VPS & virtual servers – the vServer guide
You are looking for a suitable hosting offer for your company. You have certainly come across vServer (Virtual Server) or VPS (Virtual Private Server) during your search. You may have heard the term VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server). How exactly do these server types differ and what criteria should you look out for when making your selection? With this guide, we would like to draw your attention to the important points.
Server Advisor about vServer, VPS, Dedicated Server – represented by question marks and lines over a hand
Dedicated Server, Virtual Server & VPS – simply explained
What is a Dedicated Server – a definition
A dedicated server is an actual, i.e. physically existing server – a so-called physical machine, which is also recognized as such from the outside. Sometimes one also speaks of a “bare-metal server” – whereby this term rather refers to the “pure hardware”.
The dedicated server has its hard disks with a specific storage capacity (e.g. 2 x 250 GB), a processor with a specific performance (e.g. with 6 cores), and a specific main memory (e.g. 32 GB). Those who have rented the server can freely dispose of these resources and configure the server as required. Thus, this also benefits from the complete performance of this “hardware” server. Navicosoft is offering VPS Server Australia services.
Hosting customers* like to rent a dedicated server if, for example, it is clear from the outset that they need a relatively large amount of storage space and that the storage space requirement will remain relatively stable. Hosting resellers still like to use this type of server to divide up the storage space or the resources of the server and “sublet” it to their customers.
To illustrate the Dedicated Server
You can think of dedicated servers like an apartment building, in which a single person or family lives, who can move freely throughout the house and divide and use the rooms as they wish. She doesn’t have to share the house with any other family or worry about the neighbors unexpectedly sitting down at the breakfast table.
Dedicated servers represented symbolically
What is a virtual server? – a definition
One always speaks of a virtual server (virtual server) or server when it is not a complete physical server – i.e. “hardware server” – but when a virtualization technology such as Open VZ or KVM is used on such a server. virtual”, i.e. artificially, several partial servers can be created. This can also be compared to the partitions that can be created on a PC’s hard drive. It also shows multiple “Hard Drives” even though it’s just a hardware hard drive.
The hosting customers share the resources (memory space, processor, main memory, or network connections) of the physical server. Of course, the users don’t do this themselves, but the resources are distributed to the individual virtual servers with the help of the virtualization software mentioned. How these are distributed is more or less related to the type of hosting booked. Depending on the tariff, there are several or a relatively large number of customer projects on a hardware server.
The individual virtual servers, which are located on the physical server, work completely independently of each other and each has its operating system. The user of server 1 cannot access server 2 on the same dedicated server, as the virtual servers (also called “virtual machines” or “VMs”) are located in a so-called “container”. The virtual servers run completely independently of each other at the “software level”. Each hosting customer only has access to the resources that have been assigned to him. The servers also have their IP addresses.
How the server distribution is implemented can vary greatly depending on the provider
The hosting provider determines how the virtualization takes place. On the one hand, it can be the case that fixed resources are allocated to each “virtual” hosting product (eg server). The hosting customer can then also trust that these resources are always available for him or her. These are also referred to as dedicated resources.
On the other hand, it can also be the case that the resources are distributed among all hosting customers “according to need”. This model is also often referred to as “shared hosting” or “shared servers”. The two forms are explained below. Navicosoft is providing the best Australian VPS Hosting.
Shared hosting – an explanation
As explained above, the customer shares the server with other hosting customers. With shared hosting, the distribution is very flexible and depends on current needs.
If there are several customers on the server who need a lot of capacity, it can happen that the websites of the other customers on this server load and work more slowly.
With this hosting model, customer no. 1 has the disadvantage that if customer no. 2 uses an enormous amount of server performance on the server, customer no. 1 now has less performance available for his project.
This can be the case, for example, if the number of hits on the online shop of customer no. 2 is particularly high at a certain time of day. The performance of a project can thus be impaired by the utilization of other projects.
