in a VPS all user data is located on the same server, but each one can run their own OS or set of applications without interfering with each other. Resources, however, are finite. Many companies will offer a guarantee about how much performance you can expect, and will offer you “burst” resources, or a higher allocation, when they are not actively being taken up by other users. From the very beginning, VPS hosting allows you to customize your experience.

VPS Advantages – Price

Virtual private servers are cheaper than dedicated servers because you are not the only one responsible for the cost of the server. This means you can start with a small plot of virtual land and upgrade as necessary, only increasing in size and scope when it makes sense for you to do so. Along with this ability to start small comes the benefit of not having to wait for hardware upgrades in order to increase your virtual footprint. With dedicated virtual server hosting, once you have maximized your use of the server, you will need to buy a second one or wait until hardware upgrades have been made. In a VPS situation, you can choose to upgrade or downgrade on the fly so long as there is still space available on the server – and all maintenance is handled by your hosting provider.

Hardware, Performance and the Cloud

Because of the scalable nature of virtual private hosting, hardware can be added or removed without affecting your performance. On a day-to-day basis, you will be guaranteed a certain amount of uptime, and able to reboot your portion of the server should you need to, without affecting others. In addition, a VPS solution can give you the advantage of being ready to easily move to cloud hosting should the need arise, as the basic technology is the same. In the cloud, hosting takes the form of multiple, redundant servers that share your data instead of a single VPS, but the same concepts of server virtualization and shared space apply, making the cloud transition far less daunting.

While on paper a dedicated server may be able to offer more pure computing power, virtual dedicated hosting is on the rise, especially among SMBs because it is easy to get into, easy to scale, and easy to use. You can use whatever OS and applications you prefer, are insulated from other users, and are setting yourself up for easy migration to the cloud whenever you and your business are ready.