If you do not want a dedicated server (read: you cannot afford one nor does your business really need one) but do not want all the hassle and frazzle (read: downtimes, security issues, slow processing) that your shared web host is giving you, you have another option. That option is virtual dedicated web hosting.
A virtual dedicated server, also known as the virtual private server, gives you the advantages of a dedicated server without the hefty price. It is a one step above the shared web hosts. A server is still shared by multiple users. That’s what sets it apart from the dedicated server. What sets it apart from the shared web server is the fact that each user has his or her own private server in one single physical server. This was made possible by an application that was able to separate and split one server into several smaller compartments. Each compartment becomes a mini-dedicated server. Pretty cool, huh?
With virtual dedicated web hosting, you have space and bandwidth that are typically larger than those provided in shared web hosting. You can have multiple IP addresses. You have security because you have exclusivity to your own private server and lines don’t get crossed and each private server can have its own security measures in place. That is because you have complete run and control of your own mini fiefdom called the virtual dedicated server.
As virtual dedicated web hosting goes, you are given a blank canvas to work with. You can put in any of the operating system you want. You can build in all the firewalls you like. You can design out of this world software and you can run that as well. You make the decisions on what goes in and out of your servers.
Because you are “virtually” not sharing space with other users in all things that matter, your neighbor in the physical server can get wiped out without affecting your own virtual dedicated server. This is so much unlike the shared web hosting where Joe-from-across-the-world leads the whole server, and the sites supported by it, to one screeching halt when his site was flooded by people wanting to access his buy one get free 5 whatever promo. This sounds silly and very simplified. It is. But you get the gist, right?
And to top all benefits that have already been mentioned, a virtual dedicated web host is still “physically” shared among its users. Simply put, multiple users are still using the same hardware. Thus, with virtual dedicated web hosting, you are sharing the cost of the equipment with more people and wouldn’t need to shoulder the whole expense by yourself. So the price of your virtual dedicated server experience does not have to be as expensive as the real thing.
You have to be thinking, it is too good to be true, right? No, it’s not! It is as good as it is purported to be. The only main drawback is that you would have to brush up on the ABCs of web hosting administration because, just like the dedicated server, you have to manage your own virtual dedicated server. If you do not have the necessary expertise, you would have to hire people to manage it for you, or find somebody to outsource your administration needs to. And of course, you have to shell out more dough than you are used to with the shared web hosting. Otherwise, if you have no problem with the required level of expertise and the jump in expense, then it’s time to go and get wired up to the virtual dedicated web hosting experience.