To illustrate the shared server
You could imagine a shared server like a student residence. Although each student can use a certain area for themselves, other areas such as the kitchen and common rooms are shared. This is often cheaper – but you never know exactly how many people will be in these rooms and when.
There are certain times when you can use the whole room and times when there is hardly any space left. There may be a queue at the coffee machine. In addition, one does not know exactly whether there is also a food blogger in the student dormitory, who takes up a lot of capacity in the kitchen for himself.
Shared servers illustrated
Use of shared hosting
Web hosting tariffs are usually shared hosting since many customer projects are also located on one server and the server resources are divided as required.
Some hosting providers even “overbook” the shared servers. This means: to distribute the server to as many customers as possible, much more “capacity” of the server is rented to customers than is available. As a result, the performance of the individual projects suffers – especially when many requests are sent to the server (e.g. when many users access the webshop).
You should be aware of this disadvantage and, depending on the IT or web project, decide to what extent this could affect the success or efficient work.
For example, if you want to run a particularly high-performance shop, you should also think about a solution with dedicated resources.
Benefits of Shared Hosting:
This model enables very low prices and costs – for example for web hosting tariffs – they are therefore a good starter hosting offer
the customers do not have to worry about the maintenance and administration of the server – the hosting provider takes care of this. For the Cheap Australian VPS contact Navicosoft.
Cons of shared hosting:
The advantage mentioned is also a disadvantage: the (shared) hosting customers cannot influence the server configuration and administration – a change would ultimately affect all hosting customers who “are” on this server
Performance issues can arise when resources are not dedicated
slow connections to the server can occur if multiple server customers access the server
To avoid these disadvantages, you could rely on the next type of server:
Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS)
The key feature of a Virtual Dedicated Server is that the virtual server is allocated fixed resources from the outset – such as RAM and processor power. These are also often referred to as dedicated resources.
This means: the system resources of the hardware server are already shared with other users, but they have an independent and autonomous (virtual) server that they can configure individually and, most importantly, can also trust the resources.
To illustrate the VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server)
You can imagine Virtual Dedicated Servers like an apartment building. Although the families share a building, everyone still has their permanent living area, which they can freely dispose of. Here, too, the neighbor cannot simply sit down at the family’s lunch table.
VPS & virtual servers – the server guide
A virtual dedicated server is the same as a dedicated server from the customer’s point of view. It can be configured and used in the same way – with its operating system, applications, settings, and resources such as memory, hard disk space, and processor power.
The resources assigned to the virtual dedicated server are only available to this customer and are not accessed by other VDSs, even if other customer servers are particularly busy and would need more resources.
Benefits of VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server)
The advantage of a virtual dedicated server compared to a dedicated server (a physical machine) is in many cases the lower costs with the same resources or the same performance. The effort in terms of server maintenance is also lower for customers with a virtual model than with a “normal” dedicated server. A virtual dedicated server thus forms the optimal combination of the advantages of virtual servers and dedicated resources.
Another advantage over many shared servers is root access, which allows customers to access the server. This means that they have many more administration and configuration options than with typical shared hosting.
VPS and server – What you should pay attention to
In general, a VPS (Virtual Private Server) is also a virtual dedicated server. However, some providers interpret the term differently.
It is therefore very important to look very carefully when making your selection. It is even more important to take a close look at the term server or Virtual Server. Because this can hide both shared servers and virtual dedicated servers.
Therefore, when choosing a virtual server, but also a VPS, you should pay close attention to the description and in any case ask the hosting provider directly again.
“To what extent can a certain service be guaranteed in any case?” – this should be a decisive question for the hosters whose offer is on the shortlist. Incidentally, you can always rely on dedicated resources with Key web servers.
Think in advance which aspects are particularly important to you for your IT or web project. For one customer, shared systems make more sense, for others dedicated resources – simply because of different requirements. Navicosoft is amongst the top companies for VPS In Australia.
Therefore, individual advice from the hosting company is always advisable, after all, your project should be successful in the long term!
You can also find out which aspects you should pay attention to in our blog post on choosing a hosting provider.
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