Virtual Private Server Complete Guide: Learn More About it

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Servers are an important part of a company’s IT management, especially if the entity’s website or software is an essential item for the functioning of its business model, such as what happens in e-commerce, for example.

Ensuring the integrity and availability of these systems in order to provide the best customer experience is essential to remain competitive and respected in the market. However, you need to understand which server configuration is most suitable for your company.

VPS servers are one of the solutions available that present a great cost-benefit ratio, an excellent structure for hosting your system and very advanced and flexible management features. The purpose of this material is precisely to present you with a complete guide about VPS servers and their main features.

For this, we are going to discuss the most frequent questions related to the topic from the most basic ones such as: what is the VPS server? How it works? Even deeper questions that explain in detail its advantages, limitations, how virtualization works and its differences from other types of servers.

You will also understand what needs a VPS is best suited for and learn about how to choose the right type of VPS for your project. Curious? Ready to answer all these questions? So stay tuned and happy reading!

What is a VPS server?

VPS is an acronym that represents the term Virtual Private Server which translated means Virtual Private Server. It is a type of hosting that uses virtualization techniques to become a more advantageous option between common shared hosting and expensive dedicated servers.

In practice, the VPS works as a powerful physical server that is compartmentalized in order to generate several servers that work virtually and in isolation from each other.

The great advantage of this model is that even though hardware resources such as processing capacity, available RAM, traffic level and disk space are, in fact, being shared at the same time, they are also each dedicated to a single virtual server. .

Thus, each account has an independent administration, which gives the VPS server great freedom to configure the system according to the client’s needs, being able to customize programs, scripts and processes as desired.

So, we can say that, in practice, a VPS Server operates in the same way as a dedicated server, even though it has a lower processing power compared to it, but allowing for lower server costs .

I believe you have started to get a feel for the concept of a VPS server. If you still have doubts, don’t worry. In the next chapters, we will delve further into the topic and discover details about how this server works and features. Keep following!

How it works?

As you have just seen in the previous chapter, the VPS solution works in the same way as a dedicated server, but in practice it is a shared environment with different users. You also saw that this feature is only possible thanks to the virtualization process that manages to run different operating systems on common hardware that do not interfere with each other and that operate in isolation.

Great, with that concept very clear in your mind, it’s easier to explain the next item called Hypervisor. The “Hypervisor” is nothing more than a software capable of implementing the division of the base hardware of a dedicated server into smaller compartments, slicing each of these modules into virtual machines, thus creating a VPS.

Thus, the resources of each compartment, or virtual machine, are configured according to the needs of the contracting user, forming different servers within a single server, or rather, different private spaces within a single dedicated server.

Another important point that needs to be reinforced is the independence of each server, because unlike what happens in shared hosting, the performance of your portal is not influenced by other sites hosted on the same server. VPS servers are not affected by the activity of yours, as well as their own Operating Systems that facilitate the control of the applications with which you want to work.

Finally, it remains to understand how a VPS server works according to its configuration, being classified in two different ways: semi-managed and managed servers. After choosing the plan, the managed server providers perform an initial configuration and then provide a control panel for managing the system.

In this way, after choosing the desired characteristics, the company contracting the server will not need to have other concerns and can still count on the support services available 7 days a week throughout the year.

The providers of semi-managed servers also offer an initial configuration, but much more basic, with the contracting company being responsible for the implementation and monitoring of the resources with which it wants to work.

These two modalities serve different purposes, but we can see a certain advantage for the managed VPS server, especially if we adopt the point of view of ease of implementation.

What are your advantages?

Now that you’ve learned about what a VPS server is and how it works, it’s time to get to know a little more about the main benefits that these servers provide for people and companies. Check out!

1. Dedicated resources

With VPS servers you have machine resources that are dedicated to your account such as: processing capacity, disk space and memory. SSD disks (10 times faster than traditional disks) store website data providing superior performance to all hosted applications.

2. Freedom for customization

Through an administrative panel it is possible for the user to manage their hosting and adapt the server settings according to their needs. As an example we can mention the ability to customize the DNS according to your domain, the installation and execution of different applications.

