When you decide to launch your website online and start looking for a hosting server, you come across various options. These include a shared server, VPS server, cloud server, dedicated server, etc. VPS hosting has evolved as a popular hosting type in recent years since it offers a dedicated server-like hosting environment at a marginal cost. However, before you buy VPS hosting, it is important to know how it works so that you can determine its efficacy for your site. A virtual private server or VPS is created by using virtualization techniques. Today, we will discuss VPS servers and look at virtualization that makes a VPS server possible.
What is Virtualization?
As a technical process, virtualization is about creating a virtual version of a computer, hardware, or software. It allows the separation of the service and its physical delivery. If you think back to desktop computers in the late nineties, people had two drives on their PCs – ‘C:’ & ‘D:’. It didn’t mean that the computer had two hard disks. Virtualization was used to partition one hard disk into two virtual drives that were separate in most ways.
Virtualization in VPS Hosting
When you buy VPS hosting, your website is stored on a virtual server. The host uses a hypervisor – server virtualization software to create multiple virtual servers on one physical web server. The hypervisor divides the resources and helps in the creation of virtual servers. Once the resources are separated, each virtual server is assigned dedicated resources to function as an independent server with certain limitations arising due to the sharing of the physical server.
Virtualization allows the optimal utilization and management of server resources. The hypervisor ensures that each VPS functions efficiently. Further, it also isolates each virtual server. Hence, they function like mini dedicated servers. You can run different operating systems on different virtual servers. The account isolation and dedicated resources make website backups, scalability, and other features possible.
Benefits of virtual servers
Virtualization allows hosting providers to create virtual private servers with account isolation and dedicated resources. If you opt for a Linux VPS, you get complete root access (admin rights in Windows) to the virtual server. It leads to the VPS hosting plan offering the following benefits:
- Reliability – Since all virtual servers are isolated with independent resources, their performances are independent too. In other words, unlike a traditionally shared hosting environment, in VPS hosting, the performance of one virtual server does not impact the others.
- Speed – Websites load faster than in a traditionally shared hosting environment since they have dedicated resources.
- Customizability – Account isolation and complete root access are allowing you to customize the hosting environment based on the requirements of your website and your business.
Summing Up
Hence, virtualization has made VPS hosting possible. There are different types of hypervisors used by hosting companies that offer different pros and cons. VPS hosting plans are ideal for websites of small to medium businesses as they offer a customizable, scalable, and fast hosting environment in a cost-efficient package.
