For companies and individuals looking to create a website, the hosting and server options available online are often difficult to differentiate, let alone understand. There are many choices for web hosting and plenty of expensive options for physical and virtual servers that are unnecessary for most people. A cloud-based VPS can be a beneficial and inexpensive asset that meets your hosting needs.
What is a VPS?
VPS stands for “virtual private server.” A cloud hosting company sells VPS to customers with a monthly or quarterly recurring payment. A VPS is a server based on partitioned hardware with multiple private server areas. When you purchase a VPS subscription, you are essentially borrowing one of these hardware portions for hosting, but with a private operating system.
A VPS is an excellent product for someone who wants to host a server or website on high-end physical hardware but is also looking to stay within a budget. The performance available on a VPS is often unbeatable for the price and suits the needs of many small businesses. Dedicated physical servers, by comparison, carry a high monthly price tag that is unfortunately out of reach for non-commercial consumers.
Many VPS solutions are also great for online gamers, with the VPS providing a flexible yet reliable way to host game servers. Video games such as Minecraft, Rust, and Fortnite can all make use of a VPS, which will reduce the strain on the host’s personal hardware. A game server on a VPS has extended capabilities for memory usage and will allow dozens if not hundreds of players to log in to the same server at the same time without lag or crashes.
What To Look For When Choosing a VPS Provider
In this article, we’ll highlight a few of the major concerns and features available through various VPS providers that can help you make the right cloud-hosting choice. There are many factors to consider when purchasing a VPS and many price points or tiers of service available with most providers. Here are a few things to look for in a VPS provider that goes beyond the price tag.
Memory, Processor, and Bandwidth
These are the basic stats provided for most virtual private server products and are often the differentiating factor between price points. When hosting a website, the memory, server processor, and bandwidth can all affect the speed of your website. Page speed is an important factor in SEO (search engine optimization) website rankings, and a web page that loads faster will consistently have a lower bounce rate.
If your website has slow loading pages or returns server connection errors, you may want to look into purchasing a VPS for hosting. If you are using a VPS for your website already and experience slow page loading, it may be time to upgrade to a higher level of memory, a more powerful processor, or an increased bandwidth capability to compensate for incoming traffic.
Security Policy
A high-quality VPS provider will have easily accessible security protocols and encryption methods that ensure your data stays secure while it resides on their hardware. The physical security of the server hardware is often just as crucial as virtual security, with access to server rooms and company buildings closely monitored and managed.
The physical location for the hardware supporting your VPS is often a carefully controlled environment, with a system in place to prevent fire and water damage. The datacenter computer bank is often closely monitored for temperature and humidity changes as well so that there are no issues with overheating or crashing when hosting becomes memory intensive.
When purchasing a VPS, you will usually be provided with an administrative access login with a complex password to prevent account hacks. Make sure to store the password in a secure location; in many cases, this access code is difficult to change or memorize.
Data Backups
If you are concerned about the security of your VPS and are worried about the potential for lost data, find out what the backup policies are for your cloud-hosting company. Many of these companies already have a data backup protocol that copies your data for added security. Backups should be continuous, without file type limits or reduced storage.
Scalability
For commercial VPS purchases, the scalability of the available products can be critical to the future of your business’s website. The base VPS product available through your provider may meet your current bandwidth and memory requirements but will need an upgrade as your business continues to grow.
Many VPS providers offer tiers of service and pricing that is easy to upgrade without moving your data or bringing your server temporarily offline. Increasing the bandwidth and memory available for your VPS should be easy and not result in a loss of traffic or business from your website.
If you need to upgrade beyond the capacity of a VPS due to high traffic or memory usage, then it’s probably time to look into getting a dedicated server. This personalized hardware offers the full capabilities and capacities of a cloud-hosting company’s hardware, with high-end processors, memory, and uncapped bandwidth. Dedicated servers range in price but are generally more expensive than most VPS options.
Conclusion– How to Choose the Right VPS Provider
There are many opportunities available for purchasing a VPS online, with various pricing options and virtual locations. Make sure you consider a few things beyond the price tag: memory, bandwidth, security and backup policies, and the product’s scalability. It can be challenging to know what VPS tier you need first, so start with the more basic options and work your way upwards. A cloud-based VPS is a great way to host your website or game server without putting strain on your time and hardware.