3. Facilitated growth

VPS servers are an excellent choice for companies that are in a period of growth. Sites that started small and are now starting to emerge are on the threshold between the limitations of a shared server, without demanding yet for large resources present in a dedicated server. With VPS you can migrate to a larger plan as your site demands more space, traffic and speed, facilitating your expansion process.

4. Low cost

The values ​​for hiring a VPS server vary according to the providers and the type of plan chosen by the customer. Even so, the cost-effectiveness of VPS servers is very relevant, as it is possible to count on the features of dedicated servers for a much lower price, much more competitive, especially for growing sites.

5. Security Features

Concern about the security of your data and information is remedied by the resources available in vps hosting india. There are several layers of security that involve IPTables Firewall, SSL Certificate, Centralized DDoS Protection and much more.

6. KVM Virtualization

VPS servers guarantee autonomous, independent and high performance virtual environments thanks to the use of KVM virtualization. This represents more peace of mind and security, as the performance of your portal (unlike shared hosting) is not affected by the performance of other neighboring portals present on the same server.

How are they different from other types of hosting?

Types of web hosting server are stipulated according to the level of customization of the servers that the providers make available to the users, also varying in performance and price. To learn more, check out the comparison made between VPS servers and other types of hosting below.

Shared Hosting

This is the type of hosting most used by websites and blogs that are still starting to operate and have less traffic. As the name implies, in this hosting your website uses the same physical server as many other clients from the same provider. The lack of dedicated resources results in lower performance compared to others, as the operation of your sites is directly affected by the demands of each other.

Thus, if any “neighboring site” has a peak of access, the loading speed of your site’s pages can increase causing slowness and as a consequence end up affecting the visitor’s experience of your site. Another characteristic of this model is the lack of customization of server configurations, with the provider company being the only one capable of executing them.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is the epitome of hosting services as it gives users complete freedom and control over their resources.

Usually a physical server is rented for this purpose, giving the portal greater flexibility and speed. This is a very suitable solution for sites that have a large volume of traffic and, due to its cost, it may not be the best option for blogs or smaller sites at the beginning of their journey.

Different from what happens in VPS servers, not only are the software resources such as applications and the operating system that can be customized according to the user’s taste, but also the server’s hardware resources, as they are available exclusively to meet the needs of the user. contractor.

Cloud Hosting

This type of hosting does not use just one server, but a set of servers that operate in the cloud storing each recent copy of your website. This feature allows cloud hosting to never be down, as traffic is directed to other servers whenever a server is very busy.

VPS and Cloud Center are not mutually exclusive tools, in fact many providers prefer to combine the two technologies by offering linux vps hosting plans services based on a cloud infrastructure. By doing so, it is possible to provide superior performance and more reliability to virtual servers.

WordPress hosting

It is a type of Hosting offered specifically to WordPress users. This service has its own settings and has specific features such as one-click installation and pre-installed plugins. Providers that offer WordPress hosting usually do so through a shared hosting service.

Configuring a WordPress site on a VPS server is possible, but those who make this choice will not have access to many customization features, even if they can install a hosting environment that is more adapted to their needs.

Who is VPS for?

A VPS server can be a great choice for those companies that are in the process of expanding their websites and blogs, or who need greater control over their applications. Sites that demand resources available only on dedicated servers and that, at the same time, are well served by the processing power and memory of a shared server, are usually the ideal customer profile for a VPS server.

So, if you send emails more punctually and don’t have a very high flow of hits. If you want to have your own or customized Firewall and if you want to make global changes to PHP variables and other server parameters, know that the VPS Server is for you.

By opting for VPS servers, you will be able to count on great flexibility to perform customizations and consume more resources such as disk space, memory and processing as the growth of your website or web project progresses and demands greater performance.

Programmers and Web Developers are also great candidates for VPS servers, as it is where they find the ideal way to carry out tests, create private servers, develop new environments, maintain systems, install Ruby, JSP (Java/Tomcat ), Perl, PostgreSQL, Python (Django) and more.

Basically, we can define as a rule to indicate VPS servers the observation that your project, even if it is not yet very large to the point of requiring the immediate purchase of a dedicated server, continually collides with the usage limits stipulated by shared hosting.

Other medium to large projects in terms of the number of hits and views such as institutional sites, most famous blogs, e-commerces and gaming sites, for example, are also important candidates for this type of solution.

Your limitations?

