VPS Hosting – A Cost Saving and Effective Strategy for Medium-Sized Enterprises.

When a company is growing, it often suffers “growing pains” with its website as well. It’s a good sign when increased traffic causes a business to outgrow a shared hosting arrangement. However, a company that’s too big for shared hosting may not yet have the revenue or personnel to handle its own dedicated hosting server. The virtual private server, or VPS hosting, has emerged to bridge this gap.

VPS hosting for medium-sized businesses takes advantage of a technique that has long been used by major corporations with multiple mainframe computers. A VPS is a way to split the operating area of a computer – called a “server” when it’s dedicated to a single function – into different partitions so that more than one customer can use the same single piece of hardware. Each VPS runs its own operating system, and each partition can be started and stopped independently of the others on that one server.

Virtual private servers hosting has been the answer to the great leap between sharing hosting and dedicated hosting services. VPS hosting provides independence from other customers of a web hosting service at less expense than leasing a dedicated server. Since a VPS operates as if it were a separate computer, customers gain “super-user” access to its operating system, and can install and run any program that’s compatible with that OS.

The keys to remember when considering VPS web hosting are stability and control. Since VPS hosting costs more than shared hosting, these aspects of the website’s operation should be the gauges by which the quality of the service is measured against its price. A decline in either stable operation or server control is something that should be investigated immediately with the hosting service.

With that caution, there are two options for VPS web hosting that can benefit a business: managed hosting and unmanaged hosting.

First, in managed VPS web hosting, the customer has the equivalent of a separate server, and contracts with the web hosting service to handle the administration of the software as well as the hardware. This kind of managed VPS hosting is a good alternative for businesses that have reached a high level of online commerce, but isn’t ready to add the specialized personnel needed to take care of the computer programming. That’s because server administration includes not only those programs that operate the website, but security software, databases and shopping cart programs as well.

Vps hosting with managed administration also can be helpful to a business when it comes to dealing with some of the drawbacks of partitioning a server. Certain kinds of software typically don’t run well in virtual environments. These programs often include those that protect the OS, such as firewalls, anti-virus software and sometimes even the software that partitions the server into its virtual parts. With a managed hosting contract, a business customer has the right to expect the web hosting service to do whatever is necessary to overcome these disadvantages so that the company’s web site runs smoothly.

Another thing businesses should watch for with managed VPS hosting is the number of customers its web hosting service has on a single server. A high number of virtual clients on a single server soon resembles shared hosting, with slow-running web sites or frequent downtimes. This situation practically eliminates the benefit of stability that a business should expect when paying the cost of for a virtual private server. Limits on disk space, processor time and RAM (random-access memory) are also clear signals to a business customer that its web hosting service has overloaded a server with VPS clients. Business managers and owners shouldn’t hesitate to ask the hosting company for details on why these limits are imposed. If the answers aren’t satisfactory, it may be time to move to a new web hosting service.

Second, unmanaged VPS hosting gives a business complete control over its website operations with the exception of hardware expense and maintenance. This alternative requires that the business have someone on staff whose primary responsibility is the administration of the virtual private server and maintenance the company’s web site. This requires a company to invest in hiring an employee or employees with highly specialized technical skills.

Naturally the disadvantage to this alternative is the increased personnel cost, but the advantage is that the company has total access and control to the operating system on which its web site runs. This can be crucial if the company’s main business comes from its ecommerce operation.

When a company opts for unmanaged VPS hosting, it also has the opportunity to subdivide its own VPS into partitions, or it may purchase a second VPS, for different uses. This option often is called creating a “sandbox.” A sandbox is a VPS or a partition that allows a company’s computer technicians to create a copy of the business website. They use the copy site, the sandbox, to create and test updates that are later transferred to the live website. This gives a company’s technical staff the opportunity to experiment with software that can make the website safer and easier to use, thus enhancing the customer’s online experience.

One of the drawbacks to this arrangement is that web-hosting expenses can quickly spiral out of control if the company’s technical staff isn’t careful of its VPS usage. That’s why sometimes a company will restrict its “sandbox” VPS with “unmetered” hosting. Unmetered hosting for a VPS sets a fixed bitrate (amount of data transfer) so that its operating cost doesn’t exceed the budget the company has set for it. Knowing that there’s a limit to how much they can “play” in the “sandbox” keeps technical staff from excess experimentation.

In summary, a Virtual Private Server hosting arrangement can be a good solution for medium-sized enterprises that need more storage space, operating stability and system control than shared hosting, but can’t yet afford a dedicated server. The key is to keep a sharp eye on the company’s website so that it operates smoothly and efficiently.