After knowing the advantages of VPS servers, it is also necessary to highlight some possible disadvantages and limitations that these servers can present, after all, not everything is flowers when we talk about technology. The main one is perhaps the need for specialized knowledge for its administration.

To get around this problem, some providers (more attentive to the market) already offer more intuitive control panels very close to those existing in common shared hosting. With that in mind, here’s a tip. If you don’t have technical knowledge on the subject, look for VPS servers that are simple to manage like cPanel or similar ones.

Another important point of evaluation is to check the plans available for hiring and compare them with the demands of your company, as very limited hosting plans over time will make you migrate to dedicated servers, which would represent a big jump in costs that can be avoided. with the search for the best packages from other providers available in the market.

How is the virtualization process?

The time has come to deepen our knowledge about the virtualization process, after all, if we really want to understand the operation of VPS Servers, it is essential that we approach the operation of virtualization technology.

In a very objective way, we can understand virtualization as a tool capable of slicing the computational resources of a dedicated server, distributing its total capacity in different compartments, creating virtual machines for several users that perform their functions independently of each other.

One of the great benefits of this technology is to allow full use of existing hardware resources such as: CPU, memory and storage space. Therefore, whenever any of these components is being underutilized, it can be made available for use by another user.

Virtualization makes it possible to create multiple operating systems that run on the same physical server. In this way, the computational environment operates in an independent structure, enabling the execution of tasks and free applications that provide maximum performance without incurring waste.

We can therefore conclude that it is thanks to virtualization that VPS servers represent such an attractive solution among server types and hosting providers.

How to choose the right type of VPS for your project?

With everything we’ve presented so far, it’s no wonder you’ve already decided to adopt a VPS server for your needs. However, what is the correct way to choose an ideal VPS server for your project?

Below we separate some important items that you need to consider so that your decision-making is as informed and correct as possible.

Choose solutions tailored to your needs

To hire a hosting solution you need to be aware of the needs that your project has. Only then will you be able to choose plans that suit your profile. Have all the information related to your traffic level and growth rate at hand.

This data can be easily collected through Google Analytics and they will give an initial idea of ​​the amount of memory and storage space will be needed for the contract and its respective cost.

Understand VPS Server Management Levels

Understanding the three levels of managing a VPS server is critical to making a decision about which service to hire. Basically in an unmanaged VPS the hosting service provider is not responsible for the management, unlike semi-managed and managed services.

The difference between the last two is that in a semi-managed service, the provider offers some form of management to the user through an administration panel to configure some basic features. In the case of managed services, it is only the provider who is responsible for correcting errors and updating the operating system.

Check your level of knowledge on the subject.

As we saw earlier, the choice between the different management levels implies the contractor’s manageability. Therefore, before choosing the best plan for your demand, check your level of knowledge about server management, because as we have seen, each level requires a greater or lesser degree of technical management skill.

For example, if you don’t understand anything about server configuration, the best option would be to adopt a pre-configured managed VPS that also has a support service. Now, if you already have expertise in the area, knowing how to configure servers and the ability to ensure the security of your project’s data, opting for a semi-managed or unmanaged VPS may be your best path, obviously always taking into account the cost of each solution.

Watch out for security

When administering a website, observing the features and security standards adopted by providers is essential to make a good choice of hosting. Therefore, check if services such as automatic periodic backup and SSL certificate installation are offered.

So far we can understand that shared website hosting plans represent major disadvantages for growing websites and blogs, as their performance is at the mercy of the level of operation of other websites hosted on these providers. VPS servers, on the other hand, are hosted in environments that operate without external interference, which guarantees more autonomy and security.

As with a dedicated server , the VPS has great customization advantages thanks to virtualization technology and at a much more advantageous cost. Thus, VPS servers can be considered an intermediate solution for portals that demand superior service, but at a more affordable price.

Therefore, it is necessary to carefully analyze the solutions available on the market and obtain the one that best fits your needs and the current moment in which your project is. Making a good choice means not only giving your website a higher performance, but also boosting the success of your marketing and relationship strategy as a whole, impacting your visitors’ experience and contributing to the continuity of your project in the medium and long term. deadline.

Interested in learning more about the options and features that a VPS server can offer? So, share this material on your social networks and contribute to the dissemination of this content